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05-24-2004, 11:09 AM

According to our blessed Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, there is no value in studying the Classics or Latin. 
 
So be ashamed... we're all pointless! 
 
Carus 
 
P.S. Have Latin Exam this afternoon, hence annoyance with idiot politicians

Gashford · 05-24-2004, 12:18 PM

Carus 
 
Stop wasting your time with Latin and trying to learn from the mistakes and successes of history and learn something far more useful like home economics. 
 
Good luck with the exam. What level are you studying at. I have always wondered whether you can self learn latin, at least at a reading and writing level? ANy thoughts? 
 
All the best Graham Ashford
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05-24-2004, 12:41 PM

Now what country is that secretary from where he would discourage being educated on any subject, even history. We don't even have a head of education, that is why our educational system is so aweful, among other reasons, such as the failure of our government to centralize it and give it appropriate funds.

05-24-2004, 01:27 PM

UK

05-24-2004, 01:32 PM

We actually do have a secretary of ed in the US (just for the record), but I'll decline to say any more about how we ought to change ed in the US, as it would take us into taboo topics. 
 
As to self-teaching Latin... Are you saying this because you've been contemplating trying to work on it yourself, Graham? If you're looking for an extremely unintimidating way to dip your toe into learning Latin, or know others who are, I know that some adults have found our primers to be a good place to get started, even though they were created for a younger audience. And there are a gazillion programs out there, many of which I'm familiar with to some extent, and many of them are very good. It depends on what sort of approach you're looking for. I would group the different types of approach into memory-oriented ones, reading-oriented ones and analytic-grammatically-oriented ones. I could talk more offline about it; or wait, we're already in OT, so I guess there's no harm in discussing it here, if you want. Or perhaps it would be most appropriate to start a thread in the References/ Reviews section discussing the merits of different Latin programs? 
 
Aaron

05-24-2004, 01:37 PM

Since you are in education and I am contemplating a career in that area feel free to email me and we can talk through there about the educational system in the US. [email protected]

05-25-2004, 08:03 AM

Graham, 
 
I'm doing Latin as part of my History BA. However, it is fairly basic, practicle stuff, something of a beginner's course. In fact it is English medieval, rather than classical Latin, and is purely based around translating into English. Still, it's a start. I would have done proper Latin at school, but they stopped doing the course the year before I moved to the school. 
 
The exam went OK, but there was an awful lot to do in two hours. 
 
As for self learning, I suppose that it is possible, but some sort of pre-prepared course would be useful, otherwise how would you know when you were wrong? 
 
Carus

Gashford · 05-25-2004, 09:22 AM

I am giong to try and just learn pigeon latin at the moment, something that will enable me to understand the jest of more complex writing and hopefully most of simpler writing such as grave stones etc ... 
 
Aaron, I bought the Oxford Latin primer course and found that I can understand that, however I would be very interested in what you have. Perhaps as we look through what is available you would consider doing a write up on your most and least favourite courses for the reviews section, as I can't imagine I am the first person on RAT wanting to have a stab at this ... 
 
All the best Graham Ashford
<hr />
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05-25-2004, 01:52 PM

Well, I would say that the key is to not be in too much of a rush, but to work at it steadily and faithfully. It's much better to work a few minutes a day than hours at a time but very infrequently. 
 
The Oxford course is a fine program, which I highly recomend. It approaches things from a reading-oriented angle. Ours takes a more memory-oriented approach; the two approaches are not necessarily incompatible, and, depending on how you want to approach the study, the two could actually be used together at the same time (which I recomend for some of the homeschoolers who ask my advice, especially if their students are a little older than our original target audience) or our approach could be used as a prelude. (In our school, we do our three primers in grades 3-5 and the three levels of the Oxford in grades 6-8.) Ours is called Latin for Children, btw, and you can check it out on our website, classicalacademicpress.com. The one thing that LFC might help with is a more incremental introduction to the Latin grammar (Oxford's learning curve can be steep in certain places, especially in the end of book 2 and the beginning of book 3, in my experience.) Vocabulary sequencing would be an interesting question, but the overlap is considerable; I suspect that they were drawing from similar types of frequency lists. (We also studied and compared the vocab lists of Oxford I, Ecce Romani I and Wheelock and included many of the words that tended to show up in them even if they weren't on our frequency lists.) 
 
If you do decide to pick up LFC (you can get it right off the website) feel free to share any critiques or criticisms you have; we're very committed to continuing improvement. 
 
And sure, I'd be happy to put in some reviews in that section, and if there's any that someone especially wants a review of, I'd be happy to review it first. And since there are other Latin teachers at various levels, there should be plenty of opportunity to hear multiple opinions. 
 
Aaron

Gashford · 05-26-2004, 08:53 AM

Aaron 
 
Sounds great, I will take a look at the website in a moment, I am at work currently. But thanks for the advice. 
 
Incidently, if you have any reports I run a reviews section on the website www.ludus.org.uk in the research section. If you want the droppped on there just drop me a note, I am about to do a big update on there for the reviews. 
 
All the best 
 
Graham Ashford
<hr />
[url=http://www.ludus.org.uk" target="_new]Ludus Gladiatorius[/url] 
[url=http://pub156.ezboard.com/bromancombatsports" target="_new]Roman Combat Sports Forum[/url] 
[url=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk" target="_new]Roman Army Talk Forum[/url] 
[url=http://pub27.ezboard.com/bromancivtalk" target="_new]Roman Civilian Talk Forum[/url]

05-26-2004, 12:17 PM

Sounds good. I suppose its only fair to avoid reviewing any direct competitors on a board, but I'm very familiar with many secondary/ college (usually reading-based) programs that I don't see as direct competitors. If you want to contact me directly, you could send me a message at my hotmail account, [email protected] . or the press account from the website (though I check the hotmail account more often, since I can access it anywhere). Now back to work myself: time to finish making the Latin finals for my two Oxford-program classes (7th and 8th grades) in fact... 
 
Aaron

06-03-2004, 01:49 PM

HOMO SAPIENS NON VRINAT IN VENTvM 
 
M.VIB.M. 
V COH II 
LEGIO X GEMINA 
EX GER INF

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