Tips for learning to write in Latin

Learning to write in Latin should not be something elitist. Elitism should be forbidden in the different languages one learns. In everyday life, studying Latin can help you in many areas.

Latin is an interdisciplinary subject that will help you in other subjects: it helps to develop your analytical and logical spirit thanks to the translation from Latin to Spanish, it allows you to know Roman history, historical geography and mythology to acquire general culture and you can also improve your knowledge of Spanish spelling, very useful if you want to continue your studies in classical or Hispanic letters.

It is true that rote learning is mandatory to memorize Latin declensions and to be able to translate a text without constantly consulting a dictionary. But other than that, Latin teachers tend to offer students endless lists of vocabulary, which makes Latin unattractive. This type of teaching is not advisable; it is better that new words are learned in a more playful and intuitive way.

For Latin to be interesting, it must be learned as a living language, with practice as science is learned, inventing live dialogues, performing plays … Let’s make this dead language come alive again!

Learning to write in Latin also implies knowing the origin and evolution of words. It’s a bit like doing archeology. To write better in Latin, it is essential to literally understand the evolution of words between Latin and Spanish. It is an exciting study! For example:

Lipsticks b, pf and v underwent many changes and replaced each other. Thus, hibernum gave “winter” and ripam gave “shore.”
The Latin voiceless stop consonants (P- T- C / QU) between vowels (or between vowel and L or R) sound in Spanish evolving respectively to (BDG / GU): sapere> saber; totum> all; lacrimam> tear; aquilam> eagle.
The Latin initial F normally gives an H in Spanish: ferrum> iron

On the other hand, the Latin that is taught to students is the classical version and not its vulgar version (the one spoken by the people). Spanish is the result of a struggle between the people and the learned, so we often find words with the same Latin origin that designate two different things: porticum gave porch for the town and portico between the literati, for example.

To learn Latin it is also essential to put aside Spanish grammar, especially the construction of sentences, in order to better understand Latin grammar, its syntax and the use of the Latin verb. Latin can make many inversions of words within a sentence and it is the declensions that give the meaning of the sentence and not the order of the words within it. For example, here are six ways to say ” the steward sends the servant “: