Name: Lingua Latina per se Illustrata
ISBN: 9781585108633

Lingua Latina per se Illustrata

Roma Aeterna (the main book of Pars II of the Lingua Latina per se illustrata series, entirely in Latin*) introduces some of the most celebrated authors of Roman antiquity through the lens of Roman literature and mythology. A vivid description of the city's monuments precedes a prose retelling of the first four books of Virgil's Aeneid, with many of the most famous passages in their original verse form. The selection from Virgil is followed by Book One of Livy's engaging mythical history of Rome's foundation. The prose selections are judiciously chosen and, in the first few chapters, gently adapted to provide students with a text that is authentically Latin and yet not difficult. The unadapted selections, which make up the majority of the text, are taken from Aulus Gellius, Ovid, Nepos, Sallust, and Horace. These annotated selections make Roma Aeterna useful both as the next step after Familia Romana and as a survey of Latin literature in its own right. Roma Aeterna incorporates the following features: Latin immersion with vowel lengths marked Approximately 3,000 vocabulary words Short discussions of grammar and exercises for each chapter Selected readings that cover the material in a Roman history course Index of Roman rulers and of historical events arranged chronologically Now with full-color illustrations * The main books in the Lingua Latin per se Illustrata series, Familia Romana (Pars I) and Roma Aeterna (Pars II) are entirely in Latin.

What Hacker News says

spudlyoAug 2026

I'm a recently retired software nerd who got into reading 19th century literature. I was greatly inspired by characters in these novels, most of whom had the advantages of a classical education, and I lamented how poor my own was. One day I idly wondered how hard it would be to learn a bit of Latin (as I was constantly having to look up Latin references) and once I discovered LLPSI[0] I was hooked.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Latina_per_se_illustrat...

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efskapMay 2026

If anyone is interested in learning it, there's nothing better than Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It's entirely in Latin, including grammar explanations, but it starts out incredibly simple and ramps up gradually with lots of repetition. And that's fun AND effective, since you're immersed rather than grinding tables.

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laurentlbMay 2026

I like the approach in Lingua Latina per se Illustrata (sometimes called the "natural method"). I've noticed that it was adapted for other languages too, but most of the adaptations seemed old and outdated.

Recently I was wondering if I should work on a modernization of the concept (using audio and a more interactive medium). If anyone has thoughts on this topic, I'd be happy to discuss more.

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satvikpendemFeb 2026

The link above mentions Ørberg who did something similar for Latin (Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, ebook and audiobook), which I've read through with good success. It's known as the immersive Ørberg method after him.

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thaumasiotesJun 2025

> The reason traditional material doesn't attempt immersive techniques is because it is much much easier to print a static book than it is to produce interactive and adaptive content.

No, that's not correct.

First off, you can provide immersion with static books. A common favorite here on HN is Lingua Latina per se illustrata ["the Latin tongue explained by itself"].

Second off, there are two reasons that traditional material doesn't do this. The biggest one is student demand; people are afraid of immersion. The second is that the traditional approach is faster. It's lower quality, and it tops out well below the level you hope to reach, but it's faster, not slower. It takes babies a year to learn to say they're hungry. It takes an elementary school class studying a foreign language less than a day.

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spudlyoMar 2025

If you find this article fascinating, and are intrigued by the possibility of learning to speak a dead language like Latin, I'm here to tell you that it's probably a lot easier than you think.

To start off, there is a textbook that I think really resonates with hackers. It's called "Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata" (The Latin Language Illustrated through itself) and it teaches Latin in a fun and mind-altering way. The entire book is in Latin, but it starts of with very simple sentences that anyone who speaks English or a Romance language can intuit with a bit of effort. There are very clever marginal illustrations that help drive the meaning home. It builds an understanding in Latin brick by brick, and eventually you find yourself understanding complex sentences and ideas. Furthermore the book is just fun and often funny, it tells a story of a Roman family and strikes an excellent balance between teaching and entertaining. Contrast this approach with dense Latin texts that have a heavy focus on grammar and translation.

So that's one way to learn the language, but what about speaking it? Well, that's where the Legentibus app comes in. It's a Latin language podcast application which has wealth of well recorded stories in classical Latin at a bunch of different difficulty levels. It also has has the Latin language text of the stories that are highlighted as the audio is read, with optional interlinear English translations. I find these really help at first to help me understand the content. I turn them off later once I get the gist of what is being said, or just listen without reading. You can also do dictionary lookups of individual words without turning on the translation.

Here are the reasons why I think this is one of the most enjoyable and useful things I do as a newbie Latin language learner:

1) The stories themselves are engaging. Some of my favorites are from "Gesta Romanorum" (Deeds of the Romans) which is a 13th or 14th century collection of stories often with a moral allegorical themes. These were rewritten in a beginner friendly style, but use classical Latin idioms, some of which are explicitly pointed out in the text as clickable footnotes.

2) Daniel (the co-founder of the app and Latin scholar) does an excellent job as a reader. I listen to a lot of audio books, and I especially like it when the reader consistently does memorable character voices. Be it an extortionist dog slyly claiming "Omnēs canēs amant" (everyone loves dogs) or Pluto, King of the Underworld, commanding "Eurydicē accēde hūc!" in a booming voice, Daniel nails it.

3) You can listen to these while folding laundry, cooking dinner, or doing whatever. I manage to squeeze in 40 minutes a day or so of these stories, and I'm always happy to do it.

4) Often times when I learn a new bit of grammar or learn the precise meaning of a word, my mind often will replay in my head a phrase (in Daniel's voice) from one of the stories that uses that word or grammatical concept. This happens more than you might expect.

Finally, there is a pretty vibrant online community of Latin language learners out there, from the /r/Latin subreddit, to the LLPSI (Lingua Latina per se Illustrata) Discord (https://discord.gg/uXSwq9r4) to the Latin & Ancient Greek) Discord (https://discord.gg/latin) and others.

It's never been easier to pick up Latin.

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