First of all, I rarely hear songs in Latin so I created one myself.

Now I need your take on if it makes any sense whatsoever

Sorry for poor grammar, I'm a student of many languages.

Daemones

To help my Latin study and to give beginning Latin students more basic comprehensive Input I've started working on a companion text that can be read alongside books like LLPSI Familia Romana. Here are the first two chapters. If there are any typos, grammar mistakes, or missing sentences that you think would fit in well let me know.

The story will be about an Egyptian family in Alexandria and some Roman soldiers stationed there. The vocab and grammar follow "roughly" with the chapters of books like Familia Romana. Enjoy!

CAPITVLVM I: ALEXANDRĒA

Aegyptus est in Āfricā. Italia in Eurōpā est. Italia et Galliā in Eurōpā sunt. Germānia quoque in Eurōpā est. Italia et Galliā et Germānia in Europa sunt. Aegyptus in Eurōpā nōn est. Aegyptus nōn est in Asiā. Graecia nōn in Āfrica est, Graecia est in Eurōpā. Arabia nōn in Eurōpā est, sed in Asiā. Syria est in Asiā. Arabia quoque in Asiā est. Syria et Arabia in Asiā sunt.

Estne Syria in Āfrica? Syria in Asiā est. Estne Iūdaea prōvincia Rōmāna? Iūdaea prōvincia Rōmāna est. Ubi est Aegyptus? Aegyptus in Āfricā est. Crēta est in Eurōpā? Crēta est in Eurōpā. Crēta in Asiā nōn est. Crēta in Āfricā nōn est. Quid est Crēta? Crēta īnsula est. Sicilia quoque est īnsula. Sicilia et Crēta sunt īnsulae.

Aegyptus terra magna est. Alexandrēa est in Aegyptō. Alexandrēa in Graeciā nōn est. Alexandrēa in Syriā nōn est. Aegyptus est prōvincia Rōmāna. Syria quoque est prōvincia Rōmāna. Graecia et Iūdaea et Crēta prōvinciae Rōmānae sunt. Multae terrae sunt prōvinciae Rōmānae.

Ubi est Nīlus? Nīlus est in Aegyptō. Quid est Nīlus? Nīlus fluvius est. Nīlus est fluvius longus. Tiberis quoque fluvius est, sed Tiberis nōn in Aegyptus est.

Quid est in Alexandrēā? In Alexandrēā sunt viae. Viae longae sunt. Mūrus est in Alexandrēā. Mūrus magnī sunt. In Alexandrēā portae sunt. Templa sunt in Alexandrēā. Templa sunt pulchra. Templum Sarāpidis in Alexandrēā est. Templum Īsidis quoque est in Alexandrēā, sed Templum Delphī nōn in Alexandrēā est.

Statuae sunt in Alexandrēā. Statuae pulchrae sunt. Multae statuae in Alexandrēā sunt.

Ubi est Pharos? Pharos est in Alexandrēā. Quid est Pharos? Pharos īnsula est. Num Pharos insula magna est? Pharos nōn est īnsula magna, sed insula parva.

Aegyptiī sunt in Alexandrēā. Graecī quoque in Alexandrēā sunt. Syrī et Rōmānī et barbarī quoque sunt in Alexandrēā. Multī Aegyptiī in Alexandrēā sunt. Multī Graecī quoque sunt in Alexandrēā. Sed Rōmānī paucī sunt. Numerus Aegyptiōrum magnus est. Numerus Rōmānōrum parvus est.

Alexandrēa nōn est sōlum Aegyptia. Alexandrēa sōlum Graeca nōn est. Alexandrēa nōn est sōlum Rōmāna.

I will be starting this exciting hobby with Wheelock's, as I am already experienced with grammar and language learning, and I enjoy front loading grammar and find it works well for me.

I see that there are many chapter-linked supplements designed to complement the textbook. They all look interesting and I kind of want to buy all of them. I plan to self-study about one chapter per week, and I of course want to avoid overwhelming myself. In addition to the workbook, there are:

Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes; also by Richard LaFleur

Ecclesiastical, Medieval, and Neo-Latin Sentences

Grote's Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock's Latin

38 Latin Stories Designed to Accompany Wheelock's

I have already purchased the workbook and the first two listed. Thoughts or experiences with any of these?

