I had 4 years of Latin in the early 1970s. Our teacher said an educated person does not have to know Latin but he should at least of forgotten it. Latin made passing the sats easy
I studied it for 7 years and I don't think it's very hard to learn. The vocabulary is very easy to learn as the pronunciation and spelling us very straightforward, no silent letters or awkward syllables. There are a lot of grammatical endings, but they follow common patterns and have very few exceptions. As an English speaker, it was much easier to learn than German or French for sure.
@@sayochikun3288 It'll be different for everyone depending on how hard they study, but I'd say the average person could be fluent in a year of consistent study. Most people will probably only be able to read it well since it's hard to find native speakers these days.
I learned Latin for 5 years in school. I loved its logical side. But I think it is so sad that you don't learn to speak it. So I almost forgot everything. But when I was teaching my young cousins it all came back.
I am an attorney of 40+ years' experience. I have taught Latin in college for over 10 years in retirement. I have always told colleagues and students that, for speakers of English, Latin is the easiest language to learn, followed by French. Once you get the "trick" of inflection, and are taught how to read in successive grammatical segments (as the Romans did), you will realize how enriching it is. And, all of your family and friends will think (erroneously, but, still) how smart you are! That has always been my experience, as I stand bemused.
It can paradoxically be very difficult if you come from a Western Romance Language, because most often Words will be similar, but how they're strung together is totally different. It's being able to remove that pesky crust of bias you might have about the degree of relatedness which makes learning Latin very difficult to some people.
The grammar is very different from English and modern Romance languages, so there might be a bit of learning curve there, but it's not really difficult if you put the time in. Most importantly, and perhaps surprisingly, there are a LOT of resources for learning Latin. Not much opportunity to practice speaking it, for obvious reasons, but one can easily learn to read it. Reading ancient and medieval works in Latin, some of which aren't translated, is rewarding.
I've been studying Latin on my own for 2+ years now and it has been pretty fun. I'm Finnish so I was very at home with the classical pronunciation of Latin and had a pretty easy time understanding the conjugation. Latin only has 6 cases while Finnish has double that. It does sometimes create problems because the ablative carries so many meanings, while in Finnish you have obvious endings for them. But it really depends on the sentence. Learning the basics of Latin and understanding the grammar isn't too hard. The hardest part (for me) is acquiring and retaining vocabulary. The word order can also get really wild if you're reading ancient texts, and poetry is still very hard for me to read. And the hardest part of them all: so many words have multiple meanings. They don't always mean the obvious and you just gotta learn them all. Just look at the most diverse verb, "agere". It can mean to do, to manage, to convey, to act, to work etc... But if you get a kick out of being able to understand Cicero in his native tongue Latin is really fun to learn!
Being a native English speaker deciphering ancient Latin poetry is a pretty intensive ordeal. Long English sentences are easy to understand but you will have clauses go on for multiple lines where you have to figure out through the verb conjugations what is happening. It's kinda like a puzzle.
@@plausibruh For sure, poetry especially feels like a puzzle. After reading a lot I have more of an "eye" for that stuff, but still a lot goes over my head.
@@Asher-Tzvi Oh I already very much have. The passive voice and the different gerunds aren't that difficult, but the various uses of the subjunctive still confuses me. But with enough reading you can get over any hurdle!
6:51 brought me STRAIGHT back to my first year of the Cambridge Latin Course at age 12, I somehow could still list most of it from memory haha. We used to see how fast we could recite the whole lot from memory and it's obviously stuck!
A lot depends on the teachers, it seems. I've met so many people who said they hated it, but my teacher taught it conversationally and we all seemed to enjoy it. This was 30 years ago but I am learning it again now. It's definitely helpful when it comes to learning the grammar or languages like German, and vocabulary in any of the Romance languages as well as in English, and in science, medicine, and law. Some of it can seem more complicated than some other modern languages, but with effort, motivation, and the right materials, any language can be fun to learn!
I’m about to take Latin IV this year. The teacher at my school is really good and interesting but tbh I didn’t understand any part of Latin 3 (I got a 55 on the final… 😬)
Latin is one of the most brilliant languages. I am really glad that I had the opportunity to immerse into this language and Latin culture for a whole year during my secondary education. It was truly an amazing time. It really made easier for me the understanding of other languages. I still remember all those famous Latin quotes. My favourite to this day "Carpe diem". Thanks for the vid😍
I do know of one film entirely in Latin. It's called Sebastiane, and it's a Derek Jarman film. I'm not sure how good the Latin is, but I've heard reports that the actors were far from fluent and struggled with pronunciation.
The truth is, and to be honest, English is really a hybrid language, since it is impossible to say that it is a purely Germanic language, considering the strong influence of Latin. The vocabulary in English is 60% Latin and the grammar is 38% Latin (disproving the legend that English grammar is 100% Germanic) (data from BBC London by renowned philological studies from universities such as Cambridge, Stanford and Yale). Considering the above, the influence of Latin is colossal and undeniable. English is a hybrid language and that makes it great.
*the grammar is 38% Latin (disproving the legend that English grammar is 100% Germanic) (data from BBC London by renowned philological studies from universities such as Cambridge, Stanford and Yale)* This is entirely false. Could you name the study you're referring to?
@@Philoglossos I REPEAT ACCORDING TO A NEWS REPORT BY THE BBC IN LONDON. The full report was as follows: The English language: 1- It uses and depends on the Roman alphabet (in my opinion this is a fundamental reason for being a hybrid language. 2-His vocabulary is 60% Latin. 3- Its grammar is 38% Latin (denying the legend that its grammar is 100% Germanic). Other sources state that it is 39% Latin. Therefore, it is philologically impossible to consider the English language as a Germanic language. English is really a hybrid.
english definitely has a germanic core and descends from germanic, but absolutely has a giant amount of latin influence. me personally, i would definitely say it’s an over-exaggeration to say it’s a hybrid, but i understand where it comes from. 80 of the 100 most used words in english are germanic, the majority of english grammar is germanic, and the phonology is largely germanic. the latin influence mainly comes through obscure words to describe specific things, big part in this is due to french control and the languages of the elite were french. influence happens in many languages, influence even as big as english. look at persian, it’s grammar is unique to itself, but it definitely has a lot of arabic vocabulary, and also uses the same script, and it’s still indo-iranian.
