Lingua Latina - Roma Aeterna

kev67

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Apud Tamisem, occidens L milia passuum a Londinio
I started reading Hans Orberg's Lingua Latina Pars 2, Roma Aeterna. Crikey, that is hard. Much harder than Familia Romana. The end of chapter exercises, you have to read and re-read the chapter while keeping in mind all the questions. I am only on chapter 1.
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
Aye, there's a bit of a jump there right enough! I found that the only way ahead was straight ahead. Just do it and keep doing it till your ready for the next uphill forced march. Reviewing FR chapters 25ff. was very helpful from time to time. A piece of advice I got from my tutor was: from here on, it's all about vocabulary, and there's tons of it. So I suppose killing yourself re-reading the texts to reinforce vocabulary learning is a good thing too.
 

kev67

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Apud Tamisem, occidens L milia passuum a Londinio
There are thirty chapters in this book. I think it will take me about a week a chapter, so until the middle of next year to finish it.
 

kev67

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Apud Tamisem, occidens L milia passuum a Londinio
Chapters 2 to 5 (iirc) are from the Aeneid. For our O level (discontinued exam for English 16-year-olds) we had to learn a section of the Aeneid and some letters from Pliny the Younger (what a pompous twerp). Being hopelessly lost at Latin, I just memorized the English translation of the section of Aeneid, which was something like ten pages. There was a grammar paper and a translation paper. In the translation paper there were two sections from the Aeneid and two letters from Pliny, and we had to pick two. I remembered one section of the Aeneid fairly easily, which I cannot remember anything about now, but I had trouble with the other. I thought that was the bit where Aeneas marvelled at the building work, including the ditches. I particularly remember the ditches. He compared the people doing the building work to a hive, which included drones, who were kicked out for being lazy. I would have thought all that was when Aeneas was approaching Carthage, which is the chapter of Roma Aeterna that I am studying this week, but no ditches or bees are mentioned. I scraped a C in my Latin O level, of which I was quite proud. Nowadays it is pretty much considered a failure if you don't get ten A*s (actually I think they went over to numbers a year or two ago) in your GCSEs, but back then most kids failed their O levels or took CSEs instead.
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
Nowadays it is pretty much considered a failure if you don't get ten A*s (actually I think they went over to numbers a year or two ago) in your GCSEs, but back then most kids failed their O levels or took CSEs instead.
Yes, they went over to numbers because too many children didn't know the correct order of the letters in the alphabet and the grades were confusing them.
 
 

Terry S.

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
Hibernia
There are thirty chapters in this book. I think it will take me about a week a chapter, so until the middle of next year to finish it.
Good man, yourself! It took me three years!
 
 

Dantius

Homo Sapiens

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
in orbe lacteo
He compared the people doing the building work to a hive, which included drones, who were kicked out for being lazy. I would have thought all that was when Aeneas was approaching Carthage, which is the chapter of Roma Aeterna that I am studying this week, but no ditches or bees are mentioned.
You did correctly identify where that passage belongs; Roma Aeterna eliminated the simile.
 

kev67

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Apud Tamisem, occidens L milia passuum a Londinio
Cor, this Latin is hard. I do not know why it is so hard. I have recounted the chapters and I think there are only twenty of them. I suppose I have not done my 10,000 hours yet, but I have must have done 400, maybe more.
 

kev67

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Apud Tamisem, occidens L milia passuum a Londinio
I am currently on chapter 52, and I am about three-quarters of the way through. I still find it really, really hard. It is not as good as Lingua Latina I Familia Romana. With that book I felt I was making progress, although I had worked through several Latin books before.
 
 

Noctua

Member

Location:
Saxonia Inferior, Germania
Hi :)

I just started "Familia Romana". When I bought it, I somehow realized that there is accompanying material, and when I started learning, I tried to find more details, and the sequence in which I might read the volumes.

I copied the advice I found in the Textkit thread https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=61985, reply 2 by user ragnar_deerslayer, to my evernote because I find it very helpful.

With "my languages", I've always found it really encouraging and inspiring to take a step back from the textbook for a while in order to just enjoy what I already know, for example by reading novels at a language level adapted to my current skills. I'm convinced that while I'm enjoying the stuff, my mind keeps working on the more difficult problems in the background. ;) So I think this might be an idea for you, too.
 
I am currently on chapter 52, and I am about three-quarters of the way through. I still find it really, really hard. It is not as good as Lingua Latina I Familia Romana. With that book I felt I was making progress, although I had worked through several Latin books before.
What else are you currently reading in Latin?

