Lingua Latina per se Illustrata
Pars II - Roma Aeterna
by Hans H. Ørberg · first published 1990
62% recommend35% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Teaches Latin entirely through Latin, using pictures, context and gradual repetition, starting from simple sentences with no English. Suits self-learners and beginners who want to read Latin without translating.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata It teaches Latin in a very cool way, where the entire book is written in Latin but it starts off with simple sentences anyone with a Romance language background can understand, before diving into deeper…
on “Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?” ↗If anyone is interested in learning it, there's nothing better than Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It's entirely in Latin, including grammar explanations, but it starts out incredibly simple and ramps up gradually with lots of repetition. And that's fun AND effective, since you're immersed rather…
on “The Vatican's Website in Latin” ↗…translation (not many people bother, however). I encourage you, if you're keen, to pick up a better Latin textbook than the one that caused you so much frustration and anger towards Latin. Check out "Lingua latina per se illustrata" for example, which is a simple, amazing book that you will be able to read without doing any translation or learning grammar (much like immersion). Try to translate the title I just mentioned, I'm sure…
on “Why was cycling not included in the ancient Olympics? (2004) [pdf]” ↗…to it. I struggle getting through written material so I had given up on my dream of learning Latin, until I found out there's audiobooks [0] and even YouTube channels where people speak it! [1] [0]: Lingua Latina per se illustrata by Hans Ørberg, also available in audio -- this one's entirely in Latin, yet I could understand the first few chapters very well just from knowing English and some Spanish [1]: Luke Ranieri on YouTube…
on “Ask HN: Self-taught webdev with lots of free time. What should I learn?” ↗My suggestion would be Hans Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata series, it's brilliant and you can start from zero. https://www.hackettpublishing.com/lingua-latina-per-se-illus... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_%C3%98rberg
on “The Vatican's Latinist” ↗For Latin you might like Lingua Latina per se illustrata. It teaches Latin solely through Latin itself, starting with simple sentences. As such, it's mostly focused on reading Latin. You can also look for the "Nature Method" books available in Italian and French…
on “A foundation course in reading German” ↗For learning Latin the book Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata by Hans Ørberg is wonderful. https://youtu.be/_Zt19wzsW-c Felicem natalem Christi
on “When do people learn languages? (2002)” ↗Somewhat related: Duolingo has a Latin course: * https://www.duolingo.com/course/la/en/Learn-Latin For old fashion books, AFAICT the consensus seems to be to go with Hans Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata series (Familia Romana).
on “The Latin Library” ↗This is clearly riffing on Ørberg's Lingua Latīna per sē illūstrāta, which is a great introductory book to teaching yourself Latin. There are no explanations of anything; you have to deduce the meaning of the Latin phrases using the contextual clues given to you in the form of pictures and maps. And it works well.
on “Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata” ↗Preliminary version of the textbook: https://seumasjeltzz.github.io/LinguaeGraecaePerSeIllustrata... This is inspired from Lingua Latina per se illustrata, a monolingual textbook that does the same in Latin and is unanimously acclaimed by the Latin speaking community as the best way to learn it.
on “LinguaGraeceaPerSeIllustrata, a monolingual textbook to self-teach Ancient Greek” ↗…consider learning Latin by the Dowling Method. It is simpler and much more straightforward than any course. It essentially boils down to memorizing all of Latin's regular grammatical forms, and then reading Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata with those tables fresh in mind. It may seem old-fashioned, but I think this is the best strategy for learning such a highly inflected and essentially dead language, especially if you only have experience…
on “Show HN: A Latin self study course, Khan Academy-style” ↗This one's clearly not ready for prime time yet, but I think it's a cool idea. I assume it's going to follow the teaching model from Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, which was a great resource for learning Latin.
on “Lingua Graeca per Se Illustrata” ↗For reference: this book is obviously a (praiseworthy) ambition to have a Greek counterpart to the Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata[1] by Hans Ørberg. Ørberg's way of teaching Latin is, in my view, excellent because it is based on a natural view of learning a language: show something, say what its name is, use its name in simple…
on “Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata” ↗Being a big fan of Ørberg's work (I like to gift Lingua latina per se illustrata to friends), I'll definitely check it out. Having it as an epub is much appreciated !
on “Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata” ↗Latin has a great introductory textbook called Lingua Latina per se illustrata by Hans Ørberg. I only got through the first book, so I'm no expert, but this is the one everybody recommends. And it's really neat: there is no English in the book at all, it's all Latin from page one,…
on “How would you say “She said goodbye too many times before.” in Latin?” ↗