English, most Germanic languages and all the Romance languages have a more strongly positional grammar, whereas the more conservative Germanics and Latin have a somewhat freer grammatical structure.
Thanks for doing one on Latin! Great suggestion to "let your brain get used to case endings by doing lots of reading." Too may people get stressed out about producing perfect Latin too early on. Don't. Be patient, and it will come.
I studied Latin in Italian schools and later in English schools. It is hard to master, especially in Italian syllabus. For your info, I was top of the class in English as an italian speaking student because my grammar was impeccable.
1:20 Several of your "Latin" words actually come from French (aplomb, chivalrous, condign, cull, naïve, parvenu, rapport, rapprochement, taunt), and one is from Spanish (incommunicado). Of course, most French words come from Latin, but the rest of the words on the list came into English _directly_ from Latin.
As a Brazilian person latin is a mother language for me. It's like travel to past and hear your language in the past, truth be told...It's Exactly this!
I think you make some good points and try not make it sound too hard, however, there really isn't all that much utility in attaining an intermediate level in latin - which you can attain in the same span as say German. To enjoy Latin truly you will want to read all the great authors and enjoy the literature as well as maybe composing your own short stories and having fun using the language yourself which is going to take a much longer time than German in that case because for German there is far far more utility at having an intermediate level as opposed to latin. Not many institutes teach latin for the purpose of speaking and using it and all their pronunciation seems to be horrible even though latin isn't all that difficult to pronounce. They treat latin as a dead fossil to study it's grammar and to wonder at what you can translate and understand through that method which is a shame because it's a language like any other not some fossil to admire but not touch. I think to speak latin is much much harder than to speak German but only because of the lack of resources and practice partners in spoken latin as well as the teaching methods in schools and ofcourse available entertainment in the language.
absolutely! but sometimes it’s ok to learn something because it’s just interesting or fun even if it doesn’t have much utility. some memorize the entire DC comic history just because it gives those happy feelings. the utility of latin isn’t in using it as a language today, not usually anyway, but understanding where a lot of words came from. that has a lot of utility in various medical and scientific fields. it can be useful the way learning anything can since learning by itself helps the brain get stronger or at least maintain itself since it is a use it or lose it situation. latin also has the connotation of a lot of richness and depth, which can look good depending on what you’re going for in life. but yeah generally it won’t be all that useful, just kinda neat.
I have always studied French, added Spanish during Covid lockdown (I was bored to tears), and added Latin just this past summer just because it's entertaining. I like to use Google translate to practice writing in Latin; it's good practice.
I’m in a school where we learn Latin and Greek from grade 7 to 9, and then we can choose which one we want to continue learning. I’m now in 8th grade, and I can say Latin, once you understand the basics, is pretty fun! There’s a lot of words I recognize from other languages, and it even makes English easier (I’m Dutch) since a lot of words contain Latin.
A little correction: in italian the adjective place is free as in latin. Putting before or after the noun gives different shades of meaning. It's still an excellent video though.
I took a couple years of Latin in high school and did badly. However, that experience was AMAZING preparation for learning Icelandic many years later, since despite that there is no direct connection between the languages, Icelandic has four cases, all present in Latin, and three genders, which work basically the same way. Most importantly though, I barely started reaching the point with Latin where I started to gain an intuitive sense for the grammar from the large amounts of reading and translation we did. When I returned to language study as an adult, and heard about the Input Hypothesis and input-based learning methods, my memory of that high school experience was what convinced me that a reading-intensive approach was the way to go. (Forty years later, I still remember every word of the first paragraph of Caesar's Gallic Wars. I might rather have used that chunk of memory to remember where I put my keys in the morning, but oh well.)
@@Blaqjaqshellaq "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appelantur." I'd probably translate that as "Gaul's entirety is divided into three parts" but I'm in no position to judge. My Latin is very rusty.
@@Blaqjaqshellaq Then you've got your grammar wrong. The word order would be different: I'll demonstrate the correct translation process for you: "Gallia est" translates "Gaul is" next step: "Gallia est ... divisa " translates "Gaul is ... divided". The usual way to state that Gaul is divided would be" "Gallia divisa est". But here it says Gallia est ... divisa " So Gaul is divided, how? Why? when? by whom? one might ask. the answer to that question is "omins" "Gallia est omnis divisa..." So the correct translation is either" Gaul is divided in its entirety" or " "All of Gaul is divided" or even "The entire/whole territory of Gaul is divided (....in three parts). The literal translation would be "Gaul is - all of it - divided into three parts" --- your suggestion with "greater Gaul" would be "Gallia maior in partes tres divisa est" ... The word order might be free in Latin, but it is not as free that you, as a reader or translator, can choose as you please, and the same goes for the meaning of the words. The emphasis in this sentence is on "omnis" so that the readers know that there is no part of Gaul left out in this description. Ceasar wanted the senate of Rome to know that he had conquered all of Gaul and that Gaul is now under Roman (Ceasar's) control in its entirety. That there is no little bit of Gaul left that exists outside of the Roman Empire anymore. That's the real deal for the politics of the Roman Empire back then. So you can't just change "maior" for "omins" and rewrite the sentence completely. That's disrespectful to the author and changes the intended meaning completely.
