Lesson 1 -- Review and Recitation

TO DO:

Latin Quia Vocabulary -- do twice!
Scatter Quiz on Wheelock's Chapter 1

That's the end of Lesson 1!

Introduction to Latin Course

We will be using primarily Henle's Latin, which was written for Catholic schools by a Jesuit priest. This is what your older brothers and sister used.

We may also be using Wheelock's Latin, which is a classic introductory Latin book used at Thomas Aquinas College and at many other places. It is a college course -- college courses usually go at twice the speed of high school courses so we will be going more slowly than they do at TAC.

One more resource is the Latin Boot Camps at Homeschool Connections. These are video courses in interactive lecture format. They will be helpful in giving a sort of overview.


The ultimate goal of the course will be to read and write in Latin.

The elements of the course will be:

• Vocabulary
• Grammar
• Translation
• Composition

Now, go on to NEXT section of this lesson

(This list is just for reference -- you don't have to look at it now)

for Vocabulary
Quizlet vocabulary quizzes
Advice for Learning Vocabulary

for Grammar
Practice Exercises
More Exercises
Still more exercises

for general understanding:
Tutorials for first few chapters
Powerpoint Presentations
Answer Key (PDF)


for Reading and Translation
Latin Mass (Simplicissimus)

for composition
(probably no composition until later, so this is just to collect resources)

• Suggestions for Teaching Composition
• How to Teach Beginning Composition (doc)
• More How to Teach Composition (Beginner) PDF
• A downloadable resources (more advanced) (there are lots more if you google Latin composition)

Latin Lesson 1

Read

A lot of students ask what good it is to study a "dead language" like Latin. To answer that, read "Why Study Latin?". Alternately, think of your own reasons, or tell if you think the reasons give in the article are true or not.


Here's an article called The Language That Rose from the Dead. You don't have to read the whole article, but do read the excerpted beginning and conclusion (below)

When it comes to expressing the eternal and immutable truths of the Christian faith, the only good language is a dead language.

Chesterton once made a disarming retort to the customary detraction of Latin as a "dead" language. He simply remarked that to say this is not a detraction at all, for quite in contrast to the detractor's intentions, it throws into profile the clear ascendancy of Latin over all the "living" languages of today. "It is the question of a dead language and a dying language. Every living language is a dying language, even if it does not die. Parts of it are perpetually perishing or changing their sense; there is only one escape from that flux; and a language must die to be immortal."...

.....The whole glory of Christian Latin is that it abides in the greatest present tense of all: the "now" of eternity. Never needing to be up-to-date, it stands free of the danger of ever getting out-of-date. And we who spend our hours speaking interminably about the things that pass, must be able to turn in theological reflection on God's unchanging mysteries, still inspired by a Breath from the land of the living.

Go on to NEXT section: Review