I want to learn Latin
is latin one of those languages where you absolutely need a teacher to teach you or it's easily learned on your own?
(spoiler: the reason why i wanna learn latin, as well as german, is because i want to read philosophical treatises in their original language for the most comprehension possible).
I learned Latin in high school, it's not that hard. Find a high school starter book and live the dream. Remember to do a lot of translations.
>>419472
Its's really easy
>>419472
It depends OP. How much experience do you have learning languages?
I'm studying Classics at university with a major in Classical Greek, and I'd imagine it would be pretty hard without a teacher.
I took 3 years of Latin in high school. Very easy. Find a high school text book that teaches you and has plenty of translation exercises.
The one I had in high school was Ecce Romani and was about this faggot Marcus and his sisters getting into all kinds of stupid shit.
Be damned if I get a jeopardy question about Latin wrong though.
It's more complex than the popular Romance Languages, but follows a set of patterns neatly most of the time.
High school books or Wheelock's Latin if you want something more advance are good places to start.
They won't teach you everything though so a grammar book is good as well for when you translate actual Latin texts. Commentaries are also useful when they exist for a work, especially when they discuss abstractions.
>Philosophy
>Latin
Unless you are looking at later authors like St. Augustine or Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. The philosophy of the Romans is pretty sparse and not that popular..
Most of the major philosophical works was done by the ancient Greeks.
You don't have to bother with pronunciation or translating shit into Latin, so I'd say it's easier to learn autodidactically than most "alive" languages.
You'll still have to learn a fuckton of different endings and cases though which might be extra hard for native English speakers.
>>420052
>3 years Latin in of high school
>Ecce Romani
I feel bad for you.
>>419472
>Philosophy
>latin
You need to learn Ancient Greek not Latin unless you are spesifically interested in latin dominated areas, Medieval Church philosophy some writings from renaissance and beyond etc.
>>420056
meditations were written in ancient greek pham, cicero and seneca did wrote in latin though.
>>420062
desu I found declensions fun as fuck. I was like "Holy shit, I can say your mom sucks dick un like 20 different ways!".
Learn Greek for philosophy
>>420076
That's not what declensions are though...
>>420074
I have never looked at the Meditations untranslated before, interesting.
Even more of a reason for OP to learn Ancient Greek instead.
>>420090
I would say after mid 2nd century majority of the works are in greek, you have some latin writers in late republic - early empire but then it reverts back to the philhellenism and romans writing in Greek. Exceptions do exist though pham
also check the original greek title, I always found it better than "mediations"
>>420099
>"Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν"
Wonder how they managed to translate that into "Meditations".
>>420099
Yeah, I have recently been working with Cassius Dio, Plutarch and Appian in the Greek.
There are plenty of Latin authors during the mid-late Republic and Early Empire.
I am more of a Historiography guy anyway.
>>420113
there are more memes in ancient greek tho
>>420134
>there are more memes in ancient greek tho
Truth.
>θάλασσα kαὶ πῦρ kαὶ γυνή, kαkὰ τρία
>Thálassa kaì pŷr kaì gynḗ, kakà tría.
> "Sea and fire and woman, three evils."
>ctrl+F "BIG"
>0 results
I have mixed feelings.
>>419472
There are very good Latin resources for solo learning - just go to any Catholic Homeschool resource page and you'll find tons (and can get them second-hand for cheap)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE2082980BC4165A8
learn medieval latin
Latin is NOT easy - people who think it is obviously haven't really got stuck into it.
It has been estimated that there are only a little more than 100 fluent Latin speakers in the world.
That said, you can reap rewards with Latin through self-study because you don't need practice in conversational latin
Get two textbooks so you can cross-reference if you don't understand a certain grammar point. Work through grammar while building vocab separately - translate passages they give you in the textbooks as you go along.
>>420505
Latin IS easy bro, the reason why there are only 100 "fluent speakers" is because you don't learn it to hail a fucking cab or make autistic wiki articles, you learn it with an aim to read texts written in Latin.
Caecillius est in horto.
>>420052
Sextus was a fucking mad man
>>420065
It wasn't so bad.
>new words
>translate this
>new words
>translate this
Aside from owning at Jeopardy, I don't have to look up translations for Latin quotes that early 20th century figures loved to spew.
>>420505
>little more than 100 fluent Latin speakers
Does that exclude the Vatican or something?
>>422396
>tfw the fucking teacher didn't end that book and 4chan spoilered me the ending
rip grumio and cerberus