I've been a Latin tutor for many years. It's quite a bit more challenging grammar-wise than you made it sound. Classical Latin was written without punctuation. Therefore the main verb (The verb of the main sentence in an often complex sentence structure. Adjectives and their correlating nouns can be far apart from each other in such structures.) was used to indicate the end of a sentence. (At least if you're interested in classical Latin, not the mediaeval variation. Classical Latin to mediaeval Latin relates about the same as Shakespearean English to a conversation in the pub.) But as a native German speaker, I can assure you that Latin is by far easier and more logical as a language than German. By the way, there are 5 conjugations in Latin, not 4! As for the endings of nouns, there are several declinations (and two declination systems for adjectives). I wonder where you've got this number from. Even the Vocative is sometimes different from the Nominative. As for Latin speakers - up to this day, every member of the Catholic clergy is supposed to "speak" Latin.
I've been learning German for 5 months and Latin for only three weeks, and until now what I can say is that German is easier than Latin, however, I completely agree with you; Latin is more logical than German, but German phonetics is a lot more beautiful than Latin.
Back in the day as a teenager in Germany I had mandatory Latin courses in high school. I was very bad at it and didn't like it, but in hindsight I appreciate the insights this language gave me.
Personally, I just want to learn Latin for reading and/or deciphering ancient texts. I'd rather learn how to speak, hear and write other languages which are still in wide use.
Ishan Chatterjee I'd recommend the books Getting Started with Latin and Keep Going with Latin by William E. Linney. In my opinion they are the best books for absolute beginners. After that you can use the book Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Familia Romana. It's a graded reader. LLPSI (Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata) is a series of books. After completing the Familia Romana book you can use the other books in the series.
spanish class: mi color favorito es verde French class: Ma couleur préférée est le bleu .. vs Latin class: servus canem caput eius mordet et sanguinem fundit
I started studying Latin because next year it will be a subject in high school, it's a very beautiful language to learn. It's not as hard as you think. The only hard thing is the grammar, it's very complicated at first. But after some practising, it will actually be very easy
There is a series made in germanic and latin made by netlfix it's called Barbarians(plot is inspired by history but not accurate, but the costumes, clothing, armors are very accurate)
Can you give an example of a noun which has ten different case/number forms? There's a fair bit of syncretism, e.g. the dative and ablative plural are the same.
In the first, 3rd, 4th, or 5th declensions these cases are not the same in the singular. 5 cases, singular and plural. Ten. The dative and ablative fell into disuse in Late Antiquity.
0:49 it’s “propter”, not “prompter”; “numerous” doesn’t exist in latin, it’s written wrongly, it should be “numeros”. They also did tons of pronunciation’s mistakes, but I’ll let that slide, cause it’s just their accent. Sorry but I had to do this.
1:42 Attention! N-word, N-word)). I'm russian, when I studied in the US, americans laughed at my accent. But on latin lessons i already laughed. What was the cost of burry attempts to pronounce the Latin "R". I'm not talking about the impossibility of understanding what cases are, the logic of changing cases, coordinating genders, cases and numbers.
Latin, in some ways, similar to Arabic, even some words are similar, would you believe that? In Arabic, Verb conjugation, feminin or masculine reference, words order, SVO, OVS, VOS, SOV, VSO, OSV, but the words have to be conjugated accordingly. So it is so complex. Can you lerne a little Arabic? Though the Arabic vocabularies are in huge numbers but you can still with few words only speak.
Some spanish words are niarer to latin than the same italians words. Ciao. Do you know what really, CIAO, means? ( I'm your... slave...schiavo...sciao (venetian dialect)...ciao). Ave.
As someone learning Latin at the moment, I'll say this. It is not any harder or easier than many modern languages, I'd say any language with a case and declension system is about as hard as Latin. (Also, not sure if anyone else noticed, but I did and it is bugging me, but when they show the "exercitus noster" quote, they made two MASSIVE mistakes. They wrote "et prompter numerous sagittarum nostrarum..." instead of "propter numerus").
If a speaker of Mexican Spanish * was sent back to the time of Julius Caesar, by a weeping angel how long would it take for them to learn Latin *on holiday in Rome. They are an anthropologist and a native English speaker but their Spanish was fluent enough to work in Mexico
I would say the grammar aspects are tricky, but once you learn the tricks or can be quite easy, though there are some aspects they use that was not used in todays Romance languages
After Tagalog, Indonesian and Spanish. I think latin will just be a piece of cake. I really don't know where i will use it but it will be kinda fun to use some of it in a presentation
Native Filipino here: Matulungan ka ata ng Filipino sa pag aral ng wikang Espanyol dahil halos 30% ng tagalog loan words ay galing sa Wikang espanyol Naga aral din ako ng espanyol hindi ako nahirapan dahil diyan ahha😂. Translate that with the Tagalog knowledge you have so take it a kind of quiz as well lol😂
The Problem in cases is The mix between them As I in plural nom And sing add Or ae for plu fam nom And sing adding case Biside that as an arab we have cases also and f/m Even to verbs also we have verb, s cases so it is easy to understand them Vocabularry are the Challenge becouse there are no matches But it was easy caus i know some english Althogh we share some words as Cattus قط Taurus ثور Arida أرض Also el and un in spanish We have almost the same grammer
Guys, I’m a Brazilian, I know English fluently and I’m good at Spanish, I want to learn French and Latin, with one would be easier for me to learn first?
9:10 Your brain needs latin? Certainly not. I had to learn latin for University and I forgot everything after a week of the final exam Never had to use it again and it never helped me with anything.
dude wtf lol. ive been buying your books for a long time (short stories in russian) and only recently found your channel. never put two and two together that you were the same person haha.
Ten possible forms for noun declension? It's actually nine, since dative and ablative are the same in the plural. And neuter nouns only have seven, since nominative and accusative are the same for them. (I'm omitting vocative, a simple exception, and locative, a rare one.) I've learned quite a bit of Latin. Here's a gem from Julius Caesar: "It’s sometimes the way of the immortal gods, when they want to punish people’s offences, to lengthen their initial time of prosperity and impunity so as to make them lament their eventual reversal of fortune all the more bitterly."
