Customer Reviews

Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency

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for all those of you tired of endlessly having to translate sentences like "famous consuls, don't use all your wealth to fill the forum with statues of impious men" -- and of not ever learning how to say "yes" and "no" [!!] -- this book is it. it shows how latin would actually have been spoken [or at least as best as the author can reconstruct].

there are sections on every conceivable aspect of daily life: greetings, basic colloquial expressions, food, clothing, animals, the weather, the calendar, family, emotions, etc. etc. there also a number of useful sections that i would have loved to have seen in my latin textbooks -- general vocabulary ["get", "put", "must", etc.], numbers, colors, proverbs, and of course the infamous "how to say yes and no" [btw those of you amazed that a language can deal without such words might find it interesting that modern brazilian portuguese works almost exactly the same way].

in my experiences learning languages it has become abundantly clear to me that you cannot really learn a language unless you are forced to speak it. this is the only way to make your language knowledge become active -- otherwise it will always remain passive, and no matter how much you read, you will never really be comfortable with the language. this is, unfortunately, exactly the state that most latin teaching is in; a book like "conversational latin" is exactly what's needed to rectify the situation.

You hear it time and time again, "why are you taking Latin? That's a dead language!" And though Latin is the language of the Classics, conjuring up images of ancient poets and orators, John Traupman's book proves that Latin is indeed still living. Unlike most texts, the chapters in "Conversational Latin" are not arranged in order of difficulty. Rather, they are organized by topic, and within each chapter the sample conversations progress in difficulty. This makes it easier for students, because they can look up topics quickly, rather than trying to remember how hard that conversation was. This also makes it easier for teachers, who can draw from this book wherever a topic coincides with something covered in class.

The vocabulary used in this book is not difficult, including some new words that are not usually covered in textbooks. However, these new words are strangely familiar. . .e.g. "sescentas gratias"--"thanks a million," or "Patientia, patientia. Tempus omnia sanat"--"Patience, patience. Time heals everything." Every word has all the accents so that students can pronounce them correctly. With topics from telling time to gossip about a new girlfriend, "Conversational Latin" is a great addition to any classroom, enriching the study of Latin through speaking and listening interesting conversations.

This book fully recognizes the importance of the oral in the learning of any spoken language. Even the reading of Latin needs to draw from the oral, something utterly neglected in the past. That explains what teachers of the deaf have been telling me about the struggles of their deaf students in learning to read English. Students of a language must hear the language at normal conversational speed and with the correct inflection for them to gain a sense of it as a language. Their learning of it is sealed only when they themselves speak it that way. Imitation of fluent usage-- and that includes sign language-- is the only way to learn any language, and that includes Latin. So what if nobody is speaking Latin routinely anymore? That does not mean Latin is a "dead" language; it's merely dormant. It comes to life again when someone speaks it and makes it sound conversational. The best reason for studying Latin is that you consider it to be a beautiful language-- and it is-- and you love it. To get a "You are there" sense of ancient Rome, students need to speak the language as it deals with topics from Roman life. I went through high school Latin back in the 1960s, learning it only as a written and translated language, and not very well I'm sure. I didn't get a sense of Latin as a language that was routinely spoken for everyday things. Professor Traupmann's lively dialogs capture what Latin would be like as a living language. In one dialog two sisters, Olivia and Victoria, are bickering; and in another Annetta pretends to seek advice from her sister Christina but is actually hitting her up for a loan, which Christina figures out. There are a great many other interesting and lively dialogs in this book, all begging for re-enactment. Traupmann combines scholarship and a sense of Latin as a living language in his book. I intend to get the audiocassettes that go with this book.

I have the audio cassette edition of "Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency," and it's not a stand-alone product. It has pronunciations of all the Latin phrases inthe book, but not the English translations. You really have to have the book for the audio cassette edition to do you any good.

...than are available in the U.S. I took several years of Latin in the U.S. and went to Germany confident that I was at least "average." What I quickly learned in German university Latin seminars is that students are expected to speak Latin as well to sharpen their linguistic skills. I was in over my head very quickly. I ordered this book when I came back to the U.S. and have found it very useful; I wish I had had it back then. No, it's not that useful to know how to say "flashlight" when you are discussing vitae sanctorum of the thirteenth century--but practicing spoken Latin helps you sharpen your skills in reading it. And when true Latin scholars meet, they speak Latin with each other. I hope to join this august assembly one day myself.

This book is one of the greatest purchases I have ever made! It provides what is sorely needed in the Latin language - a comprehensive conversational guide. Other foreign languages have no shortage of such books, but for some reason people think that no one needs to speak Latin. Even if you have no interest of speaking with Caeser, using this book will vastly help your comprension and understanding of Latin. Amo Latinam linguam!

There aren't a lot of books on the market on conversational Latin, but even if there were I can't imagine them being any better than this one. They really mean it when they say proficiency. Searching elsewhere is useless. You've found what you need right here.

Nowadays, many of the western schools close their Latin lessons or lectures because this extinct language is getting less important. I think, however, learning Latin is still very important because we cannot ignore our cultural heritage. However, learning this extinct language only through the written classic material would not only be cut and dry, but also be easy to forget. This book is quite different from the ordinary Latin manual. In this book, the Latin is not the extinct language, but the living one. With this book, we can learn Latin just like we learn everyday English. I would like to recommend this book for those who want learn Latin but feel very difficult.

I use the third edition of this book several times a week when preparing short conversational exercises for my Latin class. It has thousands of everyday words and phrases, in their best and easiest Latin idiom forms. Each of the 25 chapters covers a different conversational topic (e.g., school, greetings, food, sports). Each chapter has three sets of short conversations, scripted so that we can use them in our Latin class if we want to. At the end of each chapter's conversations are several optional words and phrases that would also work well in the conversations. Finally, each chapter also has it's own little vocabulary list with definitions.

All Latin words have macrons and accents, so it's a good book even for beginners. It has mostly classical Latin, but uses newer Latin for modern concepts, such as calling someone on the telephone, playing golf, and riding an electric trolley. It's a great complement to the old Latin dictionaries such as Robertson's Dictionary of Latin Phrases and H.T. Riley's Quotations (you can find these for free online from Google Books).

This book is one of its kind, teaching Latin orally. One review stated that the author "made up" words which are modern and didn't exist in Roman times. True he didn't explain why they were there, but those words are official and would be understood by anyone fluent in latin today.