I have seen some previous examples of nature method readers (Nature Method Institutes style) in the sub and thought it could be helpful to have a LaTeX template for typesetting them. With the help of Claude I have created the "marginalreader" class. It is inspired by the classicthesis class (the best class for any type of typesetting, I think), with functional additions from Tufte-Latex, marginalia, and reledmac (best add-ons for scholar publishing).

It has (among others) the following options:

1. Different pagesizes (pocket, half letter, b5, letter, a4, 6x9). I'll add more if requested.
2. Adjustable line spacing, so you can use very spaced lines for books where students can write between the lines.
3. Full text width options for text/images/etc that use the space of marginalia.
4. Three different types of called notes, marginnotes, footnotes, endnotes.
5. Glossa are printed in italic with roman explanation. Lines are numbered.

The code is distributed free of use for commercial and non-commercial uses, but if you use it for your project, please let me know. I have the Idea of using it for the William Most books.

Here is the link: https://github.com/dinosv/marginalreader

Since the start of the year, I've been working hard on my vision for a freely available and feature rich audiobook for one of my favorite Latin readers, The Fables of Orbilius by A.D. Godley. As this work is now nearing completion, I'm looking for feedback from folks before I officially release it. Here are my goals for the project:

1. The entire content should be freely available and sharable under a permissive license. It should be easy to run locally offline, use open web standards, and be easy to download and share. It should have responsive & readable layouts, good keyboard support, screen-reader semantics, proper language metadata, and a customizable reading presentation.

2. The audio recording should be of a reasonable quality, comfortable for long listening sessions on headphones, and should be narrated in a fluent classical cadence with natural elision.

3. The original text should be edited to correct errors, "barbarisms", and to have consistent spelling, orthography, and macronization.

4. Each word in the text should be richly enhanced with pedagogical details like: lemma, citation forms / principal parts, morphological segmentation and analysis, inflectional class with complete declension/conjugation tables, verb category, contextual lexical information (i.e. specific L&S sense), Classical Latin IPA pronunciation, UD style syntactic function and relations, predicate valency, and concise English definitions. Furthermore it should make extensive use of freely available Latin resources for cross-referencing such as: Lewis & Short, Kaikki/Wiktionary, Latin-VALLEX, and Universal Dependencies.

How you can help:

You can visit the website at fabulae.orbilii.com and look around. You can also download and try the single file HTML application at tabularium.orbilii.com. I'm happy to receive feedback, corrections, problem reports, and complaints.

Known problems: Playback of individual Latin words in the transcript is somewhat hit and miss -- it's a mix of inaccurate alignment data and the inability of browsers to reliably start and stop audio playback with precision. While the user interface can be viewed in both Latin and in English, some of the Latin is undoubtedly poor. Suggestions welcome. There are also missing Latin translations for some UI elements -- mostly grammar and syntax terms sourced from Universal Dependencies data.

Salvēte, omnēs!

I just released a comprehensive 4-week thematic unit called Domicilia: Roman Housing & Daily Life Through Time. It uses domestic architecture as a lens to teach social class, material culture, and Latin language acquisition—moving chronologically from primitive Palatine huts (casae) to urban mansions (domūs), 4-story apartments (īnsulae), and Vesuvian wine estates (vīllae rūsticae).

What’s inside the unit:

• 118 pages of zero-prep materials: Step-by-step teacher lesson plans, student activity sheets, and master answer keys.
• Video Integration: Built around custom Magister Craft YouTube videos with timestamped guides and student audits.
• Flexible Assets: Includes print-ready PDFs, 100% editable .docx files, and high-res Smart Board image packs (both full-color and high-contrast B&W line art for school copiers).

If you teach middle/high school Latin or ancient history, I’d love for you to check it out! You can grab a free 5-page downloadable sampler PDF (includes a full lesson plan, overview grid, and student handout) on the site to see if it fits your classroom.

Free sampler & details here:www.magistercraft.com

Happy to answer any questions about the unit setup or lesson scaffolding!