Hello Olly and everyone as well,I just want to point something out. Latin is and will remain a dead language if you choose to call it so.For instance, Someone like Father Reginald Foster not only taught Latin,he spoke, thought,lived and breathed Latin in his everyday life.Studying under someone like him changed my perception of Latin and indeed most so called "dead languages".So, Taking care not to create offence,if you say that Latin is a dead language, look at Father Reginald Foster and Luke Ranieri of Scorpio Martianus.The works of these two Latin enthusiasts and teachers will certainly prove you wrong. All the same, great video as always Olly ! I hope to see more of your work in the future .
I studied Latin in high school here in the U.S.A. for 2 years. So if I meet a 2,000 year old Italian, I'm set. Maybe. Studied Spanish later in life and learned it quickly. As a friend, who was Catholic, says, "Dominick, go frisk 'em.
We knew a Portuguese missionary that spent time in the interior of Angola among a tribe called Kikongo. The asked him, "Avelino, is Kikongo difficult?" He said, "Naa. Once you learn it it's easy!"
Too many already good ones, and the language itself is so very easy that even bad courses will get you there. Tro da jam bonaj kursoj, kaj la lingvo mem estas tiel facilege, ke eĉ malbonaj kursoj ebligos vin lerni la lingvon.
I've decided that if I'm going to learn just one dead language, it's probably gonna be Old Norse since I'm partially Scandinavian, and honestly, it's mostly because of how cool it looks and sounds. It'd 100% be a vanity language that'd be more of a party trick than anything, but I already got the Viking look down, so I might as well get the Viking sound down too, right?
If you learn old Norse you'll probably be able to pick up Icelandic in no time, or if you're truly serious about old Norse then learning Icelandic might as well be a good first step as most words haven't changed much and you'll have many more resources in Icelandic to use to learn it
3:00 I personally don't mind this. I mean, I speak Spanish natively and I've learned other romance languages too. To me, this is a normal thing. I know it isn't for English native speakers. The only thing that isn't so "normal" is the neuter gender. It only exists in Romanian as far as I know (and I don't speak this language at all) 5:40 Same here. A normal thing for me. The only exception is French because you can't drop the pronoun in most sentences.
Latin is not as DEAD as you’d think! Check this out to learn more. 👉🏼 ua-cam.com/video/Xf5Wp_zuLGo/v-deo.html
I had 4 years of Latin in the early 1970s. Our teacher said an educated person does not have to know Latin but he should at least of forgotten it. Latin made passing the sats easy
I studied it for 7 years and I don't think it's very hard to learn. The vocabulary is very easy to learn as the pronunciation and spelling us very straightforward, no silent letters or awkward syllables. There are a lot of grammatical endings, but they follow common patterns and have very few exceptions. As an English speaker, it was much easier to learn than German or French for sure.
hey, just curious what is your native language?
@@мемнаяслойка "as an English speaker"
How long did it took you to start creating fluently?
@@sayochikun3288 It'll be different for everyone depending on how hard they study, but I'd say the average person could be fluent in a year of consistent study. Most people will probably only be able to read it well since it's hard to find native speakers these days.
do u think it's possible to learn it in just two months
Latin is beautiful. I am learning Latin and Italian.
@@Yehudi1 May be not in your opinion and I respect that but I adore Italian.
@@janetcarson6034 Same for me, both are wonderful
@@Yehudi1 Français ?
@@Yehudi1 haha ok, I was asling myself why does he think Italian is not beautiful, so I assume you were French, sorry!
Good luck!
I learned Latin for 5 years in school. I loved its logical side. But I think it is so sad that you don't learn to speak it. So I almost forgot everything. But when I was teaching my young cousins it all came back.
I am an attorney of 40+ years' experience. I have taught Latin in college for over 10 years in retirement. I have always told colleagues and students that, for speakers of English, Latin is the easiest language to learn, followed by French. Once you get the "trick" of inflection, and are taught how to read in successive grammatical segments (as the Romans did), you will realize how enriching it is. And, all of your family and friends will think (erroneously, but, still) how smart you are! That has always been my experience, as I stand bemused.
Do you have any book recommendations?
@@PaladinKonrad try Bible
@@PaladinKonrad in case anyone sees this.
I'm new and got the LLPSI, or lingua latina per se illustrata (latin language with illustrations)
It can paradoxically be very difficult if you come from a Western Romance Language, because most often Words will be similar, but how they're strung together is totally different. It's being able to remove that pesky crust of bias you might have about the degree of relatedness which makes learning Latin very difficult to some people.
The grammar is very different from English and modern Romance languages, so there might be a bit of learning curve there, but it's not really difficult if you put the time in. Most importantly, and perhaps surprisingly, there are a LOT of resources for learning Latin. Not much opportunity to practice speaking it, for obvious reasons, but one can easily learn to read it. Reading ancient and medieval works in Latin, some of which aren't translated, is rewarding.
As a Brazilian, it's very beautiful and warm to learn the Original Language to which Portuguese was born. One day I will be fluent. 😍😍
Gratias maximas quod hanc pelliculam divulgasti! Maxime delector.
Bene latinice loqueris
Hoc mihi placet👍
Ego Paucam latinam scio
I've been studying Latin on my own for 2+ years now and it has been pretty fun. I'm Finnish so I was very at home with the classical pronunciation of Latin and had a pretty easy time understanding the conjugation. Latin only has 6 cases while Finnish has double that. It does sometimes create problems because the ablative carries so many meanings, while in Finnish you have obvious endings for them. But it really depends on the sentence. Learning the basics of Latin and understanding the grammar isn't too hard. The hardest part (for me) is acquiring and retaining vocabulary. The word order can also get really wild if you're reading ancient texts, and poetry is still very hard for me to read. And the hardest part of them all: so many words have multiple meanings. They don't always mean the obvious and you just gotta learn them all. Just look at the most diverse verb, "agere". It can mean to do, to manage, to convey, to act, to work etc... But if you get a kick out of being able to understand Cicero in his native tongue Latin is really fun to learn!
