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Latinum Institute's Blog (186)

Caesar - The British War ; Customs of the Gauls

Caesar - The British War ; Customs of the Gauls

This audiobook covers:

Caesar's Bello Gallico

Book 4, chapters 20…

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Added by Latinum Institute on February 16, 2012 at 5:57am — No Comments

Reynold s Latin Reader (Nature Study + Novella + Adapted Caesar) length: 4hrs 38 mins (Audio Books)

Reynold

'Nature Study Reader…

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Added by Latinum Institute on February 16, 2012 at 5:53am — No Comments

'A Child's First Latin Book'

W. Fenton's

'A Child's First Latin Book' - Religious and Old Testament Themes

Fenton's reader is in the style promoted by the philosopher John Locke, and the printers to University College, London (John Taylor). The Latin is…

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Added by Latinum Institute on February 16, 2012 at 5:52am — No Comments

Comprehensible Input from Latinum

Latinum's free podcast, as I mentioned before, is closing. There were many loose ends on the podcast. All the completed projects, as audio books, are available on DVD, and I will continue to produce new materials and release them on disc.

The free material will be released on YouTube (channel 'evan1965')

The site for latin audio on disc is http://latinum.org.uk

Added by Latinum Institute on November 22, 2011 at 4:20pm — No Comments

LATINUM PODCAST IS CLOSING

As mypodcast.com has finally become unable to finance the servers of mypodcast.com, the site will be closed on December the 1st. I will not be starting up the service on LibSyn, as there are financial implications. Instead, I will release new material on DVD,

and will also be working more intensively on Latinum on YouTube.

Added by Latinum Institute on November 6, 2011 at 3:27pm — 2 Comments

Latinum on YouTube

Latinum on YouTube now has over 3 000 subscribers. I have decided that from now on, whatever I produce for the audio podcast, I will also re-record for the youTube site. I had been doing this before, but more haphazardly. My general approach to my suite of websites is now more systematic - one audio book at a time. At present, each youTube video gets fewer downloads than each audio podcast, but as I develop the YouTube site, I expect this will change.

At the moment, not…

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Added by Latinum Institute on October 3, 2011 at 3:36am — No Comments

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 Latinum Institute 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 site.

Current Country Totals

From 6…

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

Audio Visual Course

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