I’ve started reading St. Augustine’s Confessions in Latin. Now, it’s been almost four years since I studied Latin. Long time. And yet a lot of it’s stuck, miraculously. I remember a lot of the endings (they seem to have become a permanent part of me), and even some of the vocab. But it’s not enough, and so I’m going to be hitting the books again (Wheelock’s Latin and Moreland & Fleischer, along with Allen & Greenough’s Grammar). Studying just the grammar books probably wouldn’t be satisfying enough, however, so I’ll continue reading St. Augustine as I go. It’s been my experience that reading real texts helps immensely with getting the feel of a language. (Hmm, I guess I have a penchant for stating the obvious.) At any rate, I want to be reading fluently before long (long meaning any time between a year from now and 10 years from now ), and so the more I read, the better I’ll get.

After a couple of hours of work, I’ve finished the Latin edition of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and made it downloadable at Riverglen Press. There are actually two versions: the learner’s edition has large print and lots of extra space for making notes between the lines (as well as in the margins); the reader’s edition is normal book-size print and is meant for reading, not necessarily notetaking (though the margins still give plenty of room for that).

Now that I’ve actually gotten something up, I’ll start work on Pride & Prejudice. And I’ll dig up the Thai script card I made in the mission office and upload it, too…

Yesterday afternoon I took a break and wandered through the language section of the library. They recently moved the books to a different set of shelves, so it was like exploring new territory in a way — very fun. I haven’t spent much time on learning languages since my Old English class last semester came to an end, and it’s a pity. For my major (English Language) I have to take one more Latin class, so I’ll need to brush mine up in order to survive a 300-level class. And my Old English is already fading away, sadly, and so I’ve got to start reading Beowulf. Anyway, back to the bookshelves: I (re-)discovered the Celtic languages section, and suddenly I found myself with an almost irrepressible desire to learn Irish Gaelic and Welsh. Yum. Oh, oh, I forgot to mention that before I got to this section, I meandered through the place the books used to be, and I found that our library has substantial Welsh, Norwegian, and Arabic holdings. Fascinating. So what I think I need to is set aside a certain amount of time each day (10-30 minutes), preferably in the morning, and apply myself rigorously to study. My senior year in high school I woke up at 5 every morning to study Latin for half an hour each day, and it worked. For some reason I find it immensely harder to wake up before 5 now (which usually requires getting to bed by 10 or so, an even harder task, and I don’t even have much of a social life! ). But self-discipline is good, and I am fond of waking up early. There’s nothing quite like the air at dawn — fresh and rich and rejuvenating. Well, it’s almost 11 now and I’ll never start waking up at 5 if I keep staying up this late, so adieu for now.