Lingua Latina: Colloquia Personarum [Paperback]

Hans H. Orberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1585101567 | ISBN-13: 978-1585101566 | Publication Date: December 29, 2004

An illustrated collection of supplementary texts, mostly dialogue. There is one colloquium matching each of Chapters 1-24 in Lingua Latina: Familia Romana.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Dialogues corresponding to Ch. 1-24 of "Familia Romana" (Book 1), to supplement the lessons

About the Author

Hans Henning Orberg (1920-2010) received his MA in English, French and Latin from the University of Copenhagen in 1946. He taught at various Danish high schools until 1963 and at the Grenaa Gymansium until 1988. From 1953 to 1961 he served on the staff of the Nature Method Institute, Copenhagen. He is the author of the Latin course "Lingua Latina secundum naturae rationem explicata" (1955-56); the course was revised in 1990-91, with a number of supplements, under the title "Lingua Latina per se illustrata". His books were published by Domus Latina, a publishing house he founded in Denmark, and they are distributed in the English speaking world by Focus Publishing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Focus Publishing (December 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585101567
• ISBN-13: 978-1585101566
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #80 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Latin

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Latin for the beginner, June 24, 2009

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Russell Fanelli (Longmeadow, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lingua Latina: Colloquia Personarum (Paperback)

One commenter on a previous review requested information on this 79 page book of Latin stories meant to accompany Hans Orberg's Latin text Lingua Latina. Like Orberg's text Lingua Latina, Colloquia Personarum is written entirely in Latin. Unlike Lingua Latina, which has descriptive pictures and information in the margins, much less help is given the reader, who follows the same cast of characters introduced in Lingua Latina, but in new stories that expand on those given in the Lingua Latina text. The difficulty of the vocabulary and grammar in each story corresponds with the progress students are making chapter by chapter in Lingua Latina. Gradually the stories become more difficult to read and make more demands on the reader.

A Roman family consisting of a father, mother, their three children and one hundred servants and slaves form the foundation for Orberg to construct entertaining stories of life in ancient Rome and its surroundings. Orberg's intention is for the reader to enjoy the stories in Latin without translating them into English. For the most part, it is possible to do this if the student has carefully learned the lessons in each chapter of Lingua Latina.

Those readers not using Orberg's text might enjoy the entertaining stories in Colloquia Personarum to practice reading a carefully graded first year program designed to improve comprehension and facility with the Latin language.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars O Colloquia! O Personae!, August 18, 2010

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Maxwell O. Massa (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lingua Latina: Colloquia Personarum (Paperback)

I used this book in direct combination with the base Orberg text Lingua Latina: Pars I: Familia Romana (Latin Edition) (Pt. 1), and my satisfaction with the volume is untempered by the slightest scintilla of complaint. After pawing through each of chapters in the source book, I read through the matching colloquium, and the experience was sublime, because the struggle of the original is shown to pay off with fluent comprehension of the auxiliary dialogues. For this reason I used this product as a test manual to gauge my comfort with the lessons and vocab of the Familia: if I could get it at one go, I was good to advance; otherwise I needed to go back and review before moving forward.

Another of the benefits of the text was that it carries on with the same stories and characters as are found in Familia Romana. To most readers I understand that this will not seem important, but it provides a social context for the language which is vital for acquisition. When you hear language used by a character you know is a pig-headed student, you receive it differently from the same speech coming from a good boy or a lazy slave or caring father. Adding more stories with the same characters not only allows more chances to reinforce concepts of grammar and usage, it also helps the text develop social sense and not appear dry and unconnected to anything the reader has experienced.

When I learned Greek, I did it without the benefit of materials such as this. How miserable then was life, and how happy, oh so very happy, am I now in comparison.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent supplement to Lingua Latina, December 7, 2010

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Vocal Music - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Lingua Latina: Colloquia Personarum (Paperback)

The title of this book in English is roughly "Conversations of People."

Did you notice how little dialgue there is in LLPSI? This book addresses that issue because at least ninety percent of the content is dialogue between the characters. So if you would like to read more conversations, get this book. Many of the chapters are related to the original story so this book gives you a sense of familiarity with the characters and settings. The book is written completely in Latin and there are far fewer explanations and pictures than in LLPSI. After reading most of LLPSI, this book is relatively easy to read.