Introduction

Teach Yourself Latin: Additional reading

This series of exercises in reading Latin will be of use to anyone beginning Latin but it is specifically designed to accompany my book [Gavin Betts Latin (Teach Yourself Books), Hodder and Stoughton, London, and McGraw Hill, New York, third edition 2003].

Each section provides additional Latin reading for the corresponding unit of the book.

Not all the words occurring in the additional reading will be found in the vocabulary of the TY Latin and a small dictionary will be needed. D.A. Kidd, Latin-English, English-Latin Dictionary (Collins), which is inexpensive and readily available, is recommended. A larger, but more expensive, dictionary is C.T. Lewis, Elementary Latin Dictionary (Oxford U. P.). Students should be extremely wary of all other small Latin dictionaries at present available.

The reading for Units 2-5 is made-up Latin, except for proverbs. Almost all subsequent sentences and passages are original Latin, although sometimes adapted. By far the greater part of this material comes from classical authors, and references are given in the key for all original Latin from a known source, except for proverbs and proverbial expressions of unknown provenance which have been taken from collections (Publilius Syrus, the Adagia of Erasmus etc.). In these references Roman numerals refer to books (e.g. of the Aeneid), Arabic to chapters in prose works, and in poetry to poems and/or lines. As readers may not be familiar with all the many authors represented, some information is given when an author is cited for the first time.

In the key, explanations and more literal interpretations are given in round brackets. Some, but by no means all, words which have no specific equivalent in the Latin original but which must be supplied in English are enclosed in square brackets. Translations are as literal as possible and are not to be taken as models of English style or as reflecting that of the original. In verse passages long vowels (marked with a circumflex accent, not a macron, because of the limitations of HTML) have been indicated where a student would otherwise be handicapped by ignorance of the metre involved; occasionally long vowels have also been indicated in prose.

Revision exercises

These exercises are to be used in conjunction with the second edition of Latin (Teach Yourself Books); they are, in fact, the same as those included in the earlier edition.

Site Layout

A large amount of material is presented on the following pages, divided into reading units, keys to those units, revision exercises, keys to those exercises, and finally some extra reading exercises . These are all linked to from the central index page. In addition a small number of links to other classical sites of interest are available on the links page.

Carmina Burana

The original texts, together with translations, of the Orff selection from the Carmina Burana have now been added for those interested in medieval Latin.

Corrigenda to TY Latin

Most of the following errors are misprints which were inadvertently introduced into the present version when the text was put on to computer file. They do not occur in versions of the book printed before 2000. A circumflex accent indicates a long vowel.

p.xvi Second paragraph under 'Diphthongs' - for 'Of these combinations ae ' read Of these combinations au '

p. 17 Beginning of first paragraph - change 'Masculine nouns …' to 'Some masculine nouns …'

p.41 The heading ' n (nasals)' in the fourth table should be above the third column (not the second)

p.48 First line of second column in table - for ' nûbês (m)' read ' nûbês (f)'

p.85 First line under the heading ' Catulliana '  for '(about 84-34 BC)' read '(about 84-54 BC)'

p.146 Fourth line of notes - for '25.1/5 b ' read '23.1/4'

p.160 First line - for 'cuidem' read 'cuidam'

p.195 Fifth line - ' begun ' should be placed immediately under ' coepisse '

p.220 Last line of first paragraph - for 'a purpose or goal' read 'a purpose, goal or result'

p.222 Dative of reference, first example - for ' Tuî ' read ' Tuô '

p.223 Under the heading ' Predicative dative '- for the first sentence substitute 'This is close in meaning to the preceding but can express either a purpose or result and is generally accompanied by a dative of advantage or disavantage.'

In the examples under the same heading;

After first and third examples add '(result)'

    After second example add '(purpose)'

p.233 Under '(ii) Dônec …' in the second example - for ' was were ' read ' were '

p.243 Penultimate line of 30.1/1 - for 'you finish' read 'you will finish'

p.248 Notes, second line - for 'abl. of' read 'gen. of'

p.255 Under the heading 'PAST', end of first line - for 'tź, sī id dixerīs, errāre' read ' tź, sī id dixerīs, errāvisse'

p.283 Translation of (9) - for 'to the poet' read 'to the poets'

p.303 Translation of 22 - for 'If he goes (it is gone)' read 'If he comes (it is come)'

Contact

The author would be grateful for any corrections or suggestions for improvement. He can be contacted at the following address: <gbetts@infoxchange.net.au>.