How hard is it to learn Latin?

puer brasilianus

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I] How hard is it for a non romance language speaker to learn Latin?

II] ]And how hard is it for you, a romance language speaker to learn Latin?

Thank you for your leading-with-the-language feedback..
 

Clemens

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I think the hardest thing about Latin isn't the morphology but the syntax. You can learn every Latin paradigm perfectly and still put together a sentence that doesn't reflect idiomatic Latin. Formal written Latin, at any rate, with its periodic style and its branching subordinate clauses and participial phrases and gerunds and gerundives, can organize its thoughts very differently than my native language, English. This is probably true of the Romance languages as well—I don't think they give a learner a significant advantage in acquiring Latin, in that they are syntactically and idiomatically very different, even when the morphology is similar.
 
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rothbard

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My mother tongue is Italian, and Latin is the hardest language I ever studied. There are several reasons, among them the fact that with a reconstructed language it's difficult to get the kind of exposure you need in order to learn it quickly, that it was the artificial language of a small educated minority in the Roman empire, who often wrote in a deliberately obscure way, and the fact that studying "Latin" means learning to understand the works of writers who lived many hundreds of years apart.
 

kizolk

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it was the artificial language of a small educated minority in the Roman empire, who often wrote in a deliberately obscure way
That's pretty much the first thing that came to my mind when reading Puer's message. Usually when we talk about learning and being able to speak languages, we're thinking about the everyday language e.g. "how are you? I've just bought apples", whereas by "knowing Latin", we can pretty much only mean "being able to read refined literature/philosophy etc.".

I think Latin is challenging for everybody (but then again which language, unless you're e.g. a Portuguese speaker learning Spanish), but I do think we Romance speakers have the huge advantage of knowing/being able to recognize a lot of the words.
 

Michael Zwingli

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...Latin [...] can organize its thoughts very differently than my native language, English. This is probably true of the Romance languages as well...
Very true. I once stupidly thought of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian as types of "Modern Latin", which consideration is (in part) a category error ignoring the basic natures of modern Romance languages. The truth is, that from the linguistic perspective, Spanish has more in common with English than it does with Latin, since they are both quite grammatically analytical.
Usually when we talk about learning and being able to speak languages, we're thinking about the everyday language e.g. "how are you? I've just bought apples", whereas by "knowing Latin", we can pretty much only mean "being able to read refined literature/philosophy etc.".
This is why I think Plautus and Terence, et. al., form an important part of Latin learning. The dialogue of the plays gives a window onto how Latin might be used more colloquially..."on the street", as it were...if it were to be used there (though, of course, it wasn't...the language of the "streets" and "barrooms" of ancient Rome was certainly somewhat less synthetic and much grammatically and lexically "looser" than what one reads in "the Classics"..."Romanesco" in the making already).
 

Ybytyruna

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My native language is Portuguese (BR) and I found Latin quite easy to learn (even more than English, to be honest). For me, it depended on the method I used (there is no need to say that this can and will vary from person to person). In any case, knowing Portuguese helped me a lot, since I could not only recognize a lot of the words I saw and heard, but also make connections between some phrases that looked very similar in the two languages.

But I feel I should add something more... in my opinion, there is a huge abyss between knowing grammatical rules/terminology and knowing Latin itself. I knew Latin's grammar for a long time before I could read anything at all. This only changed when I started using Familia Romana. Only then I could find the absolutely necessary balance between these two aspects.

Since we're talking about having trouble learning languages: the most difficult language I've ever tried to learn was/is Old Tupi. It simply challenges my Indo-european brain in a way that I can't describe. But If I had to pick an Indo-european language that makes me cry every single time, I'd say Ancient Greek is pretty hard as well. I simply can't understand how the accents (diacritics) work. I feel it may have something to do with me being an ADHD.
 
 

Terry S.

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Terry S.

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II] ]And how hard is it for you, a romance language speaker to learn Latin?
It's not a question that I can give a comprehensive answer to, since I have been learning Latin since 1984, and it's still a work-in-progress.
 

Pacifica

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I'm not sure all authors wrote in a deliberately obscure way (or indeed in an obscure way at all). The statement is probably true of an author like Apuleius (perhaps the weirdest prose writer of all) and poets, but I think Cicero valued clarity.

As for how hard it was for me (a native French speaker) to learn Latin: definitely hard in the beginning, but I managed in the end. The only language I had studied seriously before had been English, which had seemed, for the most part, incredibly easy. Latin was quite the contrast; unlike with English, learning the basics of Latin demanded a substantial effort from me. Then there came the point where the basic grammatical stuff had become easy enough but I still had to learn the actual idiom, natural syntax, etc. Cf. what Clemens said: "You can learn every Latin paradigm perfectly and still put together a sentence that doesn't reflect idiomatic Latin." That, again, required a lot of effort at first, but a few months of Latin reading worked miracles for me: they brought me to the point where I could read fairly fluently (i.e., really read rather than laboriously decipher with much head-scratching and dictionary-consulting) and write in a fairly (though probably not always) correct and idiomatic way.
 