Being a native English speaker deciphering ancient Latin poetry is a pretty intensive ordeal. Long English sentences are easy to understand but you will have clauses go on for multiple lines where you have to figure out through the verb conjugations what is happening. It's kinda like a puzzle.
@@plausibruh For sure, poetry especially feels like a puzzle. After reading a lot I have more of an "eye" for that stuff, but still a lot goes over my head.
Wait till you get to the passive voice, subjunctive, and gerunds/gerundives.
@@Asher-Tzvi Oh I already very much have. The passive voice and the different gerunds aren't that difficult, but the various uses of the subjunctive still confuses me. But with enough reading you can get over any hurdle!
6:51 brought me STRAIGHT back to my first year of the Cambridge Latin Course at age 12, I somehow could still list most of it from memory haha. We used to see how fast we could recite the whole lot from memory and it's obviously stuck!
A lot depends on the teachers, it seems. I've met so many people who said they hated it, but my teacher taught it conversationally and we all seemed to enjoy it. This was 30 years ago but I am learning it again now. It's definitely helpful when it comes to learning the grammar or languages like German, and vocabulary in any of the Romance languages as well as in English, and in science, medicine, and law. Some of it can seem more complicated than some other modern languages, but with effort, motivation, and the right materials, any language can be fun to learn!
I think the reason I don’t enjoy learning Latin is because we don’t learn it conversationally. I’ve expressed this many times.
@@juliandeveaux2848 yep latin should replace or coexist with English, spanish on the world stage
I’m about to take Latin IV this year. The teacher at my school is really good and interesting but tbh I didn’t understand any part of Latin 3 (I got a 55 on the final… 😬)
I'm currently learning Latin. It's very doable.
Gratias maximas! Thank you very much for this fun and insightful video. I just shared it with my students and friends.
♥
I love the way you start out with Irene and her fluent Latin.
3:39 here's a mistake. Oppidum is neuter, not feminine. So it's oppidum est magnum, not magna
Latin is one of the most brilliant languages. I am really glad that I had the opportunity to immerse into this language and Latin culture for a whole year during my secondary education. It was truly an amazing time. It really made easier for me the understanding of other languages. I still remember all those famous Latin quotes. My favourite to this day "Carpe diem". Thanks for the vid😍
It's also good preparation for learning any Romance language...
@@Blaqjaqshellaq Exactly 😊
The Latin quotes are the reason I want to learn Latin
The netflix show Barbarians is partly in Latin and it has a great story about arminius
Hi Olly! I think you forgot to mention that nowadays in Vatican latin is spoken by the Church so the people who wants to learn it can go there!
Latin has been part of my life. As a member of a choir, part of our repertoire was in Latin. So, I am familiar with the language.
I do know of one film entirely in Latin. It's called Sebastiane, and it's a Derek Jarman film. I'm not sure how good the Latin is, but I've heard reports that the actors were far from fluent and struggled with pronunciation.
The Romans in the Netflix TV series Barbarians all speak Latin, with overall reasonable accuracy.
"The Passion" by Mel Gibson is in latin (and aramaic)
The truth is, and to be honest, English is really a hybrid language, since it is impossible to say that it is a purely Germanic language, considering the strong influence of Latin. The vocabulary in English is 60% Latin and the grammar is 38% Latin (disproving the legend that English grammar is 100% Germanic) (data from BBC London by renowned philological studies from universities such as Cambridge, Stanford and Yale). Considering the above, the influence of Latin is colossal and undeniable. English is a hybrid language and that makes it great.
*the grammar is 38% Latin (disproving the legend that English grammar is 100% Germanic) (data from BBC London by renowned philological studies from universities such as Cambridge, Stanford and Yale)*
This is entirely false. Could you name the study you're referring to?
@@Philoglossos I REPEAT ACCORDING TO A NEWS REPORT BY THE BBC IN LONDON. The full report was as follows:
The English language:
1- It uses and depends on the Roman alphabet (in my opinion this is a fundamental reason for being a hybrid language.
2-His vocabulary is 60% Latin.
3- Its grammar is 38% Latin (denying the legend that its grammar is 100% Germanic). Other sources state that it is 39% Latin.
Therefore, it is philologically impossible to consider the English language as a Germanic language. English is really a hybrid.
english definitely has a germanic core and descends from germanic, but absolutely has a giant amount of latin influence. me personally, i would definitely say it’s an over-exaggeration to say it’s a hybrid, but i understand where it comes from.
80 of the 100 most used words in english are germanic, the majority of english grammar is germanic, and the phonology is largely germanic. the latin influence mainly comes through obscure words to describe specific things, big part in this is due to french control and the languages of the elite were french.
influence happens in many languages, influence even as big as english. look at persian, it’s grammar is unique to itself, but it definitely has a lot of arabic vocabulary, and also uses the same script, and it’s still indo-iranian.
@@jura0300yes English is Germanic l studied english, German and Dutch, English is more simular German and Dutch
English, most Germanic languages and all the Romance languages have a more strongly positional grammar, whereas the more conservative Germanics and Latin have a somewhat freer grammatical structure.
Thanks for doing one on Latin! Great suggestion to "let your brain get used to case endings by doing lots of reading." Too may people get stressed out about producing perfect Latin too early on. Don't. Be patient, and it will come.
I studied Latin in Italian schools and later in English schools. It is hard to master, especially in Italian syllabus. For your info, I was top of the class in English as an italian speaking student because my grammar was impeccable.
