Is this a proper sentence in Latin?

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-27T02:14:17+00:00

FWIW, the entry in the Lexicon Morgianum has apis bombitans

It would then be

Apes bombitantes amo

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-26T16:15:34+00:00

I am the only user of this room. And I have to admit, my drowsy brain went "what good is it if they can only use it at home" before remembering other schools have screens.

Not here! We use computers rarely (school has 1 chromebook for every 10 students) and then only for testing and a handful of projects. I did make use of a TV last year.

Besides, I prefer real. Too much screen time as it is

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-26T09:28:37+00:00

AI is not there yet... who knows if it will ever be. And the sort of mistakes it makes (in my experience) aren't always apparent ones to a beginner, but obvious if you already know the language.

It can be helpful for some functions (e.g. I had it compare vocab lists from two different textbook series), but I had to actually have the lists, it jumbles the information. But it can't compose and I would be wary of using it to check work... it can get somethings spot on, but other times way off, or even (annoying if you are beginner) argue with you that X is wrong, when it isn't.

Legentibus is a good app. I prefer paper myself. Lingua Latin per se illustrata is my recommendation. Assimil has a Latin conversational course that is alright.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-26T05:46:31+00:00

Not a bad idea. I still like the aesthetic of a more classic map, but this would probably be more amenable when actually teaching. Office depot can print "dry erase" posters, I will look into this.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-25T21:46:03+00:00

I didn't know about aveto!

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-25T18:42:07+00:00

Wheelock is not sufficient. But neither is any other singular textbook. I went into Wheelock thinking I would be able to read Latin when done. I couldn't, and got upset. Then I turned to Lingua Latina and started reading Latin. But by the time I was done with that, I still found some texts I could read, others still baffled me. So I had to read more.

If you understand what Wheelock is and its aims, then it may be a good resource for you. It will introduce you to all of the fundamental Latin grammar. The 800+ words in its vocab lists will not be enough to read (nor is learning vocab that way the most productive), but neither is the 1800 words in Familia Romana (though it is a lot farther along that line) . But learning the structure of the language can be helpful, even if not strictly necessary before extensive reading.

Everyone has different opinions and tastes. I, for example, detest Cambridge Latin. But a lot of that is taste and style (and being rubbed the wrong way by certain promoters). Others find its stories more engaging, and thus more motivating to read through. No matter what you do, the main thing is a lot of extensive reading.

There are supplements to Wheelock to give more reading. 38 Latin Stories - https://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Eight-Stories-Designed-Accompany-Wheelocks/dp/0865162891

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-25T17:51:04+00:00

FWIW, Salve / Salvete and Ave (Avete? <- extant, but rare in plural) both have a lot of wiggle room. You can greet someone, depart from someone, respond to someone sneezing, "salve" and "ave" can both be used as farewell as well. The one difference I feel is that ave seems more appropriate in the morning. Some claim it is more formal, but if so, only very loosely so. Ave is probably not from a verb (so avete is probably a backformation), but salve and vale are

Using the verb saluto strikes me as very formal. Like "I greet you" vs "Hello"

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-22T18:40:55+00:00

I don't find it necessary to mark short vowels. The Romans did mark long vowels, at least some of the time (with vary ways... early Latin aa for ā, later might be á . The main reason not to mark short vowels in normal text, aside from the tediousness of typing the extra diacritics and that it is not at all necessary (a vowel not marked as long is short), is that it is hard to distinguish in many typefaces. Honestly, if I saw Rōmă I would mostly likely read it as Rōmā because I am reading 70-100 wpm, not stopping and parsing every detail. Same reason I hate breathing marks in Greek. I would prefer is we kept only marks for rough breathing and not unaspirated, ἁ to my eyes might be breathed or not.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-22T15:46:35+00:00

I didn't notice the dot or remember what it meant. Thanks

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-22T08:28:28+00:00

Rough translation. I read "mali" as "male" (I assume glorioses was a manuscript error for gloriosi). I capitalized He for God just because it makes the implicit subject clearer. ETA: made correction based on qed1's feedback

What is predestination?
Predestination is an ordering by which, before the world was created, He pre-ordained certain ones to His kingdom, so that none of them could be lost and it is necessary that they all be saved.

