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Molendinarius's Blog (180)

Sanford and Scott's Junior Latin reader

I am currently recording Sanford and Scott's Junior Latin reader at Latinum at mypodcast.com

So far I have read the series of stories about Perseus, and am just coming to the end of the Hercules cycle.

The Latin used in this reader is simple, and makes for easy reading - ideal comprehensible input for both intermediate students and teachers who want something pleasant, but relaxing, to listen to.

The text…

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Added by Molendinarius on September 20, 2011 at 2:30am — No Comments

Latinum Map 2011

Observations:

In many places where Latinum is being accessed, there are no Latin teachers.

Increasing uptake in India this year, and across the former USSR.

As internet access increases in Africa, there is a corresponding increase in people in Africa accessing the…

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Added by Molendinarius on February 17, 2011 at 5:48am — No Comments

Latinum - Online Programme Update

A few milestones were passed this week - Firstly, my booklet 'Declensions' has turned out to be the most popular title on the Tar Heel reader website, being over 50% more popular than the next title on the list according to Gary Bishop, who runs the site. It says something, that a dry book on declensions has beaten the Alphabet, Obama, and Lady Gaga!

Here is the list of the most popular titles.…

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Added by Molendinarius on February 15, 2011 at 12:05pm — No Comments

Learning Latin with Comenius

Comenius arranged his course in a gradated series:

1. The Vestibulum, with an associated grammar for beginners

1a. The Orbis Sensualium Pictus - an amplified form of the Vestibulum.

2. The Janua Linguarum, with an associated grammar and lexicon.

3. The Janua Linguarum Aurea, with an associated grammar and colloquia.

4. The Atrium, with an associated grammar.

5. A Lexicon wholly in Latin.

How could the student use this…

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Added by Molendinarius on December 20, 2010 at 6:00am — No Comments

Latinum Update

Update on usage of the various free Latin resources from Latinum.

Cursum Latinum,

This site started to broadcast in August 2010 on YouTube, and now has 1,768 subscribers. To date there have been 173,649 individual upload views of videos.

Latinum…

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Added by Molendinarius on December 17, 2010 at 7:23am — No Comments

Latin Language Education - Historical Outline of a Method.

A historical perspective on Latin/Greek teaching : Evan der Millner This topic is a very wide ranging one – and a brief essay such as this, can only hope to cover the subject giving the barest of outlines. In this essay, I will mainly concern myself with what could be called the Rudiments of language education. I will also point out that some 'new' methods are actually not new at all. We are fortunate in knowing rather a lot about how the Romans went about teaching their…

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Added by Molendinarius on December 17, 2010 at 6:30am — No Comments

Cursum Latinum revisited

A few months back, as an offshoot of Schola, I started a second interactive site, the Universitas Scholarium.

I had the germ of an idea - to recreate a germ of a Renaissance Learning Community, in Latin, covering the breadth of subjects that would have been covered, plus some modern ones.

That site died when NING went behind its paywall, although funds were found to keep SCHOLA alive.

The idea sat on the back burner.…

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Added by Molendinarius on October 22, 2010 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Words

The first time a word is encountered, it needs a quick translation, or ,better, a picture or a gestural explanation, especially if it is somewhat abstract.

After that, the brain must be left alone to build its own semantic web for that word. This is a chaotic process, with constant revisions taking place, with meanings constantly shifting and adjusting. Authors can use words in subtly different ways. This cannot really be captured by a translation. It is akin to the method new words… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on October 14, 2010 at 6:20am — 5 Comments

The idea of Europe

Europe, and European civilisation? Where lies its heart? It lies in the Rome of Caesar, the Rome of Cicero. From the fall of the Roman Empire, until the edges of living memory, the throb of the culture of Rome was the heartbeat of European civilisation. Alongside it, beat the secondary hearts of the Church and the Synagogue – but it was Rome that provided the cultural lifeblood of secular Europe.

