#how did i write this much latin was almost my least favorite class 😭

[alittlesimp]

Hello Honey! I just wanted to ask you a little thing, if you don’t mind. I believe you know Latin, right? I remember you saying something along those lines. So the thing is, I took Latin class last year, and learned some basics. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take it next year, but I also want to improve my Latin, I’m so interested in it because of the reasons you can easily guess😶, so would you have some suggestions as to how I can do that? Do you know some sites or YT channels etc. (anything would work tbh) through which I can learn it further?

heyy! yes! i took six years of latin :)) i'll answer under the cut because i kind of Overtalked ,<3

i dont know any english resources to learn latin with, but i believe duolingo has a latin course? while i have my issues with duolingo, it's super useful for learning vocab!

i also found this channel on youtube for grammar but ive personally never used it so i cant confirm the quality ^^

the best practice for learning Latin is 100% just translating original texts though! you can find them online :) once you learn how to recognize verbs, different noun cases and sentence structures (Latin is pretty random with those, especially in more stylized texts the sentence structure is all over the place bc of ) you should be able to translate quite a bit! if you come across a structure you cant translate, just look it up and you'll know it for the next time you come across it ^^ Useful practice also includes taking a professional translation (you should be able to find those online!), putting the original Latin next to it and seeing why they choose to translate stuff a certain way.

if you can i would 100% recommend getting a latin-your language dictionary, a lot of dictionaries have grammar help + culture context in the back and different meanings for each word based on context. i got mine secondhand for i think 10 euros? this website is also helpful!

writers i personally have translated are:

- catullus (personal fave, he is super funny and wrote a lotttt of juicy poems about the affair he had with a woman of higher social status, he changed her name to 'lesbia' after the island sappho, who he was a fanboy of, lived on. he had to change her name because these poems were read out in public and they were quite graphic. i love this man, he is hilarious and has very clever metaphors for, well, his cock.)

- cicero (HARD. HE IS SO HARD TO TRANSLATE. he has sentences the length of six normal ones, but so worth it. his argumentation is genius and he is one of the founders of modern rhetoric.)

- ovid (metamorphosen, retelling of greek mythology stories rewritten for a roman public. very entertaining!)

- pliny (the younger) (wrote a lot of letters to his friends, including a few about the explosion of the vesuvius!)

- seneca (bleh :( not my fav)

- tacitus (wrote a bit on nero's whole arson thing, wasn't too hard if i remember correctly but it was pretty interesting)

- virgil (translated a bit of the aeneid, pretty cool)

i do have to note that classical and late Latin are different from the latin used in classical music (which is usually church latin), but honestly, i was able to sight-translate most of requiem during choir practice and i dont think other compositions are much harder lol

if you ever need help w basic grammar rules (i never really learned anything so i cant help much more than that, i usually just translate on intuition oops) or something or if you just want to chat about it lmk >:)