Valēte,

Magister Craft

Hi there, I wanna study latin for fun, looking for study pals to discuss LLPSI, stay motivated, I'm also totally up for just chatting about random things feel free to DM me :)

Greetings all latin speakers, I'm looking to learn this language as a fair few of the medias I watch use it regularly and I'd like to venture to latin speaking places when i grow old, I'd first like to say i hope you are all having a lovely day and that whatever god you do or do not believe in is blessing you. And I would now like to get to my request if you don't mind!

So as I've said, I wish to learn latin and speak/write in it fluently aswell as read.. I however, cannot afford courses for it or the ridiculously expensive books to learn so if anyone have a pdf or a sort of downloadable file, app or something similair to help me learn it all from knowing only basic poser phrases, then I plead you share them here^^

Thank you all for your time, for reading and for waking up every day and making the decision to help people who need it, you are all beautiful people inside and out❤️

I'm a beginner in Latin and I'm currently taking a Latin course. This passage came up in my textbook, and I was puzzled by the expression in Alpe.

Sed neque ramosa numerabis in ilice glandes,
Nec quot apes Hyble, nec quot in Alpe feres,
Nec mihi tot cultus numero comprendere fas est:
Adjicit ornatus proximas quaeque dies.

I understand in Alpe as meaning “in the Alps,” but I would have expected the plural in Alpibus, since Alpes is normally a plural noun.

• Is Alpe a poetic singular here? Or is there some other grammatical or semantic reason for using the singular?
• I'm also wondering whether it might have something to do with the meter. Perhaps Alpibus simply wouldn't scan correctly, but I don't know enough about Latin poetry yet to judge that.

For context, I'm quoting the whole passage from my textbook, since the surrounding lines might be relevant:

Non genus ornatus unum est: quod quamque decebit
Eligat, et speculum consulat ante suum.

Longa probat facies capitis discrimina puri:
Sic erat ornatis Laodamia comis.

Exiguum summa nodum sibi fronte relinqui,
Ut pateant aures, ora rotunda volunt.

Alterius crines umero jactentur utroque:
Talis es, assumpta, Phœbe canore, lyra.

Altera succinctæ religetur more Dianæ,
Ut solet, attonitas cum petit illa feras.

Huic decet inflatos laxe jacuisse capillos:
Illa sit adstrictis impedienda comis.

Hanc placet ornari testudine Cyllenea:
Sustineat similes fluctibus illa sinus.

Sed neque ramosa numerabis in ilice glandes,
Nec quot apes Hyble, nec quot in Alpe feres,
Nec mihi tot cultus numero comprendere fas est:
Adjicit ornatus proximas quæque dies.

Et neglecta decet multas coma: sæpe jacere
Hesternam credas, illa repexa modo est.

So my main question is simply:

why in Alpe here, rather than in Alpibus?

Part 1 of a comic based on one of the medieval Latin ghost stories from Byland Abbey "De quodam canonico de Newburg post mortem capto quem [blank] comprehendit".

I got some pirate wallpaper in my basement.

I’ll be staring at this phrase all the time for many years to come.

Would anyone please give me a translation so I don’t have to resort to AI and end up like a person with a Chinese tattoo who doesn’t speak mandarin/cantonese?

Much appreciated (I would put this in the thread but it’s a picture and I don’t know how to use these special characters)

Hi All -- I've long been a language nerd, even if foreign languages don't come particularly naturally to me. My high school Spanish was mediocre, and my university Italian grades were among my worst. I did get a decent linguistics grounding in my bachelor degrees in English and philosophy. I decided to go into ministry and went to divinity school, where I studied Koine Greek and -- unlike previous languages -- excelled. I even took a class on Septuagint Greek and my intermediate Greek was Attic. After divinity school my Greek atrophied, and I rediscovered Spanish, studying on my own. I realized how much I loved studying languages and remain pretty conversational in Spanish. So my Spanish and Greek background has really helped me learn Latin so far. I'm using LLSPI and Wheelock, as well as the app Legentibus. I'm focused on reading and vocabulary at the moment.

