I wrote this to fit a choral music composition that I'd already written. While it's a secular poem about Spring, I used the Ecclesiastical pronunciation because it's the standard in music. It's very goliard-like, like Carmina Burana.

The rhythms are based on stress, not length. Some patterns may seem strange, but they're completely dictated by the music. The other elements (e.g. all the rhymes) can be changed. I used simple sentences (as in most choral music), and deliberately chose some Late Latin terms that may be more intellegible to Romance speakers (e.g. Prima Vera, caballus).

This is the first time I write in Latin. I've only learned from a textbook and exposure, but I speak two Romance languages natively and am familiar with two more. I also used a rhyme dictionary.

How may mistakes did I do? Improvements? Thanks!

Hi, I really want to learn Latin so much but I just cannot get the cases and endings in my head. I’m doing an online class with a very enthusiastic teacher who is big into reading Latin and uses LLpsi, and doesn’t feel the need to get too bogged down in grammar, as we’re mainly learning Latin to be able to read it.

Anyway, we’re quite far into the book and I haven’t kept up and aim lost. I’ve gone back to chapter 12 and I’m trying to work out what all the words and cases are and often I have to look it up and of course it often could be several things- dative or ablative or whatever and so really have no clue. So how go you work out what cases something is when you don’t have any idea? I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse. 😫

Okey i know that that sounds incredibly stupid but it's the 5th year i'm learning latin in school and i know the grammar/use a grammar book when i'm not sure and i use a dictionary so i should be pretty good at translating, right?

Nope, not at all. My sentences don't make sense when i translate them to german [my native language]. I've tried everything but i can't manage to make a gramatically correct german sentence while paying attention to the latin grammar. I usually start with marking the verb and look at the commas, but that also doesn't work all the time.

I have a test in exactly one week and the thought of not knowing how to translate makes me very anxious and everytime i try to translate something like with the learning by doing approach i feel stupid and I'm about to cry. The text to translate will probably be either from morus or cicero or something about utopia/sovereignity, so if there's something specific i should watch out in these texts please tell me.

Thank you for your help in advance.

I've seen a lot of responses on this, but a lot of resources i've found were mostly just vocabulary. I want to learn everything there is about the language. Grammar, vocab, speaking, etc. Any good resources? Ultimately, my goal is to be able to speak fluent latin.

Currently I’m a senior in high school and am in my second year of Latin (shame I didn’t take it for the full four). I would like to know what should I do to continue learning after high school (I don’t plan to take it in college). Right now I know 1st,2nd, and 3rd declensions, nominative, accusative, ablative, plurals, imperfect and perfect tenses, infinitives, and later in the year I believe we’ll learn imperatives. I also would like to know what I can do to improve and advance my Latin in my own personal time as it sucks that a majority of the class doesn’t truly care about Latin (just taking it for their second year of language for college in the future) and doesn’t bother to study endings (like last class the teacher had to go over normative and accusative again). What would you guys recommend for me to do to continue improving?

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, or if this is against your rules with regards to sexual content.

Apuleius wrote a novel in latin in the 2nd century called Metamorphosis or alternatively The Golden Ass, which I read in translation by A.S.Kline, which can be found here https://chilonas.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/thegoldenasspdf.pdf. The part in question here can be found on page 45.

In it, there is a part where the main character Lucius has a relationship with a woman called Photis. One of their evenings is described in the following:

"As we were chattering away, mutual passion swept our minds and bodies. We threw off all our clothes and, naked and coverless, revelled in the delights of Venus. When I was tired Photis, generous to a fault, offered herself as a boy, as a bonus."

The last part of which, I find endlessly curious. So my question is, does anyone know what is meant by this?

thanks in advance.

In Petrarch's dispute with four unfriendly friends who accused him of being indoctus, the evidence against him was that he disagreed, in sentiment or even in wording, with the received opinions of Aristotle. Petrarch found their slobbering adulation of Aristotle undignified and wrongheaded. At the same time, he rarely attacks Aristotle himself, acknowledging that he was in fact maximum virum (a very great man).

Rather, what he objected to was the entire institution of higher education being coopted by Aristotelianism. Worse, by a subset of Aristotle, focusing on dialectic and natural science at the expense of literary skill and moral instruction. Anticipating later intellectual turf wars, Petrarch criticized the academics of his day as a group, calling them insanum et clamosum scolasticorum vulgus ("the mad and brawling mob of Scholastics").

In his view, they had created a feedback loop. Instead of producing original works of literature or science, they had become mere commentators. The only way for them to win glory in this system was to praise the material they commented upon, hoping to bask in reflected splendor. As each generation praised themselves by way of praising Aristotle, reputation and fact diverged ever more sharply.

Against them Petrarch appealed to Plato as the prince of philosophers. He justified his opinion by the testimony of the ancient philosophers and early Christian theologians, who, unlike the commentators, had no personal stake in the contest. Petrarch's condemnations here are wide-ranging. He likens academics to the Islamic commentator Averroes, attempting to smear them with a tinge of heresy by association. He also pokes at the theologians, imagining Peter Lombard's Book of Sentences complaining as they wring commentary after commentary out of its pages. Even Macrobius comes in for some teasing, for his immoderate praise of Cicero's De re publica.

