Sic, sed /speak/ pro leguam sine Anglicium. "Foreign Language" WTF?
Name:
Anonymous2010-06-20 21:02
Learning Latin via music is kind of a pain considering very, very, very, very few people speak it fluently or anywhere near-natively.
I find it pretty straightforwards though and find that simply translating from a primer is not that bad.
Of course, I have 6 years of Spanish experience, smatterings of French and a good enough English vocabulary that it clicks for me faster than most. Since you're starting from German as a base, it's going to be a good bit harder.
Name:
Anonymous2010-06-20 22:36
>>45
What's a good course for Latin?
English speaker here
OP, if you go for the Classical Latin, it's pretty straightforward. No need for music as aid. One phoneme, one letter, for most cases.
And, since you're German, it's far easier to me to explain using German as example instead of soume krasi speld languaje.
BASIC ALPHABET: ABCDEFGHILMNOPQRSTVX
A, E, I, O, V - as German Ach, bErn, Ich, kOrn, Und. Can be long or short. In learning books the longs get a bar (macron) in it (lazy people, like me, use umlaut :D).
There IS a difference in long and short, like in mäla (appel) and mala (bad, feminine).
(NOTE: V, in that time, was the letter for /u/. The U letter is Renaissance's AFAIK.)
AE, AV, OE - as German zEIt, umlAUt, frEUd
B D G H L M N P T - as in German.
C - always as K.
F - this is open for discussion, some argue that it's pronounced with the tooth (like Volk), some argue that it's like Spanish Fuego. Do as you wish.
Q - always with V after it. Pronounce both together like K but with lips rounded like U.
R - like French baRon, or American English "boTTle". It's just a tap.
S - always like See, never like Spiel.
X - it's KS.
FROM GREEK LOANWORDS:
PH - like English Pit, with that puff of air (contrast eng. Pit and sPit). NO, IT'S NOT LIKE F IN CLASSICAL LATIN - only in Vulgar Latin onwards.
TH - like English Tip.
CH - like English Kill.
Y - like Über
Z - TS, like German, or DZ.
ABOUT DOUBLED CONSONANTS - in German and English, they tell that the vowel before is short. In Latin, they tell the CONSONANT IS LONG. Hard to explain, try to take more time to pronounce doubled consonants than single.
With that, you already can pronounce a fair decent Latin.