5 tips to learn Latin quickly

If Spanish is your mother tongue, the saying “all roads lead to Rome” will sound familiar to you.

If we go beyond the meaning of this expression in Latin, we can also say that all the means of becoming familiar with Latin and classical culture are adequate.

However, you have to follow a common thread and work regularly to be able to navigate the language of Julius Caesar and, above all, to avoid getting disgusted by this wonderful language.

The speed of cheetahs is a great metaphor for language learning. You have to go fast but safe. — Each student will have to work hard to control the classical languages … and the less classical ones like a cheetah! One tip: better study only one language at a time. You will avoid mess!

The reading of classical texts will give you tools for lexical and linguistic analysis, as well as teaching literary history and daily life of the Romans.

Here are five tricks to learn Latin (the Latin lingua ) quickly,

Start by learning a little Latin vocabulary.
Create mental images to easily memorize the lexicon.
Use the theory of multiple intelligences.
Divide the sentences into units of meaning in order to learn them better.
Use mnemonic procedures, such as post-its, flashcards, songs, etc.)

Trying to learn all the Latin vocabulary at the beginning is not a good strategy, because the student runs the risk of being discouraged. Instead of doing that, it is preferable to use vocabulary lists: write words, expressions, sayings … with their corresponding French translation.

The key to learning Latin is to create as many synapses as possible. These are areas of contact between neurons to accelerate the memorization of the lexicon.

Our first tip: choose a good Latin-Spanish dictionary and create a word list of the objects in the house. Then, stick posters (only in Latin) on objects: the table, the bed, the chair, the floor, the food, etc. This will progressively increase the volume of words you know.

Our second tip: visualize what you learn.

The student will be able to work with Latin poems by Catulo, Virgilio, Ovidio, Horacio or Lucrecio, but will have to mentally represent what the verses describe.

Likewise, making a mind map can be useful to better retain grammar: the six cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and vocative), verbs, personal pronouns, possessive adjectives, qualifiers, adverbs, the preposition of infinitive or subordinate clauses, superlatives, verb tenses (present, imperfect, pluperfect, future …), etc.