I was wondering what you think about this—do you consider Latin a difficult language to learn in general? Let’s say, aiming for a solid B2 level (even if the CEFR scale isn’t officially used for Latin).
How long do you think it might take using LingQ, for example, if studying around 15 minutes a day? Would that kind of time investment make sense, or is it too little to expect steady progress?
idk, but ta long ass time
I’d assume it would take you as long as any other language, with the typical factors counting in. So basically as long as Spanish, French or any other Roman Language would take you. Well, an additional constraint is that it is a dead language, so you will have some restrictions in regards to content. And the historical material you may find covers several centuries, I assume, and I can only guess to which degree the language has changed over the course of that time.
I had Latin in school and never got into it, but maybe because I didn’t saw any use in learning it. And it is more on the grammar heavy side, I’d say. You have conjugation, declination (3 genders, well, actually 5 as there are 3 versions of neuter), a different word order (SOV, don’t know if that bothers you, but as some people seem to experience this as a hurdle).
Have fun 
I was quite good at Latin at school and wanted to brush up my Latin skills with LingQ a few years ago. I also tried it with about 15 min a day, but it wasn’t enough to make progress that felt like progress.
The problem was also that Latin had the lowest priority in my life, so it was the first thing I skipped when I had to, which was not a good attitude to have.
The question is probably: do you have a good reason to learn Latin?
If not, then maybe it’s not a good investment of your precious time.
15 min a day for a few months is fine to establish a habit/routine. But after that, it’s better to increase the daily time you spend on Latin.
Good luck,
Peter
Thank you guys, and nice to see you Peter.
I might have a good reason to learn Latin, but it’s not a priority for me right now. I’m mostly trying to understand how much daily time investment would be needed. Ideally, I’d want to keep it casual at the beginning—something I can sustain over a longer period without it weighing too heavily on my mind.
I’m also a bit unsure whether 15 minutes a day would really be enough.
The good news is that I wouldn’t need to write in Latin or use it for real-time conversations. My focus would mostly be on reading and maybe some audio comprehension. Even though it’s a dead language, that wouldn’t be a problem in this case. Since my foundation is in Italian, I often find myself understanding parts of Latin already—at least randomly.
I also assume the vocabulary hasn’t expanded much over time, and in any case, I’d be focusing on older texts.
LingQ could be perfect, since it would be almost entirely input-based.
Actually, now that I think about it—does LingQ also use AI-generated audio for Latin?
Thanks. I definitely cannot dedicate so much time for this right now.
Maybe once I get C2+ with English, I can start Latin with more dedication. I was wondering if in the meantime, just building some vocabulary by casual reading could be useful or not.
Considering that, yes, English is around 57-60% similarity, but Italian in 89% like French, and Spanish is 82%. And I know all these languages. Pronunciation wouldn’t be a problem.
The grammar cases, instead, would be a nightmare, but I don’t think too much about it just for reading comprehension!
In my opinion, Latin is not much harder for English-speaker than a Slavic language. So go for it!
Maybe 15 minutes per day for several years might get you there, as your mother tongue is Italian and you know other Romance languages, but as @PeterBormann said, as the progress would be slow, it won’t really feel like you are actually making progress (so you’ll potentially face motivational issues). As you are only focusing on reading, not speaking, writing, or listening the bar is definitely lower though.
Though, as Peter mentioned, if you aren’t super motivated about it, language learning takes up a lot of your precious time, so it’s worth considering. Dabbling for a few weeks might be worth trying just for fun to see if you like it first.
If you are instead interested in reading the classics as opposed to directly learning Latin, you could just read further back in history of the Romance languages you already know and you’ll start to pick up more and more structures and words which exist in Latin. Though, if Latin is the true goal, as opposed to reading the classics, it would wouldn’t be an efficient way to reach it.
It looks like ChatGPT also knows written (esp. classical) Latin.
This could be useful for translations, explanations, stylistic and grammatical questions.
Thanks @nfera. I’ll definitely think about it, more carefully, in the future. It seems to me that I thought it was a lot easier than what it is in reality, and that I need to better understand the value of allocating a serious amount of time and engagement with the language. It’s something I really wanted to do in high school and never could.
That’s something I forgot about. It’s awesome. If only Whisper could also produce the audio, that would be fantastic.
This was chatGPT answer:
Yes, I do know Latin! I was trained on a lot of Latin texts — from classical authors like Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid to later ecclesiastical Latin and even some Medieval usage. I can read and translate Latin quite fluently, especially written Latin. I’m not perfect (nobody really is with a dead language), but I can definitely help with translations, grammar, poetic structure, and even translating Latin into multiple modern languages or vice versa.
So, if you’ve got a Latin phrase, a sentence, or even a whole poem — bring it on! Want to see it in French, Spanish, Italian, or something else? I can do that too.
Hi Davide,
TTS for (classical) Latin is an interesting AI use case.
Here is ChatGP4o’s answer to my question about how we can create an AI voice for Caesar’s “De Bello Galico”.
Q: Can modern TTS systems, like eSpeak or ElevenLabs, read Caesar’s De Bello Gallico in “classical” Latin – with the historically correct hard pronunciation (e.g., Caesar pronounced Keisar)?
A:
Yes – in theory, yes; in practice, with limitations.
1. eSpeak NG – phonetically accurate, but robotic
What works:
Downside:
Use case: Great for educational purposes, like practicing authentic pronunciation.
You can run it locally with something like:
bash
KopierenBearbeiten
espeak -v la "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres."
2. ElevenLabs or Murf.ai – natural-sounding, but not truly classical
Issue: These platforms do not officially support Latin.
When you input Latin, their models fall back to English or Italian phonetics:
Workarounds:
Hybrid Option (for tinkerers)You could:
Want a sample?I can:
OpenAI should probably ask the Vatican if they can spare a bit of time to talk with their AI in Latin. They kept it alive until today, and they come from different countries as well. This would probably help with a lot of things, including pronunciation.
As usual, you always add lots of different interesting stuff. 
I don’t find Latin to be a difficult language. I believe it can be easy for those who speak Spanish. However, while it may seem easy to some, it might not be easy for everyone. Since I don’t speak Latin, I can’t fully understand it. Ultimately, it’s important to pursue what makes you happy.