After seeing many references to the Well-Trained Mind, I finally got around to reading it. I found it to be such an interesting read and it has helped me to look at my educational goals for my children with new eyes.
One subject I had never even considered teaching is Latin. However, after reading the book, I find myself thinking about it more and more. With this in mind, I have been searching for Latin resources. My preference would be something easy and inexpensive to begin with to see if we like it and can incorporate it into our day.
I saw Song School Latin mentioned a few times on the WTM forum - do many of you use it? Would you recommend it or are there better resources out there?
I have read reviews on Song School Latin and it sounds good, but I am not planning on using it. I have always intended to teach Latin (because I loved it so much in school) and there will always be a special place in my heart for the Cambridge Latin Course. I have such fond memories of Caecilius and his naughty dog…
I was so excited to find they have released a primary Latin course called Minimus. I can’t wait until my son is old enough for it - it is written in comic-book format and there is all sorts of historical information, myths, even a play to act out! You can get a CD with the pronunciations and stories read out, too. They introduce some grammar as well - great for English language practice, too! It focuses a lot less on grammar than it could, but introduces it in the context of how it was used in the story which makes it a more natural way of learning than rote conjugation drills! My brother used it in an afterschool Latin club and seemed to enjoy it (though at age 9 the most we could get out of him was ‘it’s ok’ lol).
Because it is a UK published Latin course, I haven’t seen any mention of it on homeschool blogs so I thought I’d add it as an option for you to think about. As far as I know, it is available in the US, though.
I have Song School Latin - we use it, it is a fine program. It isn’t gong to get you very far however, You have to ask what is your ultimate goal for Latin? We use Evan Millner’s products https://sites.google.com/site/janualinguae/. It is much better and has tons more material than when we first started using the site 6 years ago. My 17 y/o can speak Latin fluently. That is what I wanted. He does not need to do translation - he just reads it. I am not that good.
We are in the process of creating a full Latin curriculum using Little Reader. I’d been waiting for v3 to come out so I could start. We are starting with - The Orbis Sensualium Pictus. That is free online - I think Evan’s reading of it is $1.99. the first thing I am doing is putting all vocabulary in that fits with the LR format. Then I’ll create files that will tie it all together. From there we’ll move to either Dooge or Alder. My oldest did both.
We also used a couple other programs before I found Latinum - but Evan picked out the best resources for getting as close to Latin Immersion as possible. He also has a free video course on youtube that you can use to teach yourself . A book I have used alot in the beginning was Demystifying Latin. But Evan has so many materials and they are so cheap and thorough that you don’t really need it.
Sonya, you beat me - I completely forgot last night to put about the Latinum program! I started using his podcast, but he now has a series of (very short) youtube films, too. Love it! We will definitely be using this, too!
We also have Rosetta Stone but we don’t use it. Latin is highly inflected. While Rosetta Stone is great and complete immersion and just how you learned your first language, the problem I’ve found is that you didn’t really learn you first language this way you had a language coach all the time - your parents. You weren’t guessing at meanings and grammar. However, It is a fine enough program for beginners. I know DadDude uses it. All of these are great beginning resources. Latina Christiana - Catholic beginners Latin - we used it. Latin for Kids is another that is a very good introduction.
thank you for the links - I’ll definitely check them out
sonya - your point about goals is a good one. I have read through some old thread on why people are teaching Latin. I am still completely on the fence about it.
The more crucial point to this discussion is that while I would love my children to be fluent in a few languages, I have not managed to get even a tenth of the way there. I really need to develop a plan and stick to it. Ideally, I would like to teach the following, in order of preference:
English (mother tongue)
Irish (second language in Ireland - not widely spoken but compulsory for 12 years of school - both my husband and I have ok-ish Irish)
French (I learned it in school for 6 years)
Spanish
Italian
Now, to complicate matters, I am considering Latin!
How do the rest of you teach multiple langauges? A specific day / part of the day per language? One parent one language would not work for us as I do all the formal EL and neither my husband nor I are fluent in any language other than English.
Wow Sonya - I have never come across that method, but it looks great! I think I will stick with CLC for the first introduction to the language, but I now want to start learning to really read Latin myself
Seastar - I know what you mean about needing a plan! I am currently using 3 languages at home:
English (my mother tongue)
Russian (his father’s mother tongue)
Chinese (because he likes it)
I have always planned to add Latin. I also would love to add Irish (my grandfather’s mother tongue - he didn’t pass it on to his children) and I daydream about adding Japanese and German (I studied in school), Spanish (my brother lives in Spain) and maybe Ancient Greek. That’s the short list! I would be happy with just the Russian and Latin at a fluent level and any one of the others at a good second language level.
I did try a couple of years ago to do lots of languages at once, different ones each day and all sorts of other techniques to fit them in, but in the end it became a logistical nightmare and I couldn’t cope for long trying to prepare myself to teach my son! That’s when I cut down to LR chinese and daily Russian conversation (because that’s the one language I know!). Now I’m planning to add another language every couple of years, to give us a chance to get a good focus on each language and make a good move towards fluency in all the ones we start, rather than dabbling a little in lots and lots (no matter how tempting). The only thing that would change that is when LR releases more languages! Then the lessons are prepared for me
I keep wanting to add another language besides Latin. I end up going back to just Latin. Perhaps because it is the only one I can teach. Anything else I will have to learn and I don’t have time. That is not true - I could make time, but there are other things that are more important.
