Latin II

Renaissance Christian authors often called Latin one of two “wings” that made the best of human culture fly (the other one being Greek). Latin, they said, civilized the West. Building on this positive vision of the place of Latin in Christian education, this is the first half of a course that will concentrate on a more natural mode of engaging Latin - that is, as a language conveying enjoyable meaning rather than a code to be wrestled with and broken. As an Honors Level offering, this course tends to be more rigorous in both scope and expectations, but the payoff, confidence in reading classical and Christian sources in the original language, will more than justify the added effort.

Prerequisite: Since this is the second part of a two-year Latin course, students must have either some experience with extensive sight-reading of Latin passages, or be willing to do some remedial work with the teacher prior to the beginning of this course.

Course Objectives:

1. Acquire and master up to 1,500 of the most common words used in classical Latin
2. Hone the ability to recognize many different forms of Latin nouns, verbs, and pronouns in a variety of contexts
3. Learn common Latin grammatical constructions such as indirect discourse, dative of agent, advanced participle phrases, and, building beyond the 7th grade level, a variety of subjunctive clauses.
4. Develop the ability to sight-read extensive passages of Latin in connected story arcs

Texts:

• Orberg, Hans. Lingua Latina I: Familia Romana (second half)
• Orberg, Hans. Colloquia Personarum