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The grammar–translation method is a method of teaching foreign languages derived from the classical (sometimes called traditional) method of teaching Ancient Greek and Latin. In grammar–translation classes, students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating sentences between the target language and the native language.
The French-Latin Ollendorff was, as far as can be ascertained, the first [citation needed] textbook written in modern times aimed at teaching Latin as a spoken language, using "modern" methods. Manesca's method was never translated directly into Latin or Greek for publication, although it did appear in a Spanish edition written by Carlos Rabadan.
Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives (including participles) are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood.
Similarly in foreign or second language teaching, the grammar-translation method based on traditional Latin teaching, in which the grammar of the language being learned is described in the student's native language, has competed with approaches such as the direct method or the communicative approach, in which grammar instruction is minimized. [10]
Latin word order is relatively free. The verb may be found at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence; an adjective may precede or follow its noun (vir bonus or bonus vir both mean 'a good man'); [5] and a genitive may precede or follow its noun ('the enemies' camp' can be both hostium castra and castra hostium; the latter is more common). [6]
There exist also numerous translations into various languages. An edition with a Chinese translation appeared in Shanghai in 1869. A very interesting edition is one published in Japan in 1594, with partial translation into Japanese. An English edition, "An Introduction to the Latin Tongue, or First Book of Grammar", appeared in 1686.
Grammar is gradually made more complex until the student is reading unadapted Latin texts. Unusual for a Latin course, pronunciation and understanding, rather than translation, are stressed. A dictionary is not necessary in this system; because the textbooks are composed entirely in Latin, they can be used by speakers of many languages.
Dryden often translated his writing into Latin, to check whether his writing was concise and elegant, Latin being considered an elegant and long-lived language with which to compare; then he back-translated his writing back to English according to Latin-grammar usage. As Latin does not have sentences ending in prepositions, Dryden may have ...
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