finished part 1

content_blog/languages/latin.mkd

@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 ---
 title: Reading Latin (Part 1)
-date: 2012-07-03
-techne: :wip
+date: 2012-07-04
+techne: :done
 episteme: :speculation
 ---
 
 This is the first post in a 2-part series about learning to read Latin, or any language, really. Even though the Four Evangelists - [Khatzu of the Moto clan][AJATT], [Steve "Doing What I Do, Better, Earlier and Getting Paid For It" Kaufmann][Steve Kaufmann],  [Prof. Alexander "The Shadow" Arguelles][Arguelles] and [Stephen "The" Krashen][Krashen] - have already brought us the Holy Scripture of Language Learning, my approach is slightly different, more hacker-friendly, and a bit more text-focused. [Saint Morph Man][MorphMan] covers TV, I cover books.
 
-This is Part One - Rationale and Mindset. Part Two - Tools and Examples - will be posted shortly. The whole series is still considered experimental, not proven, despite the confident tone. Once results are clearer, this tentative warning will disappear, and the confidence will fit the results.
+This is Part One - Method and Mindset. Part Two - Tools and Examples - will be posted shortly. The whole series is still considered experimental, not proven, despite the confident tone. Once results are clearer, this tentative warning will disappear, and the confidence will fit the results.
 
 ---
 
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Learning one word is a trivially easy task. You've just done it twice, with no e
 
 So you're telling me, "I want to know what that sentence means!". Sure thing. Seven words, remember? So we do it 5 more times. Heck, I'm sure you can already guess some of them.
 
-Like 'in'. You totally know what 'in' means, dude. And 'partes'. Yeah, 'parts'. That's really tricky. 'est' is just 'is'. Like in French. 'tres', think un, dos, tres - right, it's 'three'. One last word, 'divisa', which obviously is 'divided'.
+Like 'in'. You totally know what 'in' means, dude. And 'partes'. Yeah, 'parts'. That's really tricky. 'est' is just 'is', like in French. 'tres', think un, dos, tres - right, it's 'three'. One last word, 'divisa', which obviously is 'divided'.
 
 So that sentence means 'All of Gaul is divided into three parts'.
 
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ Yeah, the word order is a bit weird, I know. If it confuses you, that's another
 
 "But muflax", you ask, "how did *you* know what 'omnis' meant?". Good question, you handsome narrative device, you!
 
-I looked it up. Not everyone knows this, but people aren't actually born speaking a language. There are no "native" languages at all. (I was shocked too!) Those damned kids who later go around claiming Latin, or Japanese, or whatever new-fangled thing they speak these days, they claim this thing is their "native" language, they totally own it, and they learned it in completely unique and special ways, ones only children can use...
+I looked it up. Not everyone knows this, but people aren't actually born speaking a language. There are no "native" languages at all. (I was shocked too!) These damned kids who later go around claiming Latin, or Japanese, or whatever new-fangled thing they speak these days, they claim this thing is their "native" language, they totally own it, and they learned it in completely unique and special ways, ones only children can use...
 
 These people are full of shit.
 
@@ -63,15 +63,15 @@ Parallel texts just means "look this shit up in a translation". The original sen
 
 And context, well, did you really needed me to tell you that 'in' means 'in' or 'into'? You just got that? Could make an informed guess? Perfect.
 
-No other magic involved.[^grammar] I don't secretly have Caesar chained up in my basement, that's a dirty lie, I've given up on necromancy centuries ago! It's just those and similar tools. Be as lazy as you possibly can.
+No other magic involved.[^grammar] I don't secretly have Caesar chained up in my basement, that's a dirty lie, I've given up on necromancy centuries ago! 
 
-You have your pre-installed Latin module. You feed it content. You encounter some bugs, you look them up in the most convenient way possible. You feed it more content until all the bugs are fixed.
+You have your pre-installed Latin module. You feed it content. You encounter some bugs, you look them up in the most convenient way possible. You feed it more content until all the bugs are fixed. Maybe we can even automate this process, have (begin ominous music) The Computer (end ominous music) systematically look for bugs and generate little patches for us. You know, so we can be as lazy as is humanly possible. Which is *very lazy indeed*.
 
 There's one more thing though. I'm sorry to say, but, well, how can I put this nicely... you have brain-rot. What I mean is, someone accidentally turned on the Second Law of Thermodynamics in this universe, and now we're all doomed to the endless samsara of memory loss.
 
 You'll forget things again. You may have noticed this feature of reality before. (Unless you forgot. Haha.) So you may want to use some little trick to *not* forget things. Not strictly necessary, of course, but personally, I'm fan of only learning something once. Don't like wasting time much.
 
-So you put your stuff in your [trusty SRS][SRS], make a bunch of Anki cards - I'll tell you how in part 2 - and that's it.
+So you put your stuff in your [trusty SRS][SRS], use a bunch of Anki cards for your new-learned words - I'll tell you how in part 2 - and that's it.
 
 You now know everything there is to reading Latin.