Many days fall away with nothing to show! Love that song, awesome that she put it into latin
Yes...the answer is yes
1:20 Several of your "Latin" words actually come from French (aplomb, chivalrous, condign, cull, naïve, parvenu, rapport, rapprochement, taunt), and one is from Spanish (incommunicado). Of course, most French words come from Latin, but the rest of the words on the list came into English _directly_ from Latin.
As a Brazilian person latin is a mother language for me. It's like travel to past and hear your language in the past, truth be told...It's Exactly this!
I've been studying it for five weeks. Initially i found it hard, but now, with dictionary and grammar book, i am composing in it.
@0:48 There are typographical errors:
“Exercitus noster est magnus, et propter numerum sagittārum nostrārum caelum nōn vidēbitis!"
I think you make some good points and try not make it sound too hard, however, there really isn't all that much utility in attaining an intermediate level in latin - which you can attain in the same span as say German. To enjoy Latin truly you will want to read all the great authors and enjoy the literature as well as maybe composing your own short stories and having fun using the language yourself which is going to take a much longer time than German in that case because for German there is far far more utility at having an intermediate level as opposed to latin. Not many institutes teach latin for the purpose of speaking and using it and all their pronunciation seems to be horrible even though latin isn't all that difficult to pronounce. They treat latin as a dead fossil to study it's grammar and to wonder at what you can translate and understand through that method which is a shame because it's a language like any other not some fossil to admire but not touch. I think to speak latin is much much harder than to speak German but only because of the lack of resources and practice partners in spoken latin as well as the teaching methods in schools and ofcourse available entertainment in the language.
absolutely! but sometimes it’s ok to learn something because it’s just interesting or fun even if it doesn’t have much utility. some memorize the entire DC comic history just because it gives those happy feelings. the utility of latin isn’t in using it as a language today, not usually anyway, but understanding where a lot of words came from. that has a lot of utility in various medical and scientific fields. it can be useful the way learning anything can since learning by itself helps the brain get stronger or at least maintain itself since it is a use it or lose it situation. latin also has the connotation of a lot of richness and depth, which can look good depending on what you’re going for in life. but yeah generally it won’t be all that useful, just kinda neat.
I have always studied French, added Spanish during Covid lockdown (I was bored to tears), and added Latin just this past summer just because it's entertaining. I like to use Google translate to practice writing in Latin; it's good practice.
I’m in a school where we learn Latin and Greek from grade 7 to 9, and then we can choose which one we want to continue learning. I’m now in 8th grade, and I can say Latin, once you understand the basics, is pretty fun! There’s a lot of words I recognize from other languages, and it even makes English easier (I’m Dutch) since a lot of words contain Latin.
Excellent video! Thanks!
Love all these Latin videos Olly! Will you consider creating a book Short Stories in Latin for beginners?
A little correction: in italian the adjective place is free as in latin. Putting before or after the noun gives different shades of meaning.
It's still an excellent video though.
Ille qui nos omnes servabit.
- Lost.
6:46 does cleave in Latin have two definitions that are opposite of each other or does it only mean one specific thing.
I took a couple years of Latin in high school and did badly. However, that experience was AMAZING preparation for learning Icelandic many years later, since despite that there is no direct connection between the languages, Icelandic has four cases, all present in Latin, and three genders, which work basically the same way.
Most importantly though, I barely started reaching the point with Latin where I started to gain an intuitive sense for the grammar from the large amounts of reading and translation we did. When I returned to language study as an adult, and heard about the Input Hypothesis and input-based learning methods, my memory of that high school experience was what convinced me that a reading-intensive approach was the way to go.
(Forty years later, I still remember every word of the first paragraph of Caesar's Gallic Wars. I might rather have used that chunk of memory to remember where I put my keys in the morning, but oh well.)
People mostly translate the beginning as "All Gaul is divided in three parts..." but I prefer "Greater Gaul is..."
@@Blaqjaqshellaq "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appelantur." I'd probably translate that as "Gaul's entirety is divided into three parts" but I'm in no position to judge. My Latin is very rusty.
@@azotic1 I'd use "Greater Gaul" for the entirety, and "Gaul proper" for the third part.
@@azotic1 That's pretty accurate, I'd say.
@@Blaqjaqshellaq Then you've got your grammar wrong. The word order would be different: I'll demonstrate the correct translation process for you: "Gallia est" translates "Gaul is" next step: "Gallia est ... divisa " translates "Gaul is ... divided". The usual way to state that Gaul is divided would be" "Gallia divisa est". But here it says Gallia est ... divisa " So Gaul is divided, how? Why? when? by whom? one might ask. the answer to that question is "omins" "Gallia est omnis divisa..." So the correct translation is either" Gaul is divided in its entirety" or " "All of Gaul is divided" or even "The entire/whole territory of Gaul is divided (....in three parts). The literal translation would be "Gaul is - all of it - divided into three parts"
--- your suggestion with "greater Gaul" would be "Gallia maior in partes tres divisa est" ... The word order might be free in Latin, but it is not as free that you, as a reader or translator, can choose as you please, and the same goes for the meaning of the words.
The emphasis in this sentence is on "omnis" so that the readers know that there is no part of Gaul left out in this description. Ceasar wanted the senate of Rome to know that he had conquered all of Gaul and that Gaul is now under Roman (Ceasar's) control in its entirety. That there is no little bit of Gaul left that exists outside of the Roman Empire anymore. That's the real deal for the politics of the Roman Empire back then.
So you can't just change "maior" for "omins" and rewrite the sentence completely. That's disrespectful to the author and changes the intended meaning completely.
