Ancient languages like Latin, classical Greek, classical Hebrew and Sanskrit are always harder to learn than living languages because you\'ll often do less listening and talking in the language.
Of the four language skills read, write, listen and talk the last two are often neglected in the study of ancient languages. A lot of people find it unnecessary to learn to listen and speak such a language, and those who would like to learn those skills find it hard to practice them since they don\'t have any \"natives\" to chat with.
But your computer might help you out. There now exist several multimedia language programmes that combine the audible with the written, and can provide you with ample practice of listening and talking Latin and other ancient languages. The computer can read texts aloud for you while you follow along in the written text (on the screen), can give you games and quizes and quick word and grammar reference when you need it.
LatinNow! from Transparent Language has quite a large collection of Latin texts, with full translation and grammatical comments/parsing of every word in the texts. You can listen to the words in the text read word by word or in continous natural speech. You can use your microphone to record your own speecn and compare.
Four texts (called \'titles\') are included in the basic package, but a long range of extra-titles is available, both original ancient classics and modern texts in Latin:
- A trip to Pompeii
- Aelfrics Colloquy & Colloquia Monacensia
- Aeneid, Book 1, 4, 6, 10
- Bible (Vulgata): Book of Esther
- Bible (Vulgata): Book of Jonah
- Bible (Vulgata): Book of Ruth
- Bible (Vulgata): Genesis 1-3
- Bible (Vulgata): Gospel Selections
- Bible (Vulgata): Samson
- Bible (Vulgata): Selected Psalms
- Cambridge Latin Course, vol. 1-4
- Catullus Poems
- Catullus/Horace Selections
- Daedalus et Icarus, Deucalion et Pyrrha
- De Bello Gallico (Julius Cæsar)
- Dream of Scipio
- Juvenals Satire
- Latin for beginners
- Latin phrases
- Narcissus
- Pro A. Licinio Archia Poeta Oration
- Toothless Old Goat & Other Latin Insults
- Vergils Eclogues
- Wheelocks 38 Latin Stories
The pronounciation in many of the titles is unfortunately too heavily American.
Personally I think my study of Latin has become much easier and more fun now that I have sound along with all the texts, and can get the translation and parsing of every word with a click of the mouse.
Even though your goals might be only to be able to read texts in your ancient langauge, the use of hearing effectively aids in the language acquistion. We warmly recommend the software!
Link: LatinNow Review
To strenghten your Latin listening skills let us also remind you of the weekly news-in-Latin broadcast from the Finnish radio station YLE. You can listen to the programme either on radio (short waves) or download them as Real audio files.
Link: www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/