I've seen this series recommended for self study on here and Veeky Forums...

I've seen this series recommended for self study on here and Veeky Forums. Anyone have any personal experience learning Latin or Greek?

Just started LIngua Latina seems ok so far.

Rec'd only if you know your grammatical concepts.

Patrician tier
Pleb tier.

Learn to Read latin is extremely comprehensive to the point of sometimes being meaningless. You don't need to learn rhotacism or 1000 different datives or how old latin caused such and such irregularities in verb-noun forms. But it is very comprehensive. The vocab, the excersizes, the reading. You REALLY learn latin. If you follow the book, the authors basically hammer it into your brain.

I think you should use both, use a pleb-easy tier book first, after few units move to the first unit in learn to read latin to really hammer it down.

Why do you consider moreland/fleischer pleb tier?

Can I attain fluency with LTRL alone?

It's a grammar book and its a good grammar book but not as compherensive as Learn to Read. I mean grammar is grammar everywhere, where Learn to Read shines is in its choice of vocab-reading but foremost its workbook drills.

Vocab is based on the most common latin words, I don't know whether this is the case for morepleb-fishpleb but even if it is, the vocab descriptions are very detailed. Just take a look at a sample chapter if you can find it on net. Its not just nom-gen-gender and englsih translations almost half of the vocabulary has extra notes, contaiting details that will help you. The difference between anima and animus, idioms, etc. The readings are also from original authors, by the time you finish the book you read quite a bit of Virgil, Cicero etc. As I said in another thread no Caeplebius and his adventures in plebistan written by modern latin teachers, no you read original latin. But the biggest advantage is the work book. It contains drills for every single chapter in the unit, I have never seen such a comprehensive workbook before. I tried a lot of books, in greek too, the join classical book, athenaze etc. Learn to read series is my favorite but maybe thats just my personal preference

You won't be "fluent", finishing one book will not grant you that. But by the time you finish it you would finish almost all the grammar, know most widely occurred vocab and read quite a bit of latin authors. From there you can start to do your own readings with the help of a dictionary. I think it will put you into 3-4 semesters of latin, in the upper-indermediate level.

one wants to study philosophy, would Learn to read's Greek or Latin be better suited?

People don't pick one language when it comes to classical history, philosophy etc, you almost always learn both

German. Most greek works only survive in latin and most of that shit is easier to find in german as well as with amazing annotations. That and fluency in german would really help when you get to all the germans. At least that's what not knowing german has taught me.

Are there any classical works left that is not translated in english? I'm not talking about some papyri fragments but it seems that you can find almost every single work pre 4th century. There are few "Byzantine" works that are still being translated, but Classical? I don't know.

I should have said, which to start with. My mistake.

Doesn't really matter, I started with Greek, but many start with Latin first. Taking them both at the same time is a daunting task though.

I doubt I could do both. Any tips or useful tidbits for Greek?

As one user mentioned if you're going to learn a language for philosophy German is your best choice, but if choosing between ancient Greek or Latin I would go Greek.

If you can do Greek than you can do Latin afterwards or vice versa.

Be patient and have discipline. You can't read Plato in a month. And don't start to learn it only to drop it in the next week. Start slowly and work your way up. Some people are natural, and learn at the first go but don't give up I got F and 2 D's when I first started, my teacher said I would never get hold of it. Now I'm a grad student in classics.

If a retard like me can learn it then you can too.

Weird, I always thought that you would have to learn French or Italian if one wants to learn a language for philosophy or to read the classics.

That's pretty cool user. Do you have an email i could reach you at? I have some questions about being a Classics grad student

It just so happens that Germany is boiling over with important philosophers. Most of the early modern philosophers like Descartes wrote in Latin and generally the translation from Latin - English is pretty smooth. Smoother anyway than the translation of German or Greek to English.

There's surprisingly little written in French. The most important would probably be the existentialists and Foucault.

German philosophy is difficult to translate and has spotty translations. Also there are a ton to read.

Reading what little there is in french doesn't make it any less enigmatic intentionally obscurant nonsense.

Sure, plenuspleb at hotmail dot com

Thanks, I'll hit you up tonight or tomorrow.

I'm a latin student, studying to be a latin teacher in a while.

i see different versions of that on amazon which is the correct one?

Does this have an answer key for the exercises?

Can I train myself to fluency in Latin and Greek, or are classes a must?

i wanna know this too

Nah, you have to mail Yale Press to get them.

well that's gay

I took it in highschool and learned nothing except that most existing translations of ancient texts read nothing like the originals.

i take it the originals were better?

Fuck if I know, but almost every translation had noticeably different sentence structure and vocabulary.