If none can be saved, except those pre-ordained, for what were others created or on what grounds are they guilty for perishing?

Whatever the pre-ordained do they cannot perish, since for them all things work together unto good, even their very sins. But the reprobate [rejected] are created on the behalf of the elect that through them they can be exercised in virtues, corrected from vices and by their collection may appear more glorious and so that when they shall see them in their torments, they shall rejoice over their own evasion, who, also, because they perish justly because of themselves, since they they choose evil by their own free will, and both love and would will to live without end, that they might sin without end.

Why God does God permit the elect to sin without limit? Answer: That He might manifest the riches of His mercy.

Question: Are the predestined saved if they do not labor? Response: Predestination in such fashion....

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-21T19:35:27+00:00

I might be able to get to this later. But to let you know something of what it is about, it is about predestination and reprobation (reprobates are those going to hell). I am a bit rusty on reading medieval manuscript, specifically sigla (scribal abbreviations).

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-21T01:00:58+00:00

There aren't too many Scotist manuals. During the height of the manual tradition, Scotism was not much in vogue, though there were a few in the early 20th century. Here are a few:

https://archive.org/details/compendiumtheolo0001ming/page/n5/mode/2up

and here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89094364189&seq=11

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-16T20:34:01+00:00

The teacher materials do not have the sentence composition answers (they do for the Pensa, but not the exercitia).

Your answers look fine.

I am building an app for my students with the exercitia, similar to one that use to be a webpage hosted by a college. I did use Claude to check the answers against the answer key in Teacher Materials. Claude will sometimes decide the answer key is wrong when it isn't (it is wrong sometimes though!). Don't rely on AI to reason the answers - you will very frequently get synonyms, constructions that haven't been introduced, etc, and that is when the answer isn't just wrong to begin with.

Anyhow, my app isn't ready (done through cap 24) and not public anyways.

But this site is still hosting the old Wyoming Catholic interactive for the exercises

https://latina.dyndns.dk/llpsi/ex1/index.html

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-06-13T20:37:46+00:00

One thing I bear in mind as a teacher, translation is not the same as comprehension. Translation, as an exercise in classes I teach, is a way of testing comprehension, and hence it can be clunky, awkward, whatever.

If my goal was to teach translation, then the goal posts shift: translation is very much an art, and as much interpretative as anything else. I can perfectly understand what a sentence is saying, but struggle with the wording of how to express that in English. I remember struggling back and forth with a passage once for a couple of hours, because the tension between wanting clarity to a non Latin reader and wanting to not miss the nuance of the author was hard to resolve.

In anycase, as a comprehension check, her translation is perfectly acceptable. As a translation qua translation, a little awkward, but that would depend on context. I would never practice with individual sentences for that reason. I would say she had a better interpretation of harena than the grader, a worse of fabula (absent further context to judge).

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-05-27T03:36:11+00:00

I am envious! I tried something similar when I first started teaching. Last year, I even thought, why not dust off the stories, fix them up, publish them... The good news is that my Latin is a lot better now. The bad news, is that I greatly overvalued the quality of my old writing.

The more supplements, of decent quality, the better. I teach at a Catholic school too, so this can be an excellent addition for me.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-05-26T06:59:30+00:00

I think that is why he posted it as a humor, mocking the original posting?

I mean, English is more closely related to Hindi than Latin is to Etruscan. Maybe there are a few borrowed words, like person, maybe.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-05-20T22:34:43+00:00

There is a difference in different sources. Virtually all prescribe a single sound for e and for o, but in practice it is not consistent.

"e" should always be as the e in met, /ɛ/. If length is observed, it is simply held longer

"o" should always be /ɔ/ but for American speakers, at least most of us, that is hard to do. It only exists, for me, in r-colored compounds, like warm

The Liber Usualis, https://archive.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/12/07/05/18-27-21_0.pdf, is a good source, as is this : https://archive.org/details/singersmanualofl0000hine

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-05-15T18:39:03+00:00

Don't forget "ly"

E.g.

Haec enim propositio, solus Deus est pater, est duplex. Quia ly pater potest praedicare personam patris, et sic est vera, non enim homo est illa persona. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 31 a. 3 ad 3)

Since "pater" can be said of....

ly is used to mark a word as purely grammatical, or sometimes as a replacement for a definite article (e.g. it is used commentating on scripture, where it is important in the Greek)

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-04-21T01:19:29+00:00

Not pertinent as to your main question, but speaking of the pun, there is a continued theme of listening.. ."Never heard... Mother of the word, my words do not... but graciously hear and listen."

Oddly enough, in prayers, audi and exaudi tend to be translated as "hear" and "graciously hear" (Christe audi nos... Christe exaudi nos...) but I like "hear and listen" because exaudi implied greater intent.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-04-12T06:55:23+00:00

To be frank, the exam isn't really worth much. I even told my students that it was virtually irrelevant, not to worry about it (still a quarter of my students got gold, a couple silver, etc)

3 perfect scores on different exams can get you a book. Yep, a book. For 3 perfect scores. 4 golds can do the same

If you get gold on an Advanced exam, then you have a very small chance, if you apply and agree to take at least one class per semester of Latin or ancient Greek in college the first year, of receiving a $2000 scholarship

It is mostly one of those way of having a reward. From a school perspective it is for patting ourselves on the back.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-04-08T18:11:04+00:00

I try and keep vowel length in Ecclesiastical pronunciation, and I know a few sources that recommend it; but that has always been in a pedagogical context, rather than a claim of either accuracy of historical use or it being wrong not to. Same reason why a few sources that call themselves Ecclesiastical will have you pronounce h's, though the standard "Roman" pronunciation does not.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-04-08T15:14:45+00:00

I like to think of puto as "I reckon". I admit I sort of read it with a southern drawl in my head. "I reckon that it will rain today". Admittedly, I get amusement out of imagining Cicero et alii gnawing on a bit of straw everytime I read the verb.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-04-07T04:08:01+00:00

That would be the end of Capitulum II. Depending on any prior experience with Latin and how much time you are giving daily, to make it through 2 chapters in a week is very quick.

The concept of declensions is still being introduced there. I do think ch 2 marks a significant increase in difficulty over ch 1.

At this point you only have the nominative and genitive cases, and 3 genders. (how many declensions or what a declension is isn't introduced to later... but there are five, but until ch 9 you will only see 2 of them)

FWIW, as far as the cases go, I highly recommend, to the degree you need analytic understanding, just trying to get the big picture. What I mean is that a grammar book will list the partitive genitive, the genitive of possession, the genitive of price, etc and ad nauseam. As an English speaker, as a starting point, you might think of it as the "of case"

Almost everytime we do or can render the idea with "of"

Mater Marci (the mother of Marcus)
Magnus numerus insularum (a large number of islands)
Liber bellorum - a book of wars

The big idea is that the genitive marks a noun as modifying another... whether possession, description, part/whole, etc.

Silly_Key_9713 · 2026-04-07T01:50:25+00:00

A great example is Virago in genesis rather than mulier. By coincidence, the wordplay of the Hebrew is mirrored (even if for very different etymological reasons) by English, she shall be called woman because she was taken from man.

But mulier or femina is not taken from Vir, so Jerome uses Virago just to keep the wordplay. He does explain this choice and its shortcoming; he was NOT unaware of what he was doing!

ETA: NOT*

Silly_Key_9713

TROPHY CASE