How to Learn to Speak Latin

Step-by-Step Guide

1. 1

   Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the alphabet.

   If you already speak English or any language with a Latinate script, you may think you already have the alphabet down.
   
   But language is constantly evolving and while most things are the same, there are a few differences.J, V, and W don't exist.
   
   Well, not really at least.
   
   There were 23 letters in the classic Latin alphabet.
   
   R is rolled, similar to the trill in Spanish.
   
   Y is known as "i Graeca" ("Greek i") and Z is "zeta." I can sometimes be pronounced as the english Y sound and Y is pronounced like the French "u." If you know the IPA, that means the letter I is sometimes pronounced as /j/ and the letter Y is sometimes pronounced as /y/.
   
   See the reasoning? U is sometimes similar to a W
   -- in fact, that's where the letter comes from.
   
   It's written as "v."
2. 2

   Step 2: Get the pronunciation down.

   While pronouncing Latin doesn't offer near as many trip ups as English does (generally, each letter sticks to a sound), there are a couple of things to keep in mind: length and combinations.
   
   An apex (´) or acute accent (like the accent aigu in French) is used to denote long vowels.
   
   With one, "a" becomes like the sound in "father" instead of the sound in "hat." "E" alone is "bed," but with the apex it's more like the sound in "café." Unfortunately, modern Latin spelling has made this very confusing by using the macron (¯) to denote length of vowels, too, when it's normally used to denote long syllables.
   
   Now it seems noting syllable and vowel length is a free-for-all and most dictionaries don't do it sufficiently.
   
   And to make matters worse, Spanish uses the same symbol to denote accented syllables.
   
   But if you find yourself in Italy and you squint a little bit, you should notice the apexes on Roman inscriptions (at least from classical and postclassical times) in all their rightful glory.Different vowel/consonant combinations can change the sound of the letters. "Ae" becomes the sound in "kite" (or /ai/); "ch" makes a "k" sound; "ei" makes the sound in "day" (/ei/); "eu" sounds like "ee-ooo"; "oe" is the same as the sound in "toy." If you know the IPA, this all becomes a lot easier
   -- there are tons of similarities.
   
   Needless to say, the IPA is Latin-derived., English has a lot of Latin roots and therefore shares some of the same emphasis patterns.
   
   However, it'd be ridiculous to say anything applies 100% in the current Lingua Franca.
   
   For Latin, keep these rules in mind:
   For one syllable words, well, emphasis isn't an issue.
   
   For two syllable words, emphasize the first syllable (pos-co:
   I demand) For polysyllabic words, emphasis goes on the penultimate syllable if it's heavy or long (mentiuntur: they lie).
   
   For polysyllabic words that have a light or short syllable penultimately, the emphasis goes on the antipenultimate syllable (imperator: commander).
   
   All these rules are similar to this day in English.
   
   In fact, English long considered Latin's rules as the "right" way to speak and changed Germanic roots to fit in this box.
   
   It's the same reason your English teacher tells you to not split infinitives (did you catch that?).
   
   The reasoning is Latin (and now archaic). , If you don't already have a sense of this, Latin is a very complicated language.
   
   You're about to embark upon a long, uphill battle.
   
   Here's an example: verbs have to consider a few things, right? Maybe plurality, person, and tense? Nope.
   
   Way more.
   
   But you can handle it, right? The Latin verbs must take the following things into consideration:
   Three persons
   -- first, second, and third Two aspects
   -- perfect (finished) and imperfect (unfinished) Two numbers
   -- singular and plural Three moods
   -- indicative, subjunctive, and imperative Six tenses
   -- present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect Two voices
   -- active and passive.
   
   Four non-finite forms
   -- infinitive, gerund, participle, and supine Have we mentioned yet that there are 7 cases and 3 genders for nouns?
3. 3

   Step 3: Know where the emphasis goes.

4. 4

   Step 4: Know what you're in for.

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