Language of the Catholic Church and Western Civilization
"Church Latin" is the informal, snappier-sounding term for the more scholarly phrase Ecclesiastical Latin, or the occasionally-used Medieval Latin. All of these terms are used to denote something different from "Classical Latin"--the Latin used by, say, Julius Caesar. Church Latin was (and is!) the Latin used by the Catholic Church for two thousand years--thus, where... Continue Reading →
After your first year or year-and-a-half of Latin , particularly if you have used Fr. Most's books, you will be ready for a Latin Reader supplement. An excellent choice for visitors to this site would be Charles Beeson's A Primer of Medieval Latin from 1925 which is now out of copyright and available, scanned and... Continue Reading →
This is my very favorite piece of music by St. Hildegard von Bingen. It is very mysterious, which is not surprising as she was a great mystic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77M2pkkdH10 O Virtus Sapientiae (antiphon) by Hildegard von Bingen I have learned to sing it, and you can learn to sing it, too! Read through the Latin text... Continue Reading →
You want to learn Latin. DO IT! Let's get you started today. In order to design a course you will learn from and keep going with, you should match your strategy with the ways you learn best. This whole website is devoted to helping you design a program of study for yourself, but in this... Continue Reading →
It was Classical Latin I learned in High School. It was also Classical Latin that I took in college. Yet in the last few years I have really come to appreciate the fascinating, challenging, and special thing that Church Latin is. I wish there were more concentration on this in schools and colleges! Church Latin... Continue Reading →
I'm redoing something from the past that doesn't exist today! I'm taking the incomplete tape scripts from Fr. Most's Latin by the Natural Method, translating and completing each exercise, and recording them, making them an audio resource as they were meant to be. After reading each lesson of the textbook, students can then listen to... Continue Reading →
Sentence diagramming: it's grammar, visualized. Have you ever heard of this extremely useful tool? Using various kinds of lines throughout, you can see the internal grammatical structure of a sentence and its parts. Today you will see how it can help you understand principles of Latin grammar. Let's start with the simplest of examples. The... Continue Reading →
Due to being a Latin student AND a mother, I have begun collecting Latin versions of children's books that were originally written in English. We have the translated editions of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, and Dr. Seuss' The Cat and the Hat (oh it rhymes so gloriously!) thus far,... Continue Reading →
Are you like me, one of those people who likes to check the box and celebrate when you do your daily tasks? I just love to set goals, plan successes, and track my progress. Today I present to you a free printable study tracker to help keep track of your progress at learning Latin, whichever... Continue Reading →
They say that you can worship very well at the Latin Mass without knowing a word of Latin, if you reverently pray in your heart as the priest is praying through the words of the Mass. This is true, and it's another reason that the Latin Mass is the best way of worshiping God. But...the... Continue Reading →
This post details an "old" memorization method, one used by St. Thomas Aquinas, among many others, "back in the day." (So you know it has to be good!) It's not just for medieval scholastics, though: it will help your Latin studies in A.D. 2020 and beyond. I first learned about it from Dr. Kevin Vost's... Continue Reading →