In the… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on October 9, 2010 at 8:00pm — No Comments

English Commentary

I came across an interesting editorial today in an edition of Horace - in which the author, writing a translation of the Delphin commentary on Horace, felt the need to explain himself,and effectively, apologise for writing a commentary in English, and not in Latin.

This edition, however, has a very useful Latin paraphrase running alongside the original Latin text, which could be useful to teachers teaching Horace.

This, only in 1832.

By this stage, Latin was no longer being… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on October 6, 2010 at 5:00am — 3 Comments

Memorisation

repititio mater studiorum.

Almost all the Renaissance writers on language learning emphasise the importance of memorising chunks of text - Vives advocates memorising at least a line night.

The benefit of this is that the student has paradigms internalised, to draw on at will. If a student is going to compose poetry, or read poetry with ease, without having to scan, then knowing a selection of poems off by heart, with their metrical structures, would also be… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on October 5, 2010 at 4:30am — No Comments

Audio Visual Course

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Added by Molendinarius on October 2, 2010 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Cursum Latinum

Over the summer, I have been working on an Audio Visual Latin Course, that is grammar intensive, yet teaches Latin through only using Latin. I have called this the Cursum Latinum, to tie in with the Latinum podcast.

The course is aimed at complete beginners, who speak any… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on September 28, 2010 at 4:45am — No Comments

Over-analysis and performance

I was reading this article today, by a psychologist on the 'choking' mechanism that can reduce performance, and I think the same argument can be applied to language study - and to Latin in particular. OK,it does not appear to be totally 'hard science', but the general position is evidence based:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100925120110.htm

Most people I know who try to speak Latin,… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on September 28, 2010 at 4:09am — No Comments

translation

I was curious how a lot of 19th century textbooks dealt with the difference between the praetereunte /imperfect and praeterito/perfect: I found translations that distinguished between them, while not ( to my ear) signifying a great difference in meaning: namely I loved for the imperfect, and I have loved for the praeterito. I had loved for the antepraeterito.

To my ear I 've eaten dinner, and I ate dinner are almost indistinguishable - using these methods to render the tenses in… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on July 26, 2010 at 5:59am — 2 Comments

Academic Language and Latin

The article below shows up yet another area where I expect…

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Added by Molendinarius on July 24, 2010 at 12:09pm — No Comments

Latin and Chemistry Textbooks

If you are interested in Latin and Chemistry, as I am ( I am a Chemistry teacher by profession), then this selection culled from google books might interest you.

Google books constantly amazes me - more and more Latin texts appear on google every day - we are very fortunate, I doubt at any point in history has anyone had access to such a complete and diverse library of texts in Latin, and we have it at the press of a few keystrokes.…

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Added by Molendinarius on July 18, 2010 at 10:31am — 4 Comments

One good reason for teaching grammar

Many English Speakers Cannot Understand Basic Grammar

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2010) — Research into grammar by academics at Northumbria University suggests that a significant proportion of native English speakers are unable to understand some basic sentences.

The findings -- which undermine the assumption that all speakers have a core ability to use grammatical cues -- could have significant implications for education, communication and linguistic theory.

The research, conducted by… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on July 6, 2010 at 5:47pm — 1 Comment

Achieving rounded fluency

Most students of Latin, in my estimation, have a very narrow band of fluency. The same may even be true of many Latin teachers, who struggle with texts that they have not prepared.

A question I have asked myself, is this: what does one need to do, to get 'broad-band, fully functional fluency?.

The answer is simple, of course - much reading. But reading what?

My solution is this - after completing an initial Latin…

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Added by Molendinarius on July 3, 2010 at 8:00am — No Comments

Some evidence in support of a translation-based approach to language teaching

Second Language Learners Recall Native Language When Reading, Brain Research Suggests

ScienceDaily (June 1, 2010) — Adults fluent in English whose first language is Chinese retrieve their native language when reading in English, according to new research in the June 2 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. This study suggests that people who learn a second language in adolescence or later recall the sounds of words from their native language.

The scientists who conducted the… Continue

Added by Molendinarius on June 3, 2010 at 4:45pm — No Comments