My husband taught Latin at the university level. He has had a little French. Both my husband and my son can understand Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. They cannot speak those languages really but if people are having conversations they can make out what is being said. If you start with Latin about 90% of the work needed for other romance languages disappears. I know we can teach other languages, and that the kids learn them quickly, but I’ve narrowed my focus for now: math, music, reading, Latin. We’ve just added Latin as I have to make all the files for it. We can add other languages later. You can’t teach it all, so you have to pick and choose. I think making the decision about that is most important to meet your family’s goals will help you narrow down what you really want. And, it will end a lot of wasted time thinking about what you should be doing, feeling guilty for what you are not doing, comparing yourself to others because of what they are doing, looking at curriculum because you might want to do - ya’ll know what I’m talking about don’t lie.
I know what you mean, Sonya. As much as I’d love to go through the whole list, Latin is my first priority for a second language because it is so much help with English and the Romance Languages.
In the end, I expect we will only really know Russian (second native language) and Latin well - no matter how much I plan to add more, I expect life will get in the way (as well as the fact that they are the only two languages I have any real knowledge of myself)
I think we have taken over this thread a little :wub: Sorry Seastar
Sonya,
I just wanted to ask about how you taught your older child Latin. I understand you used the grammar-intensive program that you linked to - how old was he at the time you started the program? I can see the definite benefits for me to (re)learn Latin using that method, but how do you convince a child to learn grammar tables and not make it the most boring thing ever? Did you do any Latin learning while still memorizing the tables? How do you make them not hate the language?
I think this method will also help with our Russian once we’re ready for formal grammar lessons. I really want to make sure he learns his grammar tables completely and doesn’t just ‘get the idea’ so that as soon as he’s having informal conversations it all goes out the window (like with me). I am just struggling to visualise it being anything other than painful. Especially writing the tables out 200 times! Did your son actually do all that?!
I’m not sure what Latin grammar intensive you speak of. All that we learned is basically on the Dowling Method website. If that is what you are referring to it wasn’t hard really. My son was 11 when we started with Evan Millner. While I refer to the Dowling method, what we did is really a hybrid and more what the fellow spoke of on the review of Wheelock’s at Amazon.
I have attached a Latin Shorter Catechism.that we used a lot. But all of the grammar is taught in Adler or D’Ooge. So it isn’t so much brute memorization. I can’t find it on his site, but Evan used to have files with basic grammar tables as sentences - it was pretty easy for us to memorize. If I can find it on my external hard drive I will see if I can get Evan’s permission to post it here as it was offered free when we used it.
This is an overview of our program.
3x a week one hour of Adler. Everyday 20 minutes of Swallowing the Dictionary. 2 times a week one hour in Lingua Latina. This took one year to complete. We also burned the MP3 files to CD so we could play them in the car and as back ground noise. One hour with Alder meant that he listened and repeated the phrases until he could pronounce everything correctly and he could write it down if spoken to him. I think getting him to write it down was very important.
After the first time through Adler ( we didn’t do the exercises at the end of the chapters the first time through),We switched to D’Ooge. D’Ooge is simpler than Adler but it is not conversational. Evan put out D’Ooge after Adler so that is how we did it. Now I would do it the other way around. But since the Orbis Pictus is out, we may skip D’Ooge altogether. Not sure. When he went through D’Ooge I made him do the exercises. This took about 6 months. We kept using the Lingua Latina 2x a week and Swallowing the Dictionary. Again, we would do the previous steps but we added the exercises.
Adler x2. Second time through Adler he was made to do the exercises. Pretty simple stuff now as his ear has been trained. Now we are on to reading simple stories and prose in all Latin. Evan has a ton of stuff. It used to be free. But it is so cheap and the books are on the web, you can get a lot. He listens to them as Evan reads them, and he is reading them himself plus more dictation with conversation. This took about 5-6 months. I can’t remember now what all we were using, but he was listening to a lot of Latin and writing a lot of it.
The thing that made the most difference was listening over and over and getting Latin into his head. Every lesson was on my son’s MP3 player and he listened while he mowed the lawn, cleaned his room, and driving in the car. Sometime in year 3 he started dreaming in Latin.
He also joined Schola which you can find on Evan’s site. It is a Latin only community with people from all over the world. Grammar doesn’t have to be perfect and people are pretty helpful.
I was referring to the Dowling method - it says to spend months completely memorizing the grammar tables and that is what got me stuck: I couldn’t imagine months of just grammar tables. The way you have done it sounds really good. I have dabbled a little with both D’Ooge and Adler in the past so am familiar with the texts - that seems a gentler way to enforce the grammar learning.
We are doing french english and a bit of arabic and spanish . i was wondering if it is too much adding latin to the mix . My daughter can read write speak french and english fluently , understands and speak arabic, understands but cannot speak a bit of spanish . I can speak very good french and english . I never learned latin , sonya , would it be hard to learn and teach ??
viv
I didn’t teach anything I just organized - so yes, that part was simple. If you are using beginner Latin texts then more teaching is required. But the early stuff is pretty simple and shouldn’t require more than an hour a week prep depending on how fast you go. I am of the opinion that Latin should move pretty slowly. If, you choose a different route once you are finished with the beginner stuff, say using Wheelock’s it is going to be a challenge for you are a teacher. As far as adding to what you have I can’t be the judge of that. We only did Latin and my son recently took up French and is going to start Spanish as well. My goal was speaking and reading Latin fluently. You will probably have to consult other parents who are better at languages than I am. I know that aangles does 4 or 5. There are quite a few people doing three.
There is also Dino Lingo Latin (along with many other languages). I emailed them at one point inquiring if they had both play options for Ecclesiastical and Classical pronunciations but I never heard back from them (like Baby Learns Chinese has DVD play options for Traditional or Simplified Chinese depending on what you are teaching).
Also wanted to include some links on Song School Latin to save anyone the searching in case they want to learn more. They now have some DVD’s out now but I think the parents will get more out of them than the little ones. Their monkey match flashcards are a fairly recent addition as well, I think? Could be wrong, but they do look cute.