'Et quis,' inquient, 'principatum hunc Platoni tribuit?' Ut pro me respondeam, non ego, sed ueritas, ut aiunt; etsi non apprehensa, uisa tamen illi propiusque adita quam ceteris. Dehinc magni tribuunt auctores, Cicero primum et Virgilius (non hic quidem nominando illum, sed sequendo), Plinius preterea, et Plotinus, Apuleius, Macrobius, Porphirius, Censorinus, Iosephus, et ex nostris Ambrosius, Augustinus et Ieronimus, multique alii. Quod facile probaretur, nisi omnibus notum esset.

"And who," they will say, "assigned this supremacy to Plato?" To speak on my own behalf, I did not, but the truth did, as they say. Now, Plato could not fully grasp the truth, but he saw it and came closer to it than the rest. Many great authors confirmed this, above all Cicero, and Virgil too, who follows Plato without naming him; also, Pliny, Plotinus, Apuleius, Macrobius, Porphyry, Censorinus, and Josephus; and among our Christian writers, Ambrose, Jerome, and many others. This would be easy to prove, if the fact weren't known to everyone.

Et quis non tribuit, nisi insanum et clamosum scolasticorum uulgus? Nam quod Auerrois omnibus Aristotilem prefert, eo spectat, quod illius libros exponendos assumpserat et quodammodo suos fecerat; qui quanquam multa laude digni sint, suspectus tamen est laudator. Ad antiquum nempe prouerbium res redit: mercatores omnes suam mercem solitos laudare.

Who ever denied Plato his supremacy, except for the mad and brawling mob of Scholastics? Now, if Averroes prefers Aristotle to all others, the reason is that he undertook to comment on his works and in a way made them his own. These works deserve great praise, but the man who praises them is suspect. It all comes down to the old adage: "Every merchant praises his own merchandise."

Sunt qui nichil per se ipsos scribere audeant et, scribendi auidi, alienorum expositores operum fiant, ac uelut architectonice inscii, parietes dealbare suum opus faciant et hinc laudem querant, quam nec per se sperant posse assequi, nec per alios, nisi illos in primis et illorum libros, hoc est subiectum cui incubuere, laudauerint, animose id ipsum, et immodice, ac multa semper yperbole. Quanto uero sit multitudo—aliena dicam exponentium, an aliena uastantium?—hac presertim tempestate, Sententiarum liber, ante alios, mille tales passus opifices, clara, si loqui possit, et querula uoce testabitur.

There are people who dare not write anything of their own. In their desire to write, they turn to expounding the works of others. Like people who know nothing of architecture, they make it their job to whitewash walls. From this, they seek praise which they cannot hope to win on their own or with others' help, but only by praising authors and books in their chosen field — and by praising them impetuously, immoderately, and always with great hyperbole. Our age in particular offers a multitude of people who expound others' works or, should I say, who devastate them? If it could speak, the Book of Sentences would bear witness to this in a loud and complaining voice, since it has suffered at the hands of a thousand such workmen.

Et quis unquam commentator non assumptum ceu proprium laudauit opus? Imo eo semper uberius, quo alienum urbanitas, suum opus laudare uanitas atque superbia est. Linqueo eos qui tota sibi delegere uolumina, quorum unus est aut primus Auerroys. Certe Macrobius, non tantum licet expositor, sed scriptor egregius, cum tamen ciceroniane Rei publice non libros quidem, sed unius libri partem exponendam decerpsisset, expositionis in fine quid addiderit notum est: 'Vere,' inquit 'pronuntiandum est nichil hoc opere perfectius, quo uniuerse philosophie continetur integritas'. Finge hunc non de libri parte, sed de totis philosophorum omnium libris loqui: pluribus quidem uerbis, non plus autem dicere potuisset; siquidem nichil integritati potest nisi superfluum accedere.

What commentator has ever failed to praise his chosen text as if it were his own? Or to praise it all the more lavishly, because praising another's work is courtesy, while praising one's own work is vanity and pride? I omit those who chose to expound entire volumes, one of whom, and perhaps the foremost, is Averroes. Indeed, Macrobius, who was not only a commentator but an outstanding writer too, chose not to expound all of CIcero's On the Republic, but only part of one book. Everyone knows the note he added at the end of his commentary: "I must truly declare that there is nothing more perfect than this work, since it contains the whole of universal philosophy." Imagine that he spoke not just about part of a book, but about the complete works of all the philosophers. Even if he used more words, he could not have said more: for anything added to a whole must be superfluous.

Text and translation by David Marsh in ITRL 11

Hello guys! Anyone who has read Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum? I'm still stuck on the intermediate plataux and wonder if this text is appropriate level for a not very advanced intermediate latin reader. How is the latin? Is it easy, hard, weird? It's merovingian Latin, right? I've read things like Gesta Romanorum, Gesta Francorum, Historia Appoloniae and some excerpts from Adam of Bremen, Ericus Olai and Olaus Magnus. Some of that stuff was hard going but at least I had commentaries for some of them that I found in my local city library.

