First, I know another thread talked about Lingua Latina by Hans H. Ørberg, but that thread included many other topics. This is just about Lingua Latina. [The other thread: http://tinyurl.com/b2f9ft2]
Hoping to revive my Latin, I recently found and bought a CD of Lingua Latina. Some notes:
The CD is for Macs only.
The CD does NOT work on Lion or Mountain Lion.
The CD can NOT be made to work on a newer Mac because newer Macs do not have the hardware to support it.
The CD does work on older Macs running Snow Leopard–barely.
One problem is that navigating the software is very awkward: getting from one page to the next requires typing in the page number and pressing Enter (so far as I was able to discover). But you can jump from chapter to chapter.
Another problem is that there is no way to download or print anything from the software (which so far as I can tell disables PrintScreen). (But you can find the vocabulary for some of the chapters here: Latin Handouts)
The CD includes audio.
The first part of the course consists of 35 chapters, and it certainly lives up to the praise given to it by other LingQ members on the previous thread.
Is it worth backing up your older Mac and reinstalling Snow Leopard? For me it was.
On Windows XP it worked perfectly (for the length of time I used it there, anyway, which was not a long time, as I was just checking to see if it worked at all).
On Windows 7 it originally did not work as intended, after allowing it to be installed (into “\program files (x86)\LLPSI”).
– At that point I decided to manually work through the text and listen to the audio, which is the main value of the course, by opening the audio files (found in a sub-directory ~\FamiliaRomana\latmedia) in a regular audio player application and following along w/ the text (.jpg files in ~\FamiliaRomana\pages) in a graphics application. This was very easy to do and quite satisfactory.
– I suppose one could also run Windows XP on a VM, if that is a possibility for one’s installation, but I have not tried to do so.
To my surprise, I have just re-installed the application and other than a screen resolution mismatch (which I am ignoring), it seems to be working okay. The audio plays just fine (which was my original problem, IIRC) one can advance through the pages by using «ENTER» or «L-Mouse», or go back through the pages by using «R-Mouse», and page up and down in a page graphic using the mouse wheel in the control section (for some reason) at the bottom of the page. Or at least that’s what I have figured out so far. There is a WWW dropdown at the top of the application’s screen that links to a wordpress site, the official LLPSI website support section (how did they know? ;)), which itself is rather buggy (ignore the warnings; at least the programmer had the grace to say that the site is “beta–almost alpha”). Elsewhere on the site, which is definitely a work in progress, there is a list of distributors, under “Buy.”
I haven’t tried printing any part of the course so cannot comment on that, as I have an ancient version of the printed text (which matches the CD quite well). But as the text is provided as .jpg files, it shouldn’t be a problem.
As you say, it is a marvelous course, and well worth buying, even if the software is sub optimal. I’d recommend it for anyone wanting to start learning Latin. For $23 or so (the current amazon.com price), it is a real bargain.
The supplementary materials being offered nowadays are very attractive, too, but I have bought none of them and so cannot comment. I probably will try some of them when again studying Latin full steam, because the Familia Romana CD and book are so good.
For those to whom it makes a difference, the “accent” of the audio is not Ecclesiatical, but rather a mild “restored” accent. I suspect it is the author doing the reading.
Thanks for the great link to the materials on the Latinlibrary site.
@Ernie
I could have been clearer, but mostly what I meant for a reader to take away from my post was the Mac CD will not work on Lion or Mountain Lion and that in spite of the clunky navigation–which quite well could have been user error–the CD is workable.
Nevertheless, after finishing Part I, I gave up on the CD mostly because there is no way to import the material as a private lesson into LingQ except by manual typing. I ordered a hard copy of Part II. The price for the CD was about the same as the price for Part I and Part II together.
donhamiltonx, My post sounded more critical (refutational?) than I intended. Sorry. I agreed w/ you that the CD didn’t really work on Windows properly, except for XP–but then I tried re-installing it, and it worked much better, quite to my surprise. One of the never-ending Windows patches has fixed something, it seems.
