A short summary of my progress so far:

I first became interested in Latin in December of 2021. That initial burst of interest lasted about two months and then I didn't return to the language until December 2023. I've studied Latin every day since then. I think I might have missed a day once or twice, but that's it. I've never managed to achieve anything like this in any other language and the method I've chosen might have something to do with it.

Lingua Latina: Per Se Illustrata - Familia Romana has been the essential foundation of my learning, but it is not the Messiah of Latin textbooks. It's good, but people really enjoy sucking its dick; so far I haven't fallen to my knees in rapturous euphoria from the overwhelming glory of its unparalleled pedagogy. I've enjoyed some of the stories. Some segments are like wading through a swamp. There are strange sentences that bombard you with floods of new grammar and vocabulary all at once. Certain concepts and vocabulary could afford to be repeated more throughout the book; each chapter introduces a set of concepts, beats you with them until you are mangled and begging for mercy on the ground, and then seems to expect you to understand each concept fully before moving on to the next chapter. I refuse to spend much time on rote memorization since it saps my motivation and I seem to learn just as much from reading. But the structure of Familia Romana means that I have read most of these chapters upwards of ten times because I want to thoroughly understand the content that is to come, which is a brutally unpleasant tribulation no matter how much you try to brainwash yourself into thinking you are having fun.

Something I see rarely mentioned is the dark humor throughout the book. In Chapter 29, we have this interaction, in which a devastated man who has just lost all of his worldly possessions to a storm at sea considers throwing himself off the side of the ship:

Mercātor: "Quid ergō faciam? Ipse dē nāve saliam, an in eādem nāve maneam vōbīscum?"

"What do I do, then? Should I throw myself off the ship, or stay in this same ship with all of you?"

To which he receives the following response from the ship's helmsman:

Gubernātor: "Salī modo! Nēmō nostrum tē prohibēbit."

"Just jump! None of us will stop you."

I didn't expect this and I thought it was hilarious.

Latin textbooks and "readers" naturally tend to focus on the Romans, and the Romans were a gloriously messy, wondrous, awful, fascinating people, so I've always found it honest and realistic that many books focus on war, and the lives and sufferings of slaves, and the spectacle of charioteers dying before cheering crowds, and so on. Of course there are chapters full of sweetness, like the one early on when Julius brings home apples for his family and everyone gets a kiss. But the willingness to shine a light on daily life in antiquity reveals not only the love and tenderness of humanity but the inevitable brutality as well, although the attitude with which FR treats these subjects can read as oddly cold and devoid of empathy when it fails to make a humorous connection. I have a mutation that causes me to laugh at horror and derangement, so this is fine to me. It's funny to think about some of these books being used in schools--the first Ecce Romani has a story about a murder concealed by covering the corpse in manure; Familia Romana contains the unfortunate phrase "sex assēs" and I have to wonder if High Lord Ørberg the absolute madman knew what he was doing.

Anyway, FR usually does a good job of helping you along from chapter to chapter, but I've made extensive use of supplements and a book in English that explains all of the grammar concepts; without those aids, in a few areas I would be hopelessly helpless. I noticed difficulty spikes in Capitulum Octavum (VIII), "Taberna Romana" (must have been the usage of demonstratives?), and Capitulum Sextum Decimum, "Tempestas," (XVI) which is where deponent verbs are first introduced. I spent days attacking the chapter with little success before backing off to memorize forms for several weeks. I think this was a mistake and I should have focused on reading instead, but I did eventually manage to crack the chapter and I find it trivial to read now. I had psyched myself up for Cap. XXIX because apparently that one was another difficulty spike, but I breezed through every chapter from XVI to XXXI before hitting a wall again at XXXII, "Classis Romana." These things are different for everyone.

I have more to say about my progress so far, but I'll come back to all of this later. I finished the entire book in May. Fuck that poetry chapter. I was on my knees begging God to save me.

May 6, 2024

Reading Latin For Today. My God, it's been a while since I so virulently despised the experience of reading something the way that I despise this. Why don't I just read something else, well because I'm already 200 pages in and I'm an insane person. No one believes me when I say that but I'm serious. Anyway reading material is reading material. I need more quality beginner to intermediate level reading material than probably exists, so if I have to scrape the grime off the bottom of the public domain barrel, I'll do it and lick my fingers for good measure. I've been digging up stories written by the students of random Latin teachers. Scrutinizing the shitty Latin in metal lyrics (it's almost always wrong). But this book. How I loathe it. How I tremble and seethe and gnash my teeth. How I shake my fist at God.

Okay I'm done. Really this book isn't difficult, it's just the way the passages are put together. Lots of sentences like "Who sees the girl? Anna sees the girl. Isn't the girl good? Why do you not respond? Are good students praised?" etc. I'm not certain how much I can actually blame the book for this because it seems intended for the classroom and better suited for that context, maybe with a teacher asking questions and students responding. For me alone in my goblin cavern at home, it makes for uninspiring reading.

I enjoy its illustrations and etymology explorations even though those are secondary to what I'm here for. Just have to push through it. It's an exercise in discipline. I've given up on more things than not in my life; I can read a single boring book. Then I get to check it off of my delightful little spreadsheet, which was my secret real priority this entire time.

Also May 2024 hey hey

I take it all back, this book is alright after the first 200 pages. Almost immediately after I wrote that, it drastically improved. More stories about Rome. The "boring slog" segment is just the gauntlet you have to fling yourself through in order to get to the material that DOESN'T make you want to slam a nail into your eyeball. Some textbooks are like this and this is fine.