I'm working on chapter 47 (half-way through) and I also think Roma Aeterna is quite hard. For some reason I find it not too difficult to read although the chapters are fairly long and at times I struggle with the odd sentence here and there, but in reality the strange Greek names and the sheer amount of new vocabulary are slowing me down more than anything else. That's why I try to read every single chapter twice, understand at least 95% and try to do the pensa before moving on. Right now my primary goal is just to get through the whole book and then read it again to really absorb as much new vocabulary as possible.

Familia Romana was great. I read it twice and revised the last 10 or so chapters before really jumping to Roma Aeterna. Reading several complete beginner and intermediate level books has helped quite a bit, and I also went through the first chapters of Roma Aeterna two or three times before moving on. Trying to read Catullus after Familia Romana was also definitely worth it!

The general order in which I started to read books written in Latin was the following (with great inspiration drawn from the suggestions of Daniel Pettersson): Colloquia Personarum, Pugio Bruti, Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles, Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, Ad Alpes, Winnie Ille Pu, Fabulae Ab Urbe Condita, De Bello Gallico. There were probably others that I just don't remember. Soon I'll finish reading De Bello Gallico and move on to something a little less bellicose. :D

Anyways, I think Roma Aeterna requires some true tenacity and perseverance. If Familia Romana takes you to B1 level, Roma Aeterna is definitely closer to C1. There is a gap that can only be overcome by reading quite a lot of something else in between.
 

kev67

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Apud Tamisem, occidens L milia passuum a Londinio
What else are you currently reading in Latin?

I'm working on chapter 47 (half-way through) and I also think Roma Aeterna is quite hard. For some reason I find it not too difficult to read although the chapters are fairly long and at times I struggle with the odd sentence here and there, but in reality the strange Greek names and the sheer amount of new vocabulary are slowing me down more than anything else. That's why I try to read every single chapter twice, understand at least 95% and try to do the pensa before moving on. Right now my primary goal is just to get through the whole book and then read it again to really absorb as much new vocabulary as possible.

Familia Romana was great. I read it twice and revised the last 10 or so chapters before really jumping to Roma Aeterna. Reading several complete beginner and intermediate level books has helped quite a bit, and I also went through the first chapters of Roma Aeterna two or three times before moving on. Trying to read Catullus after Familia Romana was also definitely worth it!

The general order in which I started to read books written in Latin was the following (with great inspiration drawn from the suggestions of Daniel Pettersson): Colloquia Personarum, Pugio Bruti, Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles, Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, Ad Alpes, Winnie Ille Pu, Fabulae Ab Urbe Condita, De Bello Gallico. There were probably others that I just don't remember. Soon I'll finish reading De Bello Gallico and move on to something a little less bellicose. :D

Anyways, I think Roma Aeterna requires some true tenacity and perseverance. If Familia Romana takes you to B1 level, Roma Aeterna is definitely closer to C1. There is a gap that can only be overcome by reading quite a lot of something else in between.
I have been reading each chapter three times. I read it through once. Then I copy the pensums into an exercise book. Then I start reading the chapter again to fill in the gaps in Pensum B, then again to answer Pensum C. By the end of that process I usually have some idea what the chapter was about, but some of the chapters are long and it takes me weeks to do each one. I think the chapters are getting harder. If the chapters were in English (my mother tongue) I do not know what reading age they would be set at, but they are quite political. Political writing can be difficult to understand because there are various parties playing off each other, misleading each other, and using rhetoric. I do not know, but I suspect it is more difficult to understand who is doing what to whom in an inflected language.

I have worked through an Oxford Grammar Guide again while working through Roma Aeterna, but I have not been reading much else in Latin.

Interesting selection of Latin books you have been reading. I have read Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, Winnie Ille Pu, and De Bello Gallico. I will look up the others.
 

AoM

nulli numeri

  • Civis Illustris

imo, the three resources everyone studying Latin should have are:

- Moreland & Fleischer
- Bradley’s Arnold
- Allen & Greenough
 
 

Matthaeus

Vemortuicida strenuus

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patronus

Location:
Varsovia
imo, the three resources everyone studying Latin should have are:

- Moreland & Fleischer
- Bradley’s Arnold
- Allen & Greenough
I'd add Lewis & Short or Collins' dictionary. the OLD is for more advanced tirones, imo
 

kizolk

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Bourgogne, France
I see that is written by Hans Ørberg too. What is it like? I was looking for a bit of conversational Latin.
Short stories, most often about Greek mythology, that are meant to be read along Familia Romana.
 

kizolk

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Bourgogne, France
Short stories, most often about Greek mythology, that are meant to be read along Familia Romana.
Maybe I should've added: grammar-wise they're supposed to be comprehensible if you've digested the corresponding FR chapters well enough, and for the most part it's the same vocabulary but you do have quite a few new words that are introduced in each story, IIRC.
 
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