Elementary Latin Translation Book (Paperback)

ELEMENTARY LATIN TRANSLATION BOOK BY THE REV. A. E. HILLARD, D. D. -- PREFACE - IN former times it was considered reasonable that the substantial part of Latin Grammar-all the usual types of Declension and Conjugation-should be mastered before any serious translation was attempted. The tendency of the present day is very much the reverse, viz., to set the pupil to analyse pieces of translation and construct his own formal grammar from what he observes. This is not the place for discussing the merits of these methods. Probably either will work the desired result if you have plenty of time and pupils of ability. But there are certain drawbacks about the second of the above methods which the writer of school-books must try to obviate. Especially there is the difficulty that, as soon as you go beyond simple sentences and try to present the pupil with a piece of Latin that makes continuous narrative, you are driven to use forms which correspond to no types which the pupil has yet learnt, or is likely to learn for some terms to come. He may have learnt the first two Declensions and the Indicative of amo, but he is set to analyse egit, iermt, ferret, profectus eat, V ELEMENTARY LATIN TRANSLATION BOOK In theory this struggle is stimulating. If he is a clever boy, though he cannot locate these forms in his grammar, by the help of the context and some outside guidance he will make sense of the passage and will gradually absorb the vocabulary. But the knowledge thus acquired is not systematised in his mind and the disorder of it all prevents any consciousness of definite progress. It is this feeling of progress which gives the greatest stimulus and interest in the process of learning, and if it beabsent no interest of subject matter will supply its place. Therefore the method of learning by puzzling out pieces of translation without a background of grammar already acquired is apt to produce despair in the ordinary pupil. In fact it is only applicable to any great extent in learning non-flexional languages, where in the elementary stage the bulk of the work is learning wcrds, and is not equally applicable to flexional languages, where the hardest work is assigning to their proper grammatical place and significance a multitude of terminations. The present book is an attempt to get rid of this disadvantage. It presupposes that the beginner is learning the essentials of the Latin Grammar in the order set, and it presents him at each stage with pieces of translation which demand no form in Declension or Conjugation which he has nob already learnt. The difficulty in preparing such pieces is vi PREFACE immense, and for any imperfections in the work the authors can only appeal to the consciousness of any other schoolmasters who have tried a similar task. They believe that, whatever the performance, the method is right, and, without confining the pupil to the learning of grammar as such, will give him the satisfaction of feeling at every stage that there is something which he has really mastered. The objection that pieces so constructed cannot be literary Latin appeals to the authors just as much as to others-you cannot write literary Latin before you allow yourself an Ablative Absolute or ut with the Subjunctive. But if the pupil is led by a much more rapid process through the elementary stage to the possibility of dealing with these things the end will have been served...

General

Imprint:	Read Books
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	October 2007
First published:	October 2007
Authors:	A.E. Hillard
Dimensions:	216 x 140 x 9mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	168
ISBN-13:	978-1-4086-3165-2
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Education > Study & learning skills
LSN:	1-4086-3165-2
Barcode:	9781408631652

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