Getting started on Classical Latin

1 Learning Latin

The aim of this course is to enable you to get started in Latin in a fairly leisurely but well-focused way. The material has been developed in response to requests from students who had had no contact with Latin before and who felt they would like to spend a little time preparing for the kind of learning which takes place on a language course – and, in particular, on a classical language course.

If you have taken Classical Studies courses in the Open University or elsewhere, you will be used to the demands of extensive reading of set books, note-taking and preparing essays. However, the ‘tools of the trade’ for classical language learning are somewhat different, and you will need to develop new skills, of which the most basic are actually the most important, since they underpin everything else that you do as you progress your studies in the area.

This course will give you a taster of what is involved in the very early stages of learning Latin and will offer you the opportunity to put in some early practice. It is self-contained and is designed to be used on its own before you embark on further studies in the area. It may be a help to have your English dictionary to hand, particularly if it lists etymologies (source words) and derivations.

Your learning priorities at the very beginning of your studies are to learn or revise some basic English grammar in order to recognise and describe the way languages work; and to establish a way of learning Latin vocabulary thoroughly. These topics are addressed in the main sections of this course.

You also need to establish a study pattern suited to your lifestyle and to the demands of this type of language learning. ‘Little and often’ is best; however, you may not be able to set aside an hour or so each day. This course will give the opportunity to try out various study patterns and find out what suits you best. You will also be able to find out which aspects of language learning come easily to you, and which seem more difficult or more time-consuming. For example, some people find dealing with grammar difficult. Others may worry about memorising words, although with practice many people find that they can develop techniques to help with this. As you work through this preparatory material, you might like to experiment with different ways of learning vocabulary – for example, writing out the Latin words, saying them aloud, thinking of English words derived from, and therefore similar to, the Latin words, using flash cards, getting a friend to test you, putting vocabulary items on tape and listening to them, or a combination of these strategies. If you can set up the habit of learning just a few words each day, you will benefit enormously.

The material which follows is designed to be studied in small sections. In all, it will probably take about 10 hours to work through it. Of course, you could easily spend longer if you wish, especially if you begin to make your own lists of English words derived from Latin. However, if you have only a small amount of time available, you will find it useful to familiarise yourself with some grammatical terms and concepts.