Classical Language Learning Masterpost

I’m not studying any Greek or Roman this coming year (I sacrificed intro classical languages for gender & history), but I will be doing a Roman history module and engaging with the language is always useful. I know a few people who have been looking for Greek/Latin learning resources, which is how this list came about. It includes MOOCs, youtube videos and websites. Not really knowing much Latin or Greek I can’t vouch for them 100% but my googling skills are pretty on point, so they should be okay. Feel free to correct me or add to this.

Latin

Getting started on classical Latin

Duration 10 hours

Introductory level

This free course, Getting started on classical Latin, has been developed in response to requests from learners who had had no contact with Latin before and who felt they would like to spend a little time preparing for the kind of learning that studying a classical language involves. The course will give you a taster of what is involved in the very early stages of learning Latin and will offer you the opportunity to put in some early practice.

Continuing classical Latin

Duration 4 hours

Intermediate level

This free course, Continuing classical Latin, gives you the opportunity to hear a discussion of the development of the Latin language.

FLVS Latin

As we build our Via Latina, we will travel back to ancient Rome. On our travels we learn about their culture, history and literature.

National Archives: Beginner’s Latin

Welcome to the beginners’ Latin tutorials. These lessons cover the type of Latin used in official documents written in England between 1086 and 1733. This can be quite different from classical Latin, as used by the Ancient Romans.

Learn Latin

Here are two dozen short lessons on learning Latin designed for “mountain men” (and women: montani montanaeque), engineers, philosophers, and anyone else looking for entertainment and with lots of free time by the campfire. My course is quite different from Peter Jones’ Learn Latin (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1997), but it is just as devoted to interesting you in Latin.

Learn Latin (Learn101)

I would like to welcome you to the Latin lessons. I’m here to help you learn Latin, by going step by step. All the lessons contain audio and are all offered for free.

The London Latin Course

170 videos

Learn Latin from the ground up. This is a serial course, structured to bring you to a high level of Latin fluency. The pace is slow and unhurried. This course is suitable for all ability levels. Restored Classical Pronunciation.

Latin Online

Latin is probably the easiest of the older languages for speakers of English to learn, both because of their earlier relationship and because of the long use of Latin as the language of educational, ecclesiastical, legal and political affairs in western culture.

Latin Excercises

Welcome to UVic’s practice exercises for Wheelock’s Latin (6th edition). There are 40 units comprising many hundreds of exercises to help you consolidate your progress in the classroom and with the textbook.

Ancient Greek

Introducing Ancient Greek

If you are starting to learn Ancient Greek, this site is for you! This site will help you prepare for a Beginner’s Ancient Greek course.

Classical Greek Online

Greek has been important in the intellectual life of western civilization, but not to the extent of Latin except for ecclesiastical matters. In years past, Latin was introduced in the first year of High School, followed by Greek in the third year.

Ancient Greek Online

This site was designed to be a learning environment for students as well as a reading room for scholars. The large print Greek is easy on the eyes. The Internet has returned us to the scrolling method of reading texts, which lends itself particularly well to the project at hand.

Teach Yourself Ancient Greek

The material presented here will be of use to anyone beginning ancient Greek, but is specifically designed to accompany our book.

Ancient Greek Grammar

103 videos

Including pronunciation tips. I haven’t personally watched this and there’s no real description, but it looks pretty comprehensive from what I can see.

Greek & Latin

Introducing the Classical world

Duration 20 hours

Intermediate level

How do we learn about the world of the ancient Romans and Greeks? This free course, Introducing the Classical world, will provide you with an insight into the Classical world by introducing you to the various sources of information used by scholars to draw together an image of this fascinating period of history.

Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin

Duration 12 hours

Intermediate level

The free course, Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin, gives a taste of what it is like to learn two ancient languages. It is for those who have encountered the classical world through translations of Greek and Latin texts and wish to know more about the languages in which these works were composed.

Textkit

Textkit began in late 2001 as a project to develop free of charge downloads of Greek and Latin grammars, readers and answer keys. We offer a large library of over 180 of the very best Greek and Latin textbooks.

What are your favorite Latin phrases or just phrases in general?

femmefatale-rps:

omg this is a cool question, let me try to recall some of my favs:

per adua ad astra, and all it’s variations (per aspera ad astra, sic itur ad astra, and so on). they’re all various ways of saying “through hardship, you will go the stars”. Idk, ever since I first learned the phrase, it’s always stuck with me as one of the most beautiful expressions.

Veni, vidi, vici– I came, I saw, I conquered. It sounds imposing and powerful and like something i’d have tattoed on myself if i was a battle-scarred warrioress.

semper ad meliora– always towards better things. I like it simply because a) it sounds nice to say (which is a common factor for all my favorite phrases, tbh) and b) it’s inspirational, as cheesy as that seems.

Auribus Teneo Lupum– “I hold the wolf by the ears,” this one is actually an ancient proverb.

bellum se ipsum alet– “war feeds itself”

capax infiniti– “holding infinity”

luctor et emergo– “I struggle and emerge”

dum vivimus, vivamus– “while we live, let us live”

“ita vero” is a phrase I always wish I could have courage to throw out in casual conversation, since it just means “thus indeed” and it’d be hella eloquent to use it while trying to sound smart.

lux aeterna– “eternal light”

nec aspera terrent– “they do not fear the difficulties”

latin student gothic

thoodleoo:

you are translating cicero. you have not yet made it through a full sentence even though you have been reading for nearly two hours. every time you think you have made progress, cicero throws in another rhetorical device to extend the passage. you find yourself lost in hyperbaton. you still have not found the verb. you do not think you ever will.

you learn yet another usage of the ablative absolute and dutifully add it to the list of usages you already know. you have started to forget what the other cases are, but you are not sure they matter anymore. all is ablative. all is absolute.

you have begun to pick up the speech patterns of this strange ancient language when you talk in your own. it is said that you use more passives and impersonal verbs. with these things having been spoken, you no longer sound like the person you once were. if this happens much longer, your friends and family will have forgotten the you who once spoke to them. your grades in translation have improved, though, so you do not mind too terribly.

a bitter war emerges between two factions of those who study alongside you. they argue ceaselessly, shouting phrases such as ‘caecilius est in horto’ and ‘raeda est in fossa’ at each other. one side calls the other sextus molestus, thus destroying any possibility for peace while the rest of you look on in horror.

every free thought in your mind gravitates towards the idea that carthage must be destroyed. you are not certain why. you have never been to carthage and, as far as you know, carthage was destroyed millennia ago and needs no further destruction. that does not stop the thoughts, though. you begin to write that carthage must be destroyed at the end of your essays, to say that carthage must be destroyed at the end of every conversation. soon afterwards, you find that the only food that appeals to you anymore is cabbage. your classmates look upon you with sadness. cato has your soul, now.