Latin for Beginning & Advanced Students

Description:

Both new and experienced Latin scholars will be challenged in this class where students will read and study a novel written entirely in Latin. Students will enjoy reading about the antics and adventures of a Roman family in the 2nd century A.D. while they learn an impressive amount of vocabulary and grammar through a natural language-learning approach. With twice the vocabulary of many Latin textbooks, Lingua Latina helps students begin to read and speak Latin with ease from the beginning. Lingua Latina is so rich that we will spend two years completing the text.

Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina per se illustrata series is the world’s premiere curriculum for learning Latin via the Natural Method. Students first learn grammar and vocabulary intuitively through extended contextual reading and an innovative system of marginal notes. It is the only textbook currently available that gives students the opportunity to learn Latin without resorting to translation, but allows them to think in the language. Familia Romana (the main book of Pars I of the Lingua Latina per se illustrata series) contains thirty-five chapters which culminates in readings from classical poets and Donatus’s Ars Grammatica, the standard Latin school text for a millennium. Each chapter is divided into two or three lessons (lectiones) of a few pages each followed by a grammar section (Grammatica Latina) and three exercises (Pensa). Hans Ørberg’s impeccable Latin, humorous stories, and the Peer Lauritzen illustrations, reproduced in full color, make this work a classic. The book also includes a table of declensions, a Roman calendar, and a word index (index vocabulorum).

Advanced Latin students will continue their Latin studies with the sequel to Familia Romana, Lingua Latina: Roma Aeterna. All students should plan to spend up to an hour a day on Latin homework three or four days per week.