5 Tips for the Overwhelmed Latin Student

Are you learning Latin and feeling overwhelmed by all the forms, cases, rules, and weird word order?

Are you looking to ditch that overwhelm and gain confidence in your Latin learning journey?

If so then you’ve come to the right place. Welcome!

The first thing you need to know is this: That overwhelm and confusion you feel is totally normal. I felt it when I started, too. Latin is not an easy language to learn and the fact that you’re here is AMAZING.

The second thing you need to know is that you don’t have to feel overwhelmed and confused anymore. There are things you can do to succeed without losing your mind or feeling like your drowning.

In this post, I’ll lay out 5 concrete and actionable tips (plus one awesome bonus tip) to help you master Latin.

Every one of these tips comes from hands-on experience. I’ve seen all of them work and even used a few myself when I was first learning Latin.

Let’s jump in!

5 tips to change your Latin learning game

1. Learn how sentences work in English before you do it in Latin

Before you dive too deep into Latin grammar, go back to the basics in English to ensure you have a strong foundation. Here are a few fundamentals to make sure you know:

• How to identify the subject, object, direct object, and indirect object in a sentence
• The difference between nouns, adjectives, and verbs
• What a preposition is
• The difference between first, second, and third person verbs

Understanding these concepts in English will make it way easier to learn and understand Latin.

2. Turn verb conjugation into formulas

Most Latin verbs can be broken down into parts: stem, tense marker (if needed), and personal endings. These components work together to tell us everything we need to know about a verb (the person, number, tense, voice, and mood).

Rather than trying to memorize every form of a verb (there are a lot), try memorizing the formulas needed to create them instead. In other words, memorize formulas, not forms.

For example, the imperfect tense is formed using the following formula:

And the future tense is formed using a nearly identical formula:

So, instead of memorizing all the forms for each, memorize the formulas.

That leaves you with two things the memorize (three if you include the personal endings) instead of twelve.

Big difference, right?

You can learn more about this process and get the formulas written out for you in my FREE active indicative conjugation chart. 

3. Memorize (at least) the first two words in verb dictionary entries

Your typical Latin verb dictionary entry looks something like this:

laudō, laudāre, laudāvī, laudātum - to praise

When studying verbs, treat the first two words as one unit. For example, I’d refer to this verb as “laudō, laudāre,” and never just “laudō.”

Here’s why:

• The second word in a verb’s dictionary entry tells you its conjugation (which you need to know in order to conjugate correctly)
• You use the second word in the dictionary entry to find the present stem of a verb. This is then used to form the entire present system (that’s present, imperfect, and future verbs).
• The first word is also important: you need it to actually look up the verb in a dictionary.

Knowing both words will make your life way easier down the line, especially when it comes to conjugating verbs in a pinch.

4. Embrace weird stuff and mnemonic devices to help you learn

I learned using mnemonic devices and I teach using them, too.

The truth is that weird stuff works because it sticks in your brain. Take advantage of that.

Here’s how:

• Go through the material you’ve learned so far
• Identify the concepts, words, endings (etc.) that you struggle to remember and make a list
• Now, go through that list. For each item, think of a fun/weird way to remember it. This could be a word association, phrase, or totally out-there idea… the sky’s the limit.

A few of my favorites are:

• Use a -bī- to mark the future because “I am the future.” (I love this one because it’s motivational and helps you remember all at the same time.)
• Enim means “for” because there are four letters in the word. **(Not sure why this one stuck in my brain, but it did. This just goes to show that out-there ones work too.)
• Ager, agrī, which means “field” or “farm,” sounds like the beginning of “agriculture.” (The word “agriculture” is what’s called an English cognate. This means that it actually comes from the Latin word, ager, agrī. Cognates can be a great device for memorizing vocab.)

5. Find a personal connection to the language

If you can find a personal interest in or connection with Latin, it will be that much easier to learn. For example, I chose to learn Latin because I’m a writer and thought it would help with my vocabulary. I used this as motivation to keep going.

Some other motivations could be:

• Learning Latin to improve your understanding of STEM or legal jargon
• Learning Latin so you can read a specific text in its original form (like Ovid’s Metamorphoses or Caesar’s De Bello Gallico).

6. Bonus tip! ➡️ Practice translating from English to Latin, too

Most textbooks and curriculum will have you translating from Latin to English a whole lot more than you translate from English to Latin. This makes sense because Latin is a “dead” language. Why would we ever need to use it?

Although this might be true, translating from English to Latin is a fantastic way to test your understanding because it requires a deep understanding of the material.

Whenever you learn a new concept, make sure you practice English ➡️ Latin, too. If you can do that, then you know you’ve got it down!

Wrapping it up

The moral of the story is this: You can master Latin without feeling overwhelmed. You can get your head above water again. You can simplify the process and gain a deep understanding of the language.

These tips will help you get there.

1. Learn how sentences work in English before you do it in Latin
2. Turn verb conjugation into formulas
3. Memorize (at least) the first two words in verb dictionary entries
4. Embrace weird stuff and mnemonic devices to help you learn
5. Find a personal connection to the language
6. Bonus tip: Practice translating from English to Latin, too

Need some extra support? I’m here to help. Click here to learn more or schedule a call to begin personalized, 1:1 tutoring today.

With Love and Latin,

Olivia 💖