I’m really glad you like Lingua Latina. I can see wanting to make a private lesson of it all on Linux. It is too bad there is not a .txt version available. No “kindle” edition, either, so far. I’ll look around. There is this “course”: http://courses.pullins.com/ . Which sounds quite reasonable, although it appears your are beyond its level–and it doesn’t seem to offer .txt, either. (Found here: Lingua Latina per se illustrata series )
BTW, most people don’t seem to agree, but for me typing in a text can be a real learning experience, if I don’t approach it as drudgery. You might give it a try.
@Ernie - My post sounded more critical than I intended.
No, your post was a corrective and needed supplement to my own spare comments. No offense taken.
Thanks to both of you for your helpful comments and suggestions.
Circumstances led me to read Part I of the Lingva Latina CD in five days. Finishing two college classes of Latin (although nearly forty years ago), knowing English and having some proficiency in a Romance language helped me understand Ørberg’s Latin primer better than I expected. I knew or could guess the meanings of many words, and I can now remember the meanings of most of the words I did not know. Not counting all those ugly adverbs and conjunctions, of course!
Proceeding, I plan to learn the core vocabulary of Latin before I go on to anything else (using a list compiled by Dickinson College (http://tinyurl.com/b39gvev)), so I don’t plan to enter Lingva Latina into lingQ. At least not Part I, and I have the hardcopy of Part II on order. While learning the core and after learning the core, I can practice with the many Latin sources that the web has to offer.
Upon further review, I am happy to say that I was wrong in my initial post. I said the CD for Lingua Latina can not work in Mac Lion or Mountain Lion. That is true only technically. The app will not work, but Lingua Latina stores its text files as png images in a directory named pagesfr and the audio for the chapters in a directory named capaudio. The images can be read by any viewer, I suppose, and the audio by any audio player. Better, a viewer can manipulate the images more felicitiously than the app itself.
Hi, donhamiltontx! I hope you’re well. You may find this little video clip interesting: - YouTube , as he’s obviously a big fan of LLPSI. (He does love to throw books around.)
There are actually quite a few video clips about the LLPSI book or course. There is one in which Hans Ørberg’s life is narrated in Latin–which link I can’t find at the moment. I’ll post if if I find it.
One of the things pushing me to work very hard (and relatively quickly) through my Ancient Greek materials is the idea that I have LLPSI waiting for me once I’m ready to move on to Latin. The Reading Greek course is pretty good, but Lingua Latina looks quite amazing. Plus there’s the possibility of using it on Lingq, and the spoken word resources. Latin seems like it will be a walk in the park after Greek.
The young fellow in the clip seems to be rather fluent with his spoken Latin. I know the neoLatin word for Internet is, naturally enought, interrede. I do not know what the Latin is for clutz.
Randy Gibbons, the author of the latinandgreekselftaught blog, clearly gave a lot of time and thought to his learning materials, and he gives many useful thoughts about studying Latin and Greek to his readers. One thing he does leave out, and I feel sure he would benefit from it, is LingQ. He also does not mention Anki, which I reluctantly came to adopt, but to which I am now almost addicted.
Somewhere along the line a couple of years ago I came across Millner, but I think he was using video to teach French. He is engrossed in a labor of love of Latin. For me, though, to get through intermediate Latin, I’m sticking with Lingua Latina (though the material on Comenius and Nepos does intrigue me).
@donhamiltontx I’d be curious to hear how you integrate anki and lingq to study classical languages: my usage of the former has dropped a great deal since discovering this website, to the point that I’m wondering why I still bother with the flashcards. I still use my anki deck to review each chapter’s vocabulary as I progressively work through a grammar-based textbook, but for everything else, I find the context-driven cloze tests here on lingq far superior.
Or do you regularly import your lingq words into anki? I haven’t looked that closely, but it seems that the system here is keeping track (I hope!) of what I get right and wrong and modifying the list of words I need to study accordingly (à la SRS). But is there some other advantage you find with anki?
