Language of the Catholic Church and Western Civilization
A dash of verb + a pinch of adjective = a participle. (After declining thoroughly, sprinkle liberally over your sentences.) Participles: Latin has three kinds. These verbal adjectives do everything: sometimes are the main verb of a clause, sometimes serve as the subject of a sentence (and do other noun jobs, when they are substantives),... Continue Reading →
Courtesy of the Teacher's Manual to Latin by the Natural Method, I learned a mnemonic for remembering the gender of many of the Latin nouns in 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th declensions. (3rd has many of each gender, so those are a different story!) I have made a PDF of the "Hand Rule" to illustrate... Continue Reading →
No matter how good the glossary is in the back of your Latin textbook, it can only take you so far. Everybody needs a Latin dictionary, and if your particular interest is Church Latin, you need a specialized Latin dictionary. Here are some suggestions: Print Dictionaries A Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin by Fr. Leo F.... 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 →
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 →
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 →
This post is another excuse to mention and help you all use Fr. William Most's amazing textbook series Latin by the Natural Method. I highly recommend making the lists of vocabulary words in your notebook as he suggests in the Teacher's Guide. I certainly advocate using idea-mapping when studying each lesson. And I also think... Continue Reading →
This is my favorite Latin study-aid of them all, so we will begin this series with it today. And actually, I already have an example of a "mind map" or "idea map" on this blog, explaining jobs the endings of Latin verbs do. (It's here if you want to see it.) An idea map is... Continue Reading →
Don't groan--this is a highly-powered mega-vitamin for your Latin skills! There is no better way I know to feel like Latin is a spoken language than having a repertoire of pieces in your mind that you can hear with your "mind's ear." You've learned some Latin words with your textbook--very good. But you probably didn't... Continue Reading →
From Easy Latin for Sight Reading for Secondary Schools by Benjamin D'Ooge (1897) COMMON LATIN IDIOMS. The following idioms occur so frequently that it will be of much subsequent advantage and a great saving of time for the student to memorize them thoroughly early in his course. ad unum, to a man. aequo animo, contentedly,... Continue Reading →
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