Scanlon Chapter 1 - Discussion Thread

[piusx1914]

I am memorizing the cases, word endings for the first declensions and the vocabulary.  I sure an glad that there is a two week period for each lesson!

Thanks for sharing your strategy with us, francisfollower.  I'm always interested in how other people study complex subjects because I'm open to refining my own process. 

I agree with you about the two weeks.  Based on past learning experiences, I have found that I'm always better off to do a little bit every day, rather than cram a lot of information in a short period of time.  When I cram stuff into my head my retention rate is much lower, which is not a good thing when studying something I want to retain long-term, like a language.  One has to be self-disciplined, however, because it's easy to procrastinate.

We are all in this together.  Keep communicating, everybody!

[damooster]

I am memorizing the cases, word endings for the first declensions and the vocabulary.  I sure an glad that there is a two week period for each lesson!

Thanks for sharing your strategy with us, francisfollower.  I'm always interested in how other people study complex subjects because I'm open to refining my own process. 

I agree with you about the two weeks.  Based on past learning experiences, I have found that I'm always better off to do a little bit every day, rather than cram a lot of information in a short period of time.  When I cram stuff into my head my retention rate is much lower, which is not a good thing when studying something I want to retain long-term, like a language.  One has to be self-disciplined, however, because it's easy to procrastinate.

We are all in this together.  Keep communicating, everybody!

I stole your flash card idea and that has been a big help.

[piusx1914]

I stole your flash card idea and that has been a big help.

Glad to hear it is helping, damooster. 

I just read an article on about.com:  http://catholicforum.fisheaters.com/index.php?action=post;quote=33368544;topic=3434528.15;num_replies=21;sesc=6fa98be46b3a46e64c1e3f9093a6e21a

The author advocates writing the declension down over and over, among other things.  I can see the merit in doing this.

[ForumLurker]

My Latin 1 students are having their first noun quiz with datives tomorrow. (Our curriculum teaches one case at a time, but the first three declensions concurrently).


I have them memorize the endings for each declension and practice copying them over and over, but I think that there's probably at least as much value in learning them NOT in a particular order, and to practice this, we'll have dice or something on the computer screen that will randomly choose one of their vocab words, a case (nominative vs. dative vs. accusative, at this point) and singular vs plural, and they have to give me the correct form on the spot.

I don't mean to belittle memorizing little chants or jingles to keep them straight, but the important thing is being able to recognize immediately what case and number a word is (or may be, for ambiguous endings) and being able to reproduce them.

I've had lots of students who join my class from other teachers, and they can sing to me "a/ae/ae/am/a-ae/arum/is/as/is" as the first declension noun endings, but don't know which is which case or number or have any idea how to use it. Many of mine don't seem to believe me that they really do have to have this all memorized and internalized before they can make any progress. When you learn the alphabet as a toddler, you learn it by singing it, but it won't do you any good if you can sing it, but don't know which letter is which.

One of the things I'm doing with my students tomorrow for extra practice before their quiz is giving them a blank grid, dividing up a large sheet of paper into boxes for each case, singular and plural... I want them to go through a passage and sort each noun they see and put it in the corresponding box, paying special attention to the nouns with ambiguous endings....

Another similar thing I've done with them is type up a passage in Latin that they've never seen before, maybe a bit above their reading level. I'll print it out and cut it up into little slips of paper, one word per slip until there are at least a few dozen to a few hundred words. I set up a group of desks for each part of speech and have them go around the room putting them in their proper place; once they've narrowed them down by part of speech, I have them organize by case for nouns/adjectives/pronouns and tense, mood, voice, etc. for verbs. I come around the room and check their work, and then we read the actual passage that they've dissected.

If you're working by yourself, that probably won't be feasible for you, but might give you some ideas for ways of getting practice with the various inflections. Also, if I need to give them busy work, I print up a text and make them color code all the words according to their case or tense or something. Or, you could make flash cards not just for the vocab, but have one card for, say, puella, another for puellae, then puellam, and so on, and do that for all forms of several words, then shuffle the cards and practice identifying which form is which...