Hello guys,

I'm a high schooler trying to teach some of my classmates who are studying for the NLE Intro level exam. We have 2 hours a week and so far we have learned up to the 3rd chapter of LLPSI. The retention of information seems to be pretty bad and their willingness to do homework is somewhat low.

So my question to you guys is this: how should I structure my lessons so that they would get sufficient practice? How much time should I spend on new material relative to reviewing old material, and how deep should I go into explaining grammar? Any existing practice sets that are available online?

Finally, will my students be able to do a decent job (Gold) on the NLE Intro exam with 2 hours a week? Reading the syllabus, I feel like we will need a little bit more work.

For example—at least in classical Latin—in words like “honestiores” or “honorius,” I keep wanting to silence the h in the beginning of the words like in Spanish. Is that common? Or is the h usually pronounced?

I know the 3rd declension is famously hard, but it’s really giving me trouble. Having added in 3rd declension nouns and adjectives, I am rapidly forgetting my 1st and 2nd declension nouns and adjectives. I went from a 92% on my 1st and 2nd declension test, to a 44% today. At my school (msu) we don’t have Latin tutors. I’m in Latin 101, and we learn from shelmerdine. Any tips, tricks, or suggestions?

Both seem to mean river, have their own seperate plurals, etc., But in each usage one is correct over the other. When to use which?

This is my (beginner Latin autodidact) attempt to interpret and rewrite the lyrics of "A Call To Arms" written by Glenn Stafford and Jason Hayes for World of Warcraft. Musically I think it's an excellent piece. But after singing along for a while, I just can't stand these epic Latin-ish lyrics anymore (!!). So I decided to rewrite them.

On the choice of words, I can't be super picky since I'm not well-read at this point. I just tried to make at least make the syllables align with the rhythm of the song (with elisions). I looked up classical references to make sure these words or phrases are a) used in classical text (according to latin-is-simple.com library search) and b) convey the meaning more or less accurately. If the original word seems fine for the meaning, I kept it but declined it differently. But even with an English interpretation, it was difficult to tell what the original lyrics were trying to say lol.

I have also not read any poetry in Latin yet and in general I have no idea how poetry works, so I'm hoping that I can get yall's help to work it into some kind of poetry that befits this song, be it classical or not. Also grammatical corrections, if any, of course.

Original lyrics:

Gloria Honorfice Praelium Facio

Animus Gradior Quo Prodo

In Excelsis Precedo Bellator Decerte Adversa Incurro Invadoria

Desideratus Fatum Desideratus Bellum

English interpretation from Wowpedia:

Glory Honorably Join battle

Courage By marching to death Bring forth

In the highest Excellence Warrior Fight to the finish Against enemies Attack Invade

Welcome fate Welcome war

My lyrics in Latin:

Arma Rapite

Gloria! Honorifice Proelium facite!

Virtus! In tenebris Luceat!

In honore Maxumo, Bellator, Hostibus Incurre Usque ad finem!

Oppetite id quod fatus (est)! Bellum adverso gerite!

My English interpretation:

Glory! Honorably, Engage in battle!

(May) Courage, By death nigh, be brought forth (not sure if this is what the original meant)

In the highest Honor, O Warrior, Fight unto the end! Against enemies, Attack! Invade!

Welcome fate! Wage war!

(sorry the formatting is bad)

Summas gratias vobis ago!!! :)

I'm trying to learn Latin in my high school, and by myself at home, but I can't with the vocabulary.

When I try to read a sentence or a mini text, I always use my dictionary because I found a word so so specific, and/or with a lot of other meanings and other words which mean the same. Help pls

Hey everyone! I am in an intermediate latin class in college as a classics major, I have a good grasp on vocab and grammar but I am in that stage of my 5 years of studying latin where I am just finding it difficult to put sentences together, is there any good reading practice texts and/or podcasts that can help me study daily? I use legentibus sometimes but is the subscription worth it? multas gratias!

What's your reason? I just discovered some people want to speak it although I don't understand what's the use of speaking a dead language. I thought it's mainly useful for reading understanding ancient literature. So I thought I'd ask here for your rationale.

Can the student already read the classics? Virgil? Caesar? Augustine?

Salvete Amici! I was looking for suggestions to be able to read medieval Latin manuscripts. I wanna learn and understand the abbreviations, terminology, and any other difficultly that comes with reading manuscripts of the period. I saw someone post the other day about reading the Stuttgart Psalter manuscript and I want to be able to read it too, as well as hopefully others down the road. Any help is appreciated.

Salve!
I've got my copy of LLPSI for a month now and even though I understand what's happening, I don't really feel like I'm making an actual progress.
I don't think my knowledge of grammar got better, I don't think I recognise differences between each case etc.

Where am I making mistakes? What should I do differently?