Talk:Latin

Directory

Can be found here: Talk:Latin/Directory

Formatting questions

Firstly, thanks @Dave Braunschweig: for the navigation changes, they are great!

I have some questions for @CarpeLanam::

1. Can you review what I have done so far and let me know if it is ok? I am very aware that I'm making changes to something I didn't write, so I'd like you to take a look at the copy that I've had to hack around at a bit to remove Duo references and some personal asides.
2. I put the word lists and sentences in bullets at the start, but I have put them into tables later on. I think tables are better, but what do you think?
3. Could you let people know this is happening and see if we can get any help? It'd be better coming from you I think. It's a week of evenings to move the content across I estimate, so it'd be good to get a bit of help. I mentioned it on Reddit but didn't get any bites!

Note: there is a shortcut to link to Wiktionary entries: eg sumo which we can add in the consolidated vocab list for instance.

Hi @CarpeLanam: – I have moved all the content across now, in rough shape. There will be a lot of things I have missed though in formatting and links, so I will need to keep going through it for a while doing error corrections. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 21:27, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi @JimKillock: - I couldn't be more pleased with all the work you have done to port everything over and organize it. The graphical look is great, especially with the tables and internal links, and there is potential to make this a powerful learning tool. Formatting is a major weakness for me so I truly appreciate the time it took. As my confidence grows I will certainly tidy up the language to make it more appropriate for this forum. My writing style was personal and conversational in the Duo forums, but I envision something a little more restrained here, which you have picked up on. I apologize for being unable to help with the major work you did. At this point I am confident enough to edit the work as it stands now, but not quite ready to add new material or put things into tables. I'm sure time will help with that. Tibi multas gratias ago! --CarpeLanam (discuss • contribs) 16:30, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@CarpeLanam: no problem :) If you do want to add content, just let me know and I can help with the formatting. For now I want to do some more navigation things (pointing people to the practice on Memrise for each lesson). I have also been porting audio from Wiktionary into Latin/Classified Vocabulary List – this is a biggish job but not as bad as moving the lessons over! Once that is done, it may be possible to copy and past some of that into the lessons also. For sentences we will need to find volunteers however, which is a bit harder because we'll need to ask people who are good, I feel, otherwise it will generate complaints. (As an aside we should probably accept by Ecclesiastical and Classical, so long as it's made clear which is which? I personally use Classical but I've no desire to cause arguments over it!) JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 17:59, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@JimKillock: I just noticed the audio vocabulary; excellent! At some point I want to add along with the introductory material a Latin alphabet and pronunciation guide, in both classical and ecclesiastical. But I am fine with only classical pronunciation being used in any audio - it's pretty standard. I wish I were better at technical things. I can maybe aspire to recording sentence audio. My accent tends toward a melange of ecclesiastical, Americanized English, and classical pronunciation but I can do classical in a pinch, except for rolling the r's. --CarpeLanam (discuss • contribs) 02:58, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Directory

Hi @Dave Braunschweig:, is it possible for us to move the long lesson list off the main Latin page? I tried this and it broke the menu! JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 08:18, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@JimKillock: The sidebar menu should continue to work, but it will break the navigation links at the bottom. It would be possible for me to fix that with a bit of effort, but it might take a few days. :Separately, or somewhat related, would it be possible to identify "units" or modules for this content? Research on short-term memory suggests that we should try to break things down into lists of five to nine things, although it is also common to go as high as 15 if we are designing a full semester course. Perhaps something like Basics, Declensions, Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, etc. would be a way to break down the content into a shorter list. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:26, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@Dave Braunschweig: yes, I can see that. I think I would take @CarpeLanam:'s advice on that, but I would note that the order is quite fixed, and that the course would probably be at least three or maybe four semesters if taught at school. The content would be dumped on students at Uni in rather less than that but this is much slower paced. I think it is six months for someone going quite fast, and probably more like 12-18 for most people to cover if starting from scratch and not hammering it. Consequently given the breadth grouping the lessons into a few names is likely to make abstract and fairly meaningless groups like "Part One: foundations" etc. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 19:24, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Audio files

Hi there, especially @Paleogloss:: thanks for trying to add some audio. I have found a lot of the basic words on Wikitionary, and brought most but not all of the files into the Latin/Classified Vocabulary List page. I've added the first files onto the Latin/Basics Lesson 1 so you can see how it is done – essentially you use [[File:la-cls-puella.ogg|thumb|]] which gives a player thus:

The contributor who added these kept a good naming convention, exxcept in a few early cases, so a file is always la-cla-word.ogg or la-ecc-word.ogg if it the ecclesiastical pronunciation. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 18:59, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

If you are adding audio, if you can keep to similar conventions that would be handy!

@Paleogloss: just to add, tomorrow I will try to add a guide to adding audio, including just adding a long audio file which can edit. It's all probably done via Wiki Commons. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 22:22, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Here is some further help and guidance: Latin/Contribute Audio JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 09:07, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Update: I have added as many of the audio files as possible from WikiCommons, so we know what is missing from single words. We can also move onto sentences, although it'd be handy for a final check on Macrons. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 09:04, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Macrons

Hi there @CarpeLanam:, a quick note to say that it seems inevitable that people will want macrons (editors, eg @Adamwesley87: are adding them sporadically already). I think we should be ok with this, if we do audio it will make more sense with macrons in any case. Hope this is ok. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 10:03, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

No problem @JimKillock:, it is standard in dictionaries and textbooks, it just is quite time-consuming to be consistent and clutters the look a bit. I would not want any testing to require macron use because it tends to discourage new learners, or teach them to fixate on minutia.--CarpeLanam (discuss • contribs) 14:43, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi there @CarpeLanam:, I am working on this at last, so it would be great if you can check sometime. I am also adding in links to Wiktionary for each word as I go through the vocab pages (I didn't do this on the first pages but I may go back and do that later). JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 06:30, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Things we can do to build on the course

Hi all,

Here's a few things I would like to do to build on the course, and things I can't do but could be useful to learners:

• Macrons: in progress, First pass complete, second pass proofing complete; now ideally needs external checking
• Audio: I am not sure if my pronunciation is quite up to it but I will have a go without publishing, to see and ask, and also I am asking around to see if we can get external contributors like Luke Ranieri - even a few lines from a few people who are really good could be a good start
• Anki version: this might be a better alternative for people who find Memrise a bit awkward for sentence practice, and for more customised kinds of excercises.
• Dialogues: Longer term, we could add short dialongues or short texts for people to read and practice with. These could also be recorded, depending on whether we have people to do it

Hope that helps, --JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 08:27, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Page on stress needs checking

I added a page on Latin/Pronunciation Stress, but it needs checking. JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 14:04, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Memrise Links

Memrise moved courses to community-courses.memrise.com, and links to practice are invalid now. Kiyafirs (discuss • contribs) 22:59, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kiyafirs thanks, I will work through these and change them to the new locations JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 15:57, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

@Kiyafirs Corrected those, I hope! JimKillock (discuss • contribs) 14:51, 24 August 2024 (UTC)