Chinese 101 and Conversational Latin

I got Chinese 101 (from the travel linguist) in the mail today. Basically, it's a 3-part DVD: in part 1, they give you each word at normal pace, and slowly, with an opportunity to repeat; in part 2, they give you the word; in part 3 you have to come up with it yourself. As language learning systems go, it's neither the best nor the most sophisticated. But it's inexpensive ($19.99) and has one great feature: its brevity. This program teaches a little over 100 words and phrases. And unlike, say, Instant Chinese (by Boye de la Mente), with 100 categories, this is really around 100 words and phrases. That is, if you really want to learn just a few words of Chinese for basic communication, they're here, picked out and demonstrated. You even get a little sheet listing them. If you want to learn more Chinese words, there's an accompanying CD-ROM that they call SpeakMore Chinese, but which is really just a re-packaging of the Before You Know It program (found at byki.com). Bottom line: If you want to become proficient in a language, this is not your program. But if you want a few words - total, or to get started - this isn't a bad deal.

Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency. This is a fairly reputable publication from Bolchazy-Carducci, your premier source for Latin and Slovak (their blog is linked at left). I'd love to do a review, but I haven't gotten the book, just a mailing with a special offer for the paperback with audio. For those checking out my language goals, Latin isn't a priority right now. (Neither is Chinese, but I feel guilty about how much I've lost.) However, I'll track down the paperback in due course. After all, I've whined more than once about the need for resources that teach Latin as a language to use and enjoy, not just translate, and if this may be it.

Latin dying?

I'd thought it already dead, but Omniglot reports that the Papal Latinist, Father Reginald Foster, fears that it is dying. Notes the Omniglot, while Latin is still taught in Italian schools, the methodology leaves something to be desired. He would like it to be taught like any living language.

Hear, hear!

Her waes Eadward gehalgod to cinge...

One of the frustrating things about learning dead languages is that there isn't good material to, well, bring them alive. There is no Pimsleur Latin, no Michel Thomas Sanskrit. There is a Talk-Now Latin, but it doesn't really get you talking Latin now. Which is a shame. Virgil and Homer would be a lot more exciting if you could listen with the ear of an ancient, forgetting about scansion and declensions and just letting the story pulse in your mind.

While I have yet to run across any books that really get you jabbering in ancient languages, there are three nice books for engaging the past, and I thought I'd make mention.

The first of these is Assimil's Le Latin sans peine. This book does do some simple Latin conversation and by the time you're done you're reading both serious ancient texts and some relatively lighter fare. I hope one day to find the time to go through it properly and maybe finish by actually speaking Latin.

The second is Teach Yourself Beginners' Latin. In this book, you read about the adventures of Paulus and Lucia as they uncover a sinister plot involving the local monastery. The bits with the donkey are funny, and when you're done, you can work through basic Latin prose and have deciphered some short but more complicated passages. If you want to have fun learning a little Latin, this is a great book.

Our third entry is a new Teach Yourself book, TY Old English. I hope that its author will get the chance to write a Beginners' Old English on the TY Beg. Latin, though I'm doubtful. Still, this book allows you to engage Old English. It offers multiple approaches to thinking about and getting things out of Old English texts. It offers cultural context that is sorely needed for such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. And, most delightfully, it is attuned to getting you to learn to work with Old English. Older books on Anglo-Saxon and Old English tend to be dreary grammars for philologists to leaf through and go a-ha when they notice a footnote to Table 7 that reminds them of an unusual vowel mutation is a certain vocabulary item in Old Norse. Other and more recent introductions seem geared to helping you through a key text or two but without getting a feel for Old English. The sense I get from this book is that, like TY Beg. Latin, when you're done, you won't actually know the language, but you will have fun learning what you do learn and will have a better sense about it than those who have picked their way through Beowulf with notes.

While it would be nice to one day see Pimsleur programs for Latin, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Old Norse and more, enabling one to hit the textbooks with a little higher comfort level for the old tonuges, these three books make a nice start for communicating with the ancients on their terms.