I've been a Latin tutor for many years. It's quite a bit more challenging grammar-wise than you made it sound. Classical Latin was written without punctuation. Therefore the main verb (The verb of the main sentence in an often complex sentence structure. Adjectives and their correlating nouns can be far apart from each other in such structures.) was used to indicate the end of a sentence. (At least if you're interested in classical Latin, not the mediaeval variation. Classical Latin to mediaeval Latin relates about the same as Shakespearean English to a conversation in the pub.)
But as a native German speaker, I can assure you that Latin is by far easier and more logical as a language than German.
By the way, there are 5 conjugations in Latin, not 4! As for the endings of nouns, there are several declinations (and two declination systems for adjectives). I wonder where you've got this number from. Even the Vocative is sometimes different from the Nominative.
As for Latin speakers - up to this day, every member of the Catholic clergy is supposed to "speak" Latin.
Watch Olly's earlier video called "The Latin Language", where he goes into a lot more detail. ;)
I've been learning German for 5 months and Latin for only three weeks, and until now what I can say is that German is easier than Latin, however, I completely agree with you; Latin is more logical than German, but German phonetics is a lot more beautiful than Latin.
@@Danknight403You didn't listen to properly spoken Latin yet. Otherwise it's inexplicable...
ua-cam.com/video/oMt5fav85WY/v-deo.htmlsi=xwWHZnxcAd3LAZbX
Back in the day as a teenager in Germany I had mandatory Latin courses in high school. I was very bad at it and didn't like it, but in hindsight I appreciate the insights this language gave me.
I am encouraged, thank you.
great job👍
keep going
Personally, I just want to learn Latin for reading and/or deciphering ancient texts. I'd rather learn how to speak, hear and write other languages which are still in wide use.
Ishan Chatterjee I'd recommend the books Getting Started with Latin and Keep Going with Latin by William E. Linney. In my opinion they are the best books for absolute beginners. After that you can use the book Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Familia Romana. It's a graded reader. LLPSI (Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata) is a series of books. After completing the Familia Romana book you can use the other books in the series.
@@Aditya-te7oo Dhonnyobaad bhai! I had heard many good things about Lingua Latina, but am gonna check out Kinney work too now :)
@@ishanchatterjee1587 আপনি Linney-র বই গুগালে পেয়ে যাবেন, কিন্তু শুধু প্রথম পার্টটাই উপলভ্য।
spanish class: mi color favorito es verde French class: Ma couleur préférée est le bleu .. vs
Latin class: servus canem caput eius mordet et sanguinem fundit
I started studying Latin because next year it will be a subject in high school, it's a very beautiful language to learn. It's not as hard as you think. The only hard thing is the grammar, it's very complicated at first. But after some practising, it will actually be very easy
Greek and latin are the source of most scientific words in modern days !
There is a series made in germanic and latin made by netlfix it's called Barbarians(plot is inspired by history but not accurate, but the costumes, clothing, armors are very accurate)
There is a lot of Latin Slang. It's in Plautus and even in the Vulgate translation of the Bible.
"Is qui Mingentem Parientem" for instance.
Dear Olly, why isn't there any word spoken about the book: Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata?
Can you give an example of a noun which has ten different case/number forms? There's a fair bit of syncretism, e.g. the dative and ablative plural are the same.
In the first, 3rd, 4th, or 5th declensions these cases are not the same in the singular. 5 cases, singular and plural. Ten. The dative and ablative fell into disuse in Late Antiquity.
Have you got any videos on Irish or Scottish Gaelic in the works?
0:49 it’s “propter”, not “prompter”; “numerous” doesn’t exist in latin, it’s written wrongly, it should be “numeros”. They also did tons of pronunciation’s mistakes, but I’ll let that slide, cause it’s just their accent.
Sorry but I had to do this.
Along with Roman aphorisms, let's not forget the specialized terms in medicine, law, diplomacy and the like.
It would be interesting to learn about our mama: Latin
1:42 Attention! N-word, N-word)). I'm russian, when I studied in the US, americans laughed at my accent. But on latin lessons i already laughed. What was the cost of burry attempts to pronounce the Latin "R". I'm not talking about the impossibility of understanding what cases are, the logic of changing cases, coordinating genders, cases and numbers.
Latin, in some ways, similar to Arabic, even some words are similar, would you believe that?
In Arabic,
Verb conjugation, feminin or masculine reference, words order, SVO, OVS, VOS, SOV, VSO, OSV, but the words have to be conjugated accordingly. So it is so complex. Can you lerne a little Arabic? Though the Arabic vocabularies are in huge numbers but you can still with few words only speak.
As a native Croatian speaker, Latin grammar actually came rather naturally to me when I had it in high school.
I love this series
Some spanish words are niarer to latin than the same italians words.
Ciao. Do you know what really, CIAO, means? ( I'm your... slave...schiavo...sciao (venetian dialect)...ciao). Ave.
2:10 funny enough he said your probably not used to saying vino which is the way you also say it in my country ( Croatia)
As someone learning Latin at the moment, I'll say this. It is not any harder or easier than many modern languages, I'd say any language with a case and declension system is about as hard as Latin. (Also, not sure if anyone else noticed, but I did and it is bugging me, but when they show the "exercitus noster" quote, they made two MASSIVE mistakes. They wrote "et prompter numerous sagittarum nostrarum..." instead of "propter numerus").
I believe it'd have even been 'propter numerum', since propter is a preposition and takes am accusative
Oh, yeah. People who have not studied Latin should never try to write it.
If a speaker of Mexican Spanish
* was sent back to the time of Julius Caesar, by a weeping angel how long would it take for them to learn Latin
*on holiday in Rome. They are an anthropologist and a native English speaker but their Spanish was fluent enough to work in Mexico
I would say the grammar aspects are tricky, but once you learn the tricks or can be quite easy, though there are some aspects they use that was not used in todays Romance languages
I love the latin language, but only made it through 2 semesters of it in uni because it made me feel like my brain was melting.
