Hi! I'm currently learning Latin for university and doing exercises on things like declensions, cases, and translating English phrases into Latin.

I'm finding it quite difficult to check whether my answers to exercises given to me are actually correct. For example, if an exercise asks me to translate a phrase, I want to be able to verify that I've used the correct case, gender, number, and adjective agreement. Anything like chatGPT or google translate is totally incorrect.

What resources do you recommend for checking Latin exercises? Is there a good tool where I can enter my answers and check what case/declension it is or input the english phrase and case?

Thanks!

1) ISBN-10: 84-95359-27-8

2) ISBN-10: 8492405201

3) ISBN-10: 8472259641

4) ISBN-10: 8492405112

5) ISBN-10: 847517583X

J’ai vu plusieurs sources qui dirait que cette phrase vienne de Marc Aurele mais en faisant les recherches je tombe majoritairement sur de sources qui citeraient cicéron plutôt que Marc Aurele, quelqu’un peut me confirmer que c’est bien ciceeon et non Marc Aurele ? Merci

The 16th International Colloquium on Late and Vulgar Latin (Latin vulgaire – latin tardif XVI) will be held at the Department of Cultures and Civilizations (University of Verona, Italy) from Monday, September 14th to Saturday, September 19th, 2026.

Clackson, de Paolis, Biville, Dahl, Selig, Trovato, ...

Was reading this letter and got a kick of how he used "apis ibi" (bee there, for "be there") and "oculus" (eye, for "I"), or rendered the name "Harvey" as "Lepus-aemula" (hare-vie lol) etc etc:

Thomas Jefferson to John Walker, 3 September 1769

To John Walker

Sep. 3. 1769.Galfridi-Filius Ambulatori S.

Ero apud Society spring on Tuesday per quatuor. Fortasse et I. Lepus-æmula veniet. Apis ibi et tu quoque. Ferto sequelam tuam Septentrionalem. Ferto etiam, ut ante tibi præcepi, tabulam scaccariam. Oculus feram viros. Si possemus gignere tabulam pro hac vice expressè factam, lignum apis puteus. Sed de hoc postea confabulemur. Suntne bubulæ terræ patris tui in Augusta salvæ? Id est nonne sint lapsabiles pro defectu cultûs vel quitrentorum? Non dubito quin salvæ suit, tamen vide dum potes. Verbum sat sapienti. Magna clades mox erit iis qui aliter sunt. Vale.

P.S. Celeberrimus ille Ferguson, qui scripsit de astronomia, venturus est, ut fertur, ad Coll. Gul. et Mar. successor dignus dignissimi Parvi!

TRANSLATION (provided by the Founders Archive Website)

Jeffery’s-Son to Walker, Greetings Sep. 3. 1769.

I shall be at Society spring on Tuesday at four. Perhaps J[ohn] Har(e)-vie will also come. And bee you there too. Bring your northern following [friend?]. Bring also, as I asked you before, a chess board. Eye shall bring the men. If we could get a board made expressly for this use it wood bee well. But we will speak of that later. Are your father’s grazing lands in Augusta safe? That is, may they not be subject to lapse through lack of cultivation or quitrents? I have no doubt but that they are safe, but see to it while you can. A word to the wise. A great loss will soon come to those who are otherwise. Good-bye.

P.S. That most famous Ferguson, who wrote on astronomy, will come, it is said, to the College of William and Mary, an excellent successor to the most excellent Small!

https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%20Author%3A%22Jefferson%2C%20Thomas%22%20apis&s=1111311111&r=1

I speak Spanish, and it is honestly so frustrating. You see a word, your brain immediately thinks you know it because it looks exactly like Spanish, and then it turns out to mean something totally different. The struggle is real

Whether you're reading Familia Romana or Tacitus — what your biggest pain points? What exhausts you mentally and gets you to stop?

It's rare to come across new errors in Kennedy's. This is the second error I've found in the index, which seems to have received less attention during revisions.

Page 243, quō (interrog.), 102, 167, 250 (n. 1)

There is no note in section 250.

1962 edition.

I feel like I see so much content made in classical latin, and the renaissance purged medieval latin for being 'impure', but is it really a problem, and is it illegitimate to write and speak latin in a medieval manner, like using ones native language word order, extra prepositions, etc.

He tries to deposit a cheque, forgetting to conjugate some of the words on the cheque, and the ATM screen displayed: Declined

I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across The Latin Poems of Christian Wedsted: A Moravian in 18th Century Pennsylvania, edited with translation and notes by Aaron Palmore, published in 2026 in the Bloomsbury Neo-Latin Series.