A last exercise we sometimes do is practice transforming sentences: we'll take a passage and make everything plural, or switch all the subjects and objects so it's backwards, or rephrase everything so the verbs are all passive or make it all indirect discourse or something, depending on the level of the students...


Just some ideas that I hope are helpful...


Edited to fix typo

[piusx1914]

... the important thing is being able to recognize immediately what case and number a word is (or may be, for ambiguous endings) and being able to reproduce them.

Just some ideas that I hope are helpful...

We are very grateful for your interest and contribution to our discussion, ForumLurker!  You gave us some study methods (i.e. color coding a sentence and etc.) which never occurred to me before.  This is also the first time I heard the term "ambiguous ending".  The ambiguous endings seem like a "flaw" in the Latin language to me, but I'm sure it's just my inexperience causing talking.

Again, thank you for your contribution!  I will refer to you post often.

Feel free to post anytime the Spirit moves you to

[francisfollower]

Kind of quiet here so I'll bump it.  I gave myself a "pop quiz" and I did pretty good.  So I guess I have gotten Chapter 1 material.  I have the hardest time with prepositions, so many meanings with so few words .  I guess it just means more memorization.

[piusx1914]

So I guess I have gotten Chapter 1 material.  I have the hardest time with prepositions, so many meanings with so few words .  I guess it just means more memorization.

Sorry for the delay in responding, francisfollower.  I checked into this thread in a couple days.  I think you are right.  It's just going to come down to memorization.  Some days that's easier than others

[piusx1914]

Okay, gang, I was just going through my answers to chapter 1 and see three questions I am hung up on because of what I think is a snafu in Scanlon.

In unit 2, section A #14:

I would imagine the answer is “animabus bonabus” when making the adjective “bona” agree in case and number with animabus.  From what I gather Scanlon did not introduce the “abus” ending in this chapter.

In unit 2, section C #’s 11 and 13

They ask you to find in sections A and B of Unit One the words that have the same derivation as the following

11. stare (to stand)
13. volo (I wish)

Am I missing something?  I don’t see anything that resembles these words in the chapter.

Other than these things I think I’m done.  I’ll create an answer thread for Chapter 1 a little bit later. 

I did want to say that I’m not going to type anything out for b, c or d under the derivations of Unit 2 because it just asks us “note” and “observe” things.

[JayneK]

Okay, gang, I was just going through my answers to chapter 1 and see three questions I am hung up on because of what I think is a snafu in Scanlon.

In unit 2, section A #14:

I would imagine the answer is “animabus bonabus” when making the adjective “bona” agree in case and number with animabus.  From what I gather Scanlon did not introduce the “abus” ending in this chapter.

In unit 2, section C #’s 11 and 13

They ask you to find in sections A and B of Unit One the words that have the same derivation as the following

11. stare (to stand)
13. volo (I wish)

Am I missing something?  I don’t see anything that resembles these words in the chapter.

Other than these things I think I’m done.  I’ll create an answer thread for Chapter 1 a little bit later. 

I did want to say that I’m not going to type anything out for b, c or d under the derivations of Unit 2 because it just asks us “note” and “observe” things.

abus is a special ending that is used to avoid ambiguity.  Normally the form would be animis but that is the dative/ablative plural for another word - animus.  So anima gets its this special ending so people can tell them apart.  The adjective is not affected, so you get animabus bonis.

stare is related to A.6 substantia  and volo is related to A.11 benevolentia  (although it is not very obvious).

[piusx1914]

abus is a special ending that is used to avoid ambiguity.  Normally the form would be animis but that is the dative/ablative plural for another word - animus.  So anima gets its this special ending so people can tell them apart.  The adjective is not affected, so you get animabus bonis.

stare is related to A.6 substantia  and volo is related to A.11 benevolentia  (although it is not very obvious).

You are very helpful, Jayne.  I'm glad you are here.  Thank you!