A few months ago, I wrote a blog. Actually, I posted a video. The name of the blog was, “Why I blog every day, and why you should too”.
After that, I stopped blogging for a while. This has really been bothering me. I dropped the ball. It is time to pick it back up.
There really are no good excuses. I was taught as a kid to do what you said you were going to do. I was also taught, that when you mess up, you make no excuses. Just apologize and get going again.
That said, I am back.
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I received this email a few days ago. Thought some of you may also be interested.
Hi Dwane,
First, thank you for this incredible site! I am in my second year of teaching (and learning!) Latin and this site has been a great tool. Thank you.
I was wondering how much (if any) Roman history you teach in your Latin class? Do you have any resources you would recommend that would help me learn some Roman history and culture? I know, big topic, so I’ve been a little overwhelmed. The Latin book we use includes some culture and I’ve been teaching a rough overview of Rome, but haven’t been going into too many details.
Thanks for your help!
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This question was posted in the forums:
I am wondering at what point should a student read the free Latin readers you have available ( like “Cornelia”). We are in Lesson 5 of Visual Latin – should we read the readers anyway? Can a ten year old do fine on her own reading them or should I read them aloud to her? I know she won’t get all the vocabulary at this point, but I’m thinking it might still be a good exercise. Thoughts? Thank you so much!
My reply:
I would “officially” recommend waiting until chapter 10. This gives your 10 year old a solid grasp of the basics. “Unofficially”, have a blast. Start reading immediately. In a total immersion program a student is thrown in over his or her head. This is tiring and frustrating at first for anyone. In the end, the “immersion” kids always seem to do better, so tell your ten year old to have at it. Just encourage. I listen to the news in French sometimes even though I barely catch anything. It’s discouraging, but I know, in time, it will come. Focus on progress, not perfection.
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Need a little inspiration? By the end of February, I know I do. You may not be able to learn this many languages (and maybe you don’t want to), but you could do this in several languages. He mentions that some languages are similar. It is true. The Germanic languages, Dutch, German, Icelandic, Danish, etc, are strikingly similar. And, of course, the Romance languages look a lot like Latin. Keep reading. Don’t give up.
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We’ve had a lot of requests for hearing more Latin, so we thought a good place to start would be the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed, the two shortest (and perhaps most important) selections from Christian Latin. You can download them for free in our store, as well as see the Latin text.
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This is from Seth Godin’s blog. This is also why you will almost never hear me discuss politics. WASTE OF TIME. When my friends get worked up over politics, and begin arguing, I check out and go play with my kids. Not a waste of time. Here’s Seth:
“The most frustrating thing for me in the SOPA/PIPA debate now winding down is how unnecessary the whole thing should have been. It occurred to me that we learned a lot about what sort of behaviors make for great leaders and careers. The short version: do the opposite.
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“Successful people form the habit of doing what failures don’t like to do. They like the results they get by doing what they don’t necessarily enjoy. ” – Earl Nightingale{ 10 comments }
I really enjoyed this article. Steve Kaufman is an interesting guy. Fed up with classroom instruction, he sets out on his own to learn new languages.
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“One of the historic advantages of Western Europe was that it was conquered by the Romans in ancient times — a traumatic experience in itself, but one which left Western European languages with written versions, using letters created by the Romans. Eastern European languages developed written versions centuries later.
“Literate people obviously have many advantages over people who are illiterate. Even after Eastern European languages became literate, it was a long time before they had such accumulations of valuable written knowledge as Western European languages had, due to Western European languages’ centuries earlier head start.
“Even the educated elites of Eastern Europe were often educated in Western European languages. None of this was due to the faults of one or the merits of the other. It is just the way that history went down.” – Thomas Sowell, An Ignored Disparity (emphasis mine)
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