40 perfectly presentable Latin poems, totaling 1200 lines, written by Wedsted, who was born in Denmark in 1720, migrated south as a young man and joined the Moravian Brethren, a Pietist sect who despite their name and Hussite influence, counted many Germans among their number, and died in 1757 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which had been founded by the Moravians.

I haven't been studying British-colonial American Latin for very long, and I'd never heard of Wedsted.

The only collections of various authors of Latin verse from the British colonies and early US I've found so far are those of Leo M Kaiser. His anthology Early American Latin Verse, 1625-1825, published by Bolchazy-Carducci, is wonderful. 111 poems selected by Kaiser from over 300 poems he found mostly in New England newspapers and magazines.

Switching from ambitiously creative verse to letters and legal documents of historical interest, some in Latin: Thomas Hughes helpfully published several volumes of these alongside his History of the Society of Jesus in North America, early 20th century. Nota bene, I'm recommending the documents. I haven't read Hughes' history itself, and couldn't say whether or not I would recommend it.

I'm posting this to recommend these volumes, and also to ask if anyone else would like to recommend any editions or anthologies or other collections of Latin from the British American colonies and/or the US. Not necessarily only the early US, and I am interested in prose as well as verse.

Please be as harsh as you want, I am really trying to improve my writing style. I'm not going for exclusively classical necessarily, just something that sounds polished. I welcome any and all feedback.

In principio Eru, scilicet Unicus, Dryadum lingua Iluvatar nominatus, Ainūs e mente sua creavit, qui coram eo magnum cantum produxerunt. ex hoc cantu autem Mundus natus est. Iluvatar enim fecit ut oculis pateret carmen illud Ainuum, qui id sicut lumen in tenebris inspexerunt. multis tamen eorum pulchritudine eius delectatis, etiam historia eius, quam nasci evolvique sicut in quadam visione observabant, Iluvatar fecit ut visio eorum re vera Esset et in medio Abysso instituta sit, Igne Occulto admisso ut apud cor Mundi arderet. nominatusque est [ille mundus] Ea.

Tunc ei ex Ainibus quibus libuit surrexerunt, in Mundum principio Temporis ineuntes. horum igitur erat eum perficere ac laboribus suis visionem explere quam viderant. diu quidem in regionibus Eae laborabant—quae ampliores sunt quam ut in animis Dryadum Hominumve contineantur—donec tempore constituto Arda facta est, scilicet Regnum Terrae. postremo, vestimentis terrestribus indutis, in eam descenderunt ibique habitaverunt.

The English source:

(Account of the Valar and Maiar according to the lore of the Eldar)

In the beginning Eru, the One, who in the Elvish tongue is named Iluvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great Music before him. In this Music the World was begun; for Iluvatar made visible the song of the Ainur, and they beheld it as a light in the darkness. And many among them became enamoured of its beauty, and of its history which they saw beginning and unfolding as in a vision. Therefore Iluvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Ea.

Then those of the Ainur who desired it arose and entered into the World at the beginning of Time; and it was their task to achieve it, and by their labours to fulfil the vision which they had seen. Long they laboured in the regions of Ea, which are vast beyond the thought of Elves and Men, until in the time appointed was made Arda, the Kingdom of Earth. Then they put on the raiment of Earth and descended into it, and dwelt therein.

(This is not for an assignment but I wasn't sure what a better flair to choose would have been.)

as far as I understand, you can use credo + acc + dat and it comes out something like this:

credo tibi haec: I trust you on these things.

but you can also flip it around to an impersonal passive:

creditur tibi haec: there is trust for you on these things.

but what about having a passive form of credo with a subject, like this:

creduntur tibi haec: these things are believed (in respect to you as having said them)?

a) does this exist?

b) there must be a better way to translate it, if so.

I’ve only been studying Latin for a year and I have now been thrown into the lion’s den and have to translate Cicero’s Pro Caelio in its entirety for a class in Roman oratory. This sentence at the beginning of paragraph 6 is giving me pain:

… ab his fontibus profluxi ad hominum famam, et meus hic forensis labor vitaeque ratio dimanavit ad existimationem hominum paulo latius commendatione ac iudicio meorum.

I know what all the words mean, but it doesn’t make sense to me. I have two translations available that I’ve been using as help, but both of them are very free in this sentence, so they don’t help much. I can’t even point out what exactly I find difficult about it, it just seems like a bunch of nonsense.

Would appreciate any help.