After Tagalog, Indonesian and Spanish. I think latin will just be a piece of cake. I really don't know where i will use it but it will be kinda fun to use some of it in a presentation
Native Filipino here:
Matulungan ka ata ng Filipino sa pag aral ng wikang Espanyol dahil halos 30% ng tagalog loan words ay galing sa Wikang espanyol
Naga aral din ako ng espanyol hindi ako nahirapan dahil diyan ahha😂.
Translate that with the Tagalog knowledge you have so take it a kind of quiz as well lol😂
The Problem in cases is
The mix between them
As
I in plural nom
And sing add
Or ae for plu fam nom
And sing adding case
Biside that as an arab we have cases also and f/m
Even to verbs also we have
verb, s cases so it is easy to understand them
Vocabularry are the Challenge becouse there are no matches
But it was easy caus i know some english
Althogh we share some words as
Cattus قط
Taurus ثور
Arida أرض
Also el and un in spanish
We have almost the same grammer
Based on last shown tabel, Englisch should be listed -1 if someone placed dutch on category I in terms of difficulty ...
Latin was mandatory for me in pharmacy school. And it was an awful experience.
To paraphrase an old advertisement: Latin. Not even once.
Learning Latin change my life. I am learning on Duo. I will read those book as well.
Guys, I’m a Brazilian, I know English fluently and I’m good at Spanish, I want to learn French and Latin, with one would be easier for me to learn first?
9:10 Your brain needs latin? Certainly not. I had to learn latin for University and I forgot everything after a week of the final exam Never had to use it again and it never helped me with anything.
There is at least one film in Latin - Derek Jarman's Sebastiane.
dude wtf lol. ive been buying your books for a long time (short stories in russian) and only recently found your channel. never put two and two together that you were the same person haha.
Ten possible forms for noun declension? It's actually nine, since dative and ablative are the same in the plural. And neuter nouns only have seven, since nominative and accusative are the same for them. (I'm omitting vocative, a simple exception, and locative, a rare one.)
I've learned quite a bit of Latin. Here's a gem from Julius Caesar: "It’s sometimes the way of the immortal gods, when they want to punish people’s offences, to lengthen their initial time of prosperity and impunity so as to make them lament their eventual reversal of fortune all the more bitterly."
the latin course from your website doesn't work =(
10:36 Why is Romanian on the first list? It also has cases and three genders like German. I don't get it at all.
I came, I saw, I learn Latin
Hello Olly Richards. Latine frigus sonat. Latine discere volo. Tibi gratias ago pro communicando.
Latin fans remind me esperantists
It's the noun declension for me
Hello Olly and everyone as well,I just want to point something out. Latin is and will remain a dead language if you choose to call it so.For instance, Someone like Father Reginald Foster not only taught Latin,he spoke, thought,lived and breathed Latin in his everyday life.Studying under someone like him changed my perception of Latin and indeed most so called "dead languages".So, Taking care not to create offence,if you say that Latin is a dead language, look at Father Reginald Foster and Luke Ranieri of Scorpio Martianus.The works of these two Latin enthusiasts and teachers will certainly prove you wrong. All the same, great video as always Olly ! I hope to see more of your work in the future .
Latin is not dead. 🙄 it just evolved. But if you are talking ab Classical latin, ofc it will never have natural fluent speakers.
@@ateginadeusaportuguesadano458 Perhaps, but you can't be sure of that in the future
@@zikoraifenneli How so? It will be established as official language of some state or latin countries community?
It'd be cool and interesting,but i'm skeptic it will happen.
I studied Latin in high school here in the U.S.A. for 2 years. So if I meet a 2,000 year old Italian, I'm set. Maybe. Studied Spanish later in life and learned it quickly. As a friend, who was Catholic, says, "Dominick, go frisk 'em.
We knew a Portuguese missionary that spent time in the interior of Angola among a tribe called Kikongo. The asked him, "Avelino, is Kikongo difficult?" He said, "Naa. Once you learn it it's easy!"
I know Latin it teaches me at my school
Netflix blockbuster with Latin, Barbarians
spero espero Esperanto ... How about a course in Esperanto? It is the language of One Who Hopes after all
Too many already good ones, and the language itself is so very easy that even bad courses will get you there.
Tro da jam bonaj kursoj, kaj la lingvo mem estas tiel facilege, ke eĉ malbonaj kursoj ebligos vin lerni la lingvon.
Um, Olly, Netflix has 'Barbarians', and the Romans in it speak Latin.
The vatican actually does have latin as the oficial language
I’m not sure if I should be frightened or proud that I have independently seen every video highlighted
I've decided that if I'm going to learn just one dead language, it's probably gonna be Old Norse since I'm partially Scandinavian, and honestly, it's mostly because of how cool it looks and sounds. It'd 100% be a vanity language that'd be more of a party trick than anything, but I already got the Viking look down, so I might as well get the Viking sound down too, right?
If you learn old Norse you'll probably be able to pick up Icelandic in no time, or if you're truly serious about old Norse then learning Icelandic might as well be a good first step as most words haven't changed much and you'll have many more resources in Icelandic to use to learn it
when that woman in the video started speaking i instinctively thought it was spanish or french or italian before remembering the video is about latin
It's a good prep for Romanian
Next video- Is Arabic hard to learn?
3:00 I personally don't mind this. I mean, I speak Spanish natively and I've learned other romance languages too. To me, this is a normal thing. I know it isn't for English native speakers. The only thing that isn't so "normal" is the neuter gender. It only exists in Romanian as far as I know (and I don't speak this language at all)
5:40 Same here. A normal thing for me. The only exception is French because you can't drop the pronoun in most sentences.
Relics of neuter exist even in italian
What language is more difficult to learn, russian or latin?
they do speak Latin in movies: Netflix's Barbarians and Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ are the examples
i wonder if olly is from the manchester area