Here is the video I mentioned above, about Hans Ørberg’s life, narrated in Latin: Vitae et Scholae - De vita et methodo Iohannis H. Ørbergii - YouTube . The intro is amusing, and the whole biography is extremely interesting (from what I recall). Besides the biography, there is a selection of clips demonstrating or discussing the “natural method.”
gregf > One of the things pushing me to work very hard (and relatively quickly) through my Ancient Greek materials is the idea that I have LLPSI waiting for me once I’m ready to move on to Latin.
A “Greek Ørberg”; It is said that Luigi Miraglia has re-edited the Athenaze textbook to be much more like Lingua Latina per Se Illustrata" in its approach I haven’t seen it, but I have heard that it is quite good. The only places it seems to be for sale are in Italy, e.g., http://www.vivariumnovum.it/edizioni/index.php/Greco.html and http://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/c_power_search.php?shelf=BIT&q=Athenaze&submit_search_top= . Luigi Miraglia runs the Vivarium Novum, a school for teaching classical languages. Here is a sample of his teaching approach: IN CONCLAVI SCHOLARI - linguae , and this set of recordings has plenty of good material; I especially like Wilfried Stroh: vivariumnovum - YouTube , but I have not viewed all of these. There is also a large selection of classical Latin on the site, too, labeled Audiolibri.
Sorry, donhamiltontx if I wandered a bit far from Lingua Latina per Se Illustrata, there.
@Ernie “Here is the video I mentioned above . . .”
Thank you for this video, Ernie. Everything Midas touched turned to gold; everything Ørberg touched turned to Latin.
@Ernie “Sorry”
It’s hard to know exactly where to put the resources and information we are finding. It’s also hard to know how to get this information to members who do not know English.
Watching the video, I saw in the suggestions column another video by Deka Glossai, “Audio Resources for Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit.” There is a followup video, too, “More Greek and Latin Resources.” For those needing more audio sources, both are worth watching. (The suggestions column also led to a funny parody by Carol Burnett and company of Star Trek, but that’s a story–perhaps in Latin or Greek–for another day.)
As Deka Glossai notes, the iTunes store has a bit of Herodotus read in Ancient Greek. Look for “Grek101_2007: Herodotus and Lyric Poetry (Natural Speed).”
Speaking of Deka Glossai, he made a very recent blog post on YouTube ( - YouTube ) in which he says, “Ut fortasse iam scitis, officio interpretes ad conclave et . . . nuntiationem et electionem et benedictionem primam novi Papae Fransisci cum CBS News functus sum.” [“As perhaps you already know, I carried out the office of interpreter with CBS News at the conclave and announcement and election and first benediction of the new pope, Francis,” in case there is anyone coming upon this thread who may not read Latin.]
Is that true, does either of you know? And is there perhaps somewhere on the www where that and the other function he next mentions, missa installationis, with him serving as an interpreter, might be viewable? . . . Hmm, I’ve found the “Vatican Player,” but so far not the broadcast of the Mass. http://www.vatican.va/video/index.html . Any help would be great, although I probably won’t watch much of it at this point (so please don’t put yourselves out). The question about CBS News is prob. more interesting to me.
Attonitus sum ! @gregf
Good job in scouting this out.
Did either of you see in the YouTube suggestions column another of his videos called “Steve Kaufman and Cyclic Learning”? The url is
He has never been a member of LingQ, but he gives glowing praise to Steve and Steve’s methods.
We should ask Steve in the “Ask Steve Forum” if he knows this guy. (I searched the LingQ Forum for “glossai” and for “deka” and came up with nothing).
gregf, since you are the one who discovered Deka Glossai’s interpreter work for CBS, you should have the honor of asking the question, if you want it.
If you’re not familiar with Logos, I would highly recommend people interested in doing a lot of reading in Greek and Latin to check out their Noet packages http://noet.com/products/ : they come with the entire Perseus Collection in both Greek and Latin, and have very good dictionaries (LSJ, Middel Liddel, etc.)
NB: I don’t work for them, but I find their flagship product has dramatically increased my reading speed, in so far as I have access to morphologically tagged texts and really good dictionaries within a few clicks. I’ve held off buying the print books because I want to have access to them through Logos…