Im currently using William Linney’s book Getting Started with Latin and right now I have found it to be quite helpful to remember basic vocabulary and some structure of the sentences.

Though, I see many people recommending to immediately start with Familia Romana, so should I try with that first? I have tried to read the first chapter and I understood some sentences but found the grammar notes in the margins to be quite confusing.

Hey yall, i started my Latin journey earlier today!!

I got this book at the library, i wanted to know if any of yall have used it to learn this beautiful language.

I’ve recently started learning Latin, and I often hear people say, “Why learn Latin? It’s a dead language.”

What would be a good response to that argument?

I’m looking for answers beyond simply saying that Latin is still used in academia, law, medicine, or the Catholic Church. What are some genuinely strong arguments for why learning Latin is worthwhile despite it being a “dead” language?

Curious to hear how other Latin learners respond to this.

Nuntios Latinos breves Academiae Latinitati Fovendae legite nomenque date!

Currently reading book one and I feel completely out of my depth here. This is probably the third time I’ve tried getting through book one and Livy just doesn’t seem to get easier like the other authors do.

I’ve become pretty familiar with other writers’ styles in the last couple years; I can get through some of Cicero’s speeches and philosophical tracts with relative ease, Vergil and Ovid are generally a breeze and Sallust is a pleasure.

But Livy is just so aggravatingly dense. He writes these amazing short sentences with supines and impersonal passives everywhere that make we want to *get* him so much more, but then I’ll be sat trying to decipher a babushka doll of indirect questions, searching for the antecedent in a paragraph full of substantives and just getting a headache.

I’ve got the Steadman copy and the Loeb, but it feels like I’m relying on them more as time goes by.

This is probably something simple, but I can't make the pieces fit:

In qua re, ut meum quidem iudicium est, non culpa tantum vacat, sed dignus quoque laude admirationeque est, cum et ingenue ac religiose dicere visus est contra Rhodienses, quod sentiebat, et parta sibi veritatis fide ipsum illud tamen, quod contrarium putabatur, flexit et transtulit, ut eos idcirco vel maxime aequum esset acceptiores carioresque fieri populo Romano, quod cum et utile is esset et vellent regi esse factum, nihil tamen adiuvandi eius gratia fecerint.

Which means:

On this point, in my judgment at least, Cato is not only free from reproach, but is even deserving of praise and admiration. For he apparently expressed a frank and conscientious opinion adverse to the Rhodians; but then, having established confidence in his candour,⁠ he so changed and shifted that very statement which seemed to militate against them, that on that account alone it seemed right that they should be more highly esteemed and beloved by the people of Rome; inasmuch as they took no steps to aid the king, although they wished him to succeed and although his success would have been to their advantage.

I want to take quod as 'because' (rather than a neuter pronoun), since otherwise it's a run-on sentence. But I can't see what to make of vellent regi esse factum unless that factum refers to something mentioned (what is to be done to the king?).

Confusingly, my old French edition puts utiles essent for utile is esset and translates: "que, pouvant rendre service à Persée et souhaitant au fond du cœur qu'on lui vienne en aide, ils ne lui ont pourtant accordé aucun secours effectif".

The term Vulgar Latin has always confused me, as I understand it, vulgar here refers to common, meaning the Latin people commonly spoke in the Roman Republic/Empire. Which is in contrast with Classical Latin, which is often framed as a formal written standard of Latin associated with the Roman elite, that the common people of the Republic and Empire supposedly were either unlearned in or didn't care to use it.

Though this seems a bit odd as Vulgar Latin seems to mean two things here, both informal Latin during the classical period, and also Late Latin. From that it is commonly said that the romance languages descend from Vulgar Latin, but, if that is the case, that Vulgar Latin is both of these, then what really is Vulgar Latin? If Late Latin likely had its own registers and ability for formality as earlier Latin did, and thus it being possible for one to speak informally in the classical period in classical Latin, and formally in Late Latin during the time of the late empire, then what is vulgar Latin here, how are these two things both Vulgar Latin?

Another thing the concept of Vulgar Latin appears to hint at is that as Classical Latin was associated with the elites and Vulgar Latin (the "informal" speech), with the common people, that common people cannot speak formally and that formal language is derived from written language. Which this is obviously untrue, as most languages aside from perhaps pidgins or creoles have different spoken registers that every speaker can understand and presumedly use themselves.

I'm just somewhat at a loss of what Vulgar Latin even is and why register barely seems to be talked about in the subject aside from vague hints of Vulgar Latin being lesser there and Late Latin being grouped into it.