Ora Maritima: A Latin Story for Beginners, with Grammar and Exercises is a book published by Edward Adolph Sonnenschein (1851-1929) circa 1900. It tells, more or less continuously and with ascending difficulty, about present-day (1900s-present, that is) England and mostly about Julius Caesar’s incursion against the Britons.
Starting practically from scratch, each chapter increases a little in difficulty and adds more vocabulary and grammatical content. In general, the syntax is quite easy, since the idea is to be able to read rather than analyze and translate. This book is a fantastic complement to practice reading on the fly.
It is in the public domain, so it is free to use, download, etc.; you can do so on Archive.org. It includes the text (with some cool illustrations), some theory and exercises we won’t trouble with, and all the vocabulary for the reader, which you can download for your convenience directly from here.
How to use
However you prefer, but this is my recommendation. First, try to read the text without any type of analysis or even translation. Of course, you have the whole vocabulary list available, so you can be checking the words you don’t know. Once you have read a few sentences, stop and think if what you’ve read (and understood) makes sense; if not, you probably didn’t get it right, so try again.
After you have done your job, check the videos, where I translate, explain and elaborate. Even if you think you got everything, I strongly recommend checking the videos, since there’s always something to learn from the teacher!
Review!
I. Ora maritima (paragraphs 1-5)
Grammar required: the whole first module (esp. first declension and present indicative).
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II. Patruus meus (paragraphs 6-8)
Grammar required: second declension and 2-1-2 adjectives.
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III. Monumenta antiqua (paragraphs 9-11)
No new grammar is required.
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IV. Delectamenta puerorum (paragraphs 12-14)
No new grammar is required.
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V. Magister noster (paragraph 15)
No new grammar is required.
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Under construction!
Expect a few new paragraphs per week…