Michael Zwingli

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I'm not sure all authors wrote in a deliberately obscure way (or indeed in an obscure way at all). The statement is probably true of an author like Apuleius (perhaps the weirdest prose writer of all) and poets, but I think Cicero valued clarity.
I think that, as today, this depends much on the type of literature in question. Of course Cicero and Lucretius would seek clarity in their writing, but poets, playwrights, and other writers less didactically and more artistically oriented often employ purposeful obscurity. Literary criticism often tires me, but one book by a literary critic, "Seven Types of Ambiguity" by William Empson, deals with the purposeful employment of ambiguity in English poetry at once informatively and entertainingly. A short (though dense and witty) book worth the time, and I think responsive, @interprete, to your question "why?"
...really read rather than laboriously decipher with much head-scratching and dictionary-consulting...
Yes...this is the brass ring for which I might someday, in the distant future, reach (by that time, I should certainly have worn myself a bald spot with all the head-scratching!)
 
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Clemens

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[...] a few months of Latin reading worked miracles for me [...]
This is because input of actual language (in this case, written) has been shown to be the most important part of language-learning, not grammatical paradigms or rules. Ancient Roman children wouldn't have acquired case usage, for example, from memorizing the endings, as we generally do, but from hearing the language spoken all around them. They would have known that in some situations you say, for instance, in aquam and in others, in aquā, without having to be told "this is accusative and that is ablative."
 

Pacifica

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This is because input of actual language (in this case, written) has been shown to be the most important part of language-learning, not grammatical paradigms or rules.
I think both are usually important when learning a foreign language. This may depend on people, but most will need to learn at least some basic grammar rules first, and then get input of actual language. Knowing the rules will make dealing with the input easier (not necessarily easy, but less hard).
Ancient Roman children wouldn't have acquired case usage, for example, from memorizing the endings, as we generally do, but from hearing the language spoken all around them. They would have known that in some situations you say, for instance, in aquam and in others, in aquā, without having to be told "this is accusative and that is ablative."
That's true. But the acquisition of a foreign language by adults or teens or older children is a bit different from that of one's native language. A baby is incapable or learning grammar rules first anyway. An older person has the tools to do so (they already know at least one language in which they can receive explanations) and they should take advantage of that as it will make them progress faster. A child takes a relatively long time to speak their native language properly. Most remain virtually unable to say anything for at least a year, and then I'm not sure how long it takes them on average to speak well. An older person can learn much quicker than that by using the tools they have and that babies don't.
 

Pacifica

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Most remain virtually unable to say anything for at least a year
I admit I don't know how much of that is due to not understanding language, and how much is due to physical factors (like undeveloped vocal chords or so) making it hard to produce sounds?
 

Pacifica

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Besides, the so-called "natural method" that seeks to teach you a language by immersion without grammar rules is particularly hard to apply with ancient languages, for obvious reasons.

But even if it weren't so, I'm glad that I was taught the difference between in aquam and in aqua, and other basic gammar rules, straight away rather than being left to figure them out for myself. I might have figured them out eventually if modern-language-style immersion* had been possible (as I figured out a lot of subtler things later by "immersion" in reading), but knowing them in advance saved me time.

*I don't suppose I would ever have figured Latin out if I'd just been immersed in literature without knowing a single grammar rule, lol.
 
 

Terry S.

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Besides, the so-called "natural method" that seeks to teach you a language by immersion without grammar rules is particularly hard to apply with ancient languages, for obvious reasons.
Having worked through Oerbeg's books, I have a hunch that his natural method might work better with children than with adults. I like what Dantius did with Roma Aeterna i.e. he read it after learning Latin by the G&T method. I like rules - and lots of them - laid out in front of me for memorisation and application.
 

Clemens

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I admit I don't know how much of that is due to not understanding language, and how much is due to physical factors (like undeveloped vocal chords or so) making it hard to produce sounds?
It is at least partly physical, in that children understand language weeks or even months before they can produce it.
 

Clemens

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Besides, the so-called "natural method" that seeks to teach you a language by immersion without grammar rules is particularly hard to apply with ancient languages, for obvious reasons.
I'm not talking about immersion, but input. In the case of Latin, the input is the texts of ancient authors. In the case of the modern languages, input involves spoken as well as written examples. It doesn't necessarily need to be immersive.
 

Pacifica

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In the case of Latin, the input is the texts of ancient authors.
Yes, that's the best "immersion" you can get in Latin, and you'll never master the language without it. But (unless you're one hell of a genius) you need to know some grammar rules first!
 
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