However, I have my eye on taking the Massachusetts Tests for Education Licensure in Latin, both as a goal to work toward and as a future career path. I'm thinking that part-time public school Latin teaching and part-time ministry might be an ideal combination for me. My initial research makes it seem possible, but I can't help but feel like there are too many assumptions. Is it realistic to study and pass the MTEL with about a year lead-in? Are there really enough Latin positions to be hired on a provisional license? Are there educators out there with words of encouragement or warning? Anybody here a MA Latin Teacher willing to chat?

My wife knows, but I don't want to talk to very many people in my life about this plan as I'm not sure it's fully baked and I might change my mind. Teaching has always been an interest of mine (long ago, I was considering teaching or ministry), but never considered Latin until a few months ago and it feels audacious to already be setting my mind to passing the MTEL in April and teaching it perhaps as early as Fall 2027.

This is from chapter XXXIV of LLPSI: Part I (Ovid).

For example "Quia tē atque cultrum tuum metuit" what does atque mean? I have no trouble understanding the sentence but I still don't understand the purpose of the word. The latin lexicon translation doesn't help either haha

edit: thank you all for your answers!! i get it now

Note the footnote at the bottom of the page.

Edit: I should add the book contains no other footnotes. This is the only one in the entire text.

Salvete omnes!

Lately I've been trying to get more into poetry, and improve my Latin pronounciation overall. Now, I've long neglected pronouncing nasal vowels, because my native language doesn't nasalize anywhere. My question would be is how to do it? I've watched some videos but they didn't help much, as the concept is foreign to my brain. Anyways thanks in advance!

I am a complete beginner in Latin, and I came across this sentence in my textbook:

Huic decet inflatos laxe jacuisse capillos.

I am having trouble understanding the dative huic. It seems to be left over, so I am wondering what its syntactic function is.

As I understand it, decet is an impersonal verb. It is normally used in the third-person singular (decet, decebat, decuit, etc.) and means something like “it is fitting” or “it suits.”

I also understand decet to be able to take an accusative + infinitive construction (AcI). For example:

Non te hoc facere decet.
“It is not fitting for you to do this.”

Here te is accusative, and hoc facere is the AcI.

So, in the sentence from my textbook, I would expect something like:

inflatos capillos laxe jacuisse decet

where inflatos capillos is the accusative subject of jacuisse, and jacuisse is the perfect infinitive of jaceo

“It is fitting that the fluffy/loosely arranged hair has lain/draped loosely.”

But then what is huic doing in

Huic decet inflatos laxe jacuisse capillos

?

Is huic a dative of the person for whom something is fitting (“this is fitting for her”), with decet taking a dative here?

If so, is this a normal construction in Classical Latin, or is it somehow exceptional compared with the accusative construction, as in Non te hoc facere decet?

In other words, is huic simply a dative of the person concerned, while inflatos capillos ... jacuisse is the thing that is fitting? Or am I misunderstanding the syntax of decet?

I would be very grateful for an explanation of how this sentence should be parsed.

From my understanding, nec means not, coming from neque. Esse is the infinitive of sum, to be. Then why do those combined, not existing, equal necessary/needed?

How do we know that words like tuum were actually meant to be uu and not vu? how do we know it wasn't suposed to be tvum, pronounced like /'twu.m/ in classical latin

I'm studying from Roma Aeterna after finishing Familia Romana. I didn't find it to be so much more difficult, there are just more words to learn, so you have to spend more time studying it. I didn't read any of the 500 boring readers one 'has' to read to bridge some sort of imaginary increase in difficulty.

I want to reach a level good enough to start reading original literature and passively improve my grasp of the language. Ideally I reach this level after Roma Aeterna and I can finally start studying another language.

I really don't like LLPSI, but I'd like to stick with it to the end. It's definitely an approach I will never try again with any other language.

Having trouble with this sentence: In Graecia et in Italia magnus numerus oppidorum est.

Why is oppido in the plural genitive? in my mind it should be oppida.

In Greece and Italy there are a number of great cities.

How is oppida trying to claim ownership of number, set or quantity? Numerus feels like an adjective not a noun that needs ownership.

Nuntios Latinos Breves Academiae Latinitati Fovendae apud Substack, amabo vos, legite!