First ever audio-visual Latin course being taught… on YouTube

YouTube user evan1965 is currently teaching an entirely self-contained audio/video Latin course using the popular video sharing site – but not, like most Latin courses (and like every one I ever studied), a course that simply enables you to read and understand existing Latin texts. This Latin course, or rather “cursum latinum”, teaches Latin language, as you would learn any other language, training you to read, write and speak in the ancient tongue. Besides a little English in the first couple of introductory lessons, the entire course is taught in Latin, meaning that it’s open to everybody, no matter what your native language!

Of course, since we have no surviving ancient Romans around and there were no audio recording capabilities in those days, we are not entirely sure just how Latin was spoken (though we are sure that it was not in a thick American accent as in later episodes of the TV show LOST). However, from piecing together various ancient texts on the subject of Latin rhetoric and grammar, modern day experts have some idea – though there are, of course, some models of pronunciation that not everybody agrees with. Then, of course, there is the common issue of how exactly to render modern inventions such as “computer”, “internet”, etc. in a language with no notion of the concepts.

Evan says in the course description:

The course is taught in Latin, based primarily on the work of J.A. Comenius (1657) and J.G. Adler (1856). This is not a translation course, the goal is to get you reading and writing and thinking in Latin. A version of the restored classical pronunciation of Latin is used.

Suitable for beginners, Latin is taught slowly from the ground up, using spoken Latin, while keeping a firm grip on grammar. The first 2 lessons have some English. The rest are only in Latin. You will need to study the course in sequence, as each lesson follows the preceding one in a progressive order.

As the course is taught totally in Latin, you need no other language.

You can access the videos on his YouTube profile. There are For anybody who has ever wanted to study Latin, this could be a very interesting (and more importantly, free!) way of fulfilling that aim. To date, Evan has made 323 videos, so you may have a little catching up to do!

There is also an audio-only version of the course available in podcast format.