That depends.  Do you have experience with any other languages that use a case system?

That depends.  Do you have experience with any other languages that use a case system?

If Spanish uses a case system, then yes- as its the only other language I know. As you can see, I am a product of public school education in the US

I had four years in high school. Now it's pretty gone. I recognize a lot of words and a workable vocabulary, but only because there are Latin roots in many English words.  The necessary distinctions in grammar are all gone.

I do have some kind of life-long memory disability, so it may go easier for you.

How fast a learner are you?  Can you blend study with other activities?  I went to public school and Latin wasn't offered.  I took three years of French which enabled me to ace the exam and avoid a parking ticket in Quebec City.  But I am by no means fluent in French!  I learned enough German to stumble along and to read by living among Germans for two years. I know a smattering of Hebrew, but that's another story! After three years going to Latin Mass, I got so that I could follow the Mass without a missal.  In five years' time I've gotten to the point where I can usually follow the epistle and Gospel without a missal.  I can pray the Rosary, the Angelus, Psalm 83, make the responses to litanies in Latin.  Some I just picked up, others, I taught myself.  I cannot hold a conversation in Latin, however!  
 :reading:

This paragraph (sorry JohnGrey!) is pretty much why I gave up my first stab at learning latin via book.  All the books seem to assume that you know what the languagey words mean.  I would need to go back to college English before I could even start Latin...  :sad:

My new plan is simply to learn (some little) Latin the slow way via osmosis by going to Mass frequently and studying my missal. Stage 2 will be to learn some of my prayers like the Rosary in Latin...

My eventual goal is to be able to puzzle out Latin quotes in the older books, admittedly not a very high bar, but still it annoys me to no end when I can't read them!

Luke

:smile: I take no offense at all, Luke.  Objectively, I can't deny that my response was a little dry.  That said, I think that you'll have some difficulty learning Latin in that way.  When approaching analytic languages, which also includes English, the emphasis is on vocabulary building.  This is because in such languages, disregarding changes of tense, words remain largely unchanged regardless of how they're used.  Anyone who's has had formal instruction in Latin can tell you that, aside from vocabulary, the cornerstone is "endings, endings, endings".  Word endings change, sometimes dramatically, depending on declension, case, tense and mood.

But I freely admit that I could be wrong about how effective this process would be for you.  Best of luck to you.

Here is a quote from a review of Wheelock's Latin
that some members here may find interesting:

If you're nostalgic for the Latin you once had and lost, or if you'd like to attempt a self-taught course, Wheelock's Latin is your most likely route to success. Don't miss the sweet Foreword, written by Wheelock's filiae amantissimae. –Eleanor Edmondson, in Bas Bleu

IMHO:

The desire to avoid using "languagey" words is not a small thing.

The words you hate to think about are there to HELP you learn,
not to make it harder.  



Example:  

I want to learn to be a carpenter but I just hate the idea of
having to touch a hammer, a saw or a nail.  And I don't like the
smell of cut wood.  And I hate electric motors especially the
ones that make noise and turn real fast.  

Well, then you'll never be much of a carpenter.


Hammers, saws, nails, chisels, awls, burnishers, grinding stones,
glue, tape measures, chalk lines, levels, pencils, nail sets,
center-punches -- all that stuff are not there in order to make
you uncomfortable.  They are there so you can perform the
activity of carpentry.  



Likewise, with language, if you're going to attempt to learn
it from a BOOK, you're going to need a few tools to be able
to function.  

There is no way of describing what happens in Latin when
you're only familiar with English and Spanish, unless you can get
a grasp of what DECLENSION means.  Every sentence, practically
speaking, in Latin has words that have to be DECLINED in order
to have the grammar work.  If you come into this with a visceral
hatred of the word "declension" or "declined," you'll never learn
Latin from a book, so save yourself a lot of grief and just give
up now.


You could just do it by ear, like children do, and then you don't
have to worry about names of categories of words and stuff.
But remember that children have a great capacity for language
acquisition until the age of about 5, and then it drops off, so
an adult might take several years to learn by ear what a child
could pick up in a few months.  But some adults have a talent
for this, and who knows, maybe you're one of those!  


Alternatively, take a deep breath, tell yourself that these
"languagey" words are not evil incarnate, and they are not your
enemy.  It's up to you, for they can easily turn out to become
your dearest friend if you only let them.  It's your call.

I'll try a bit of an explanation of how Latin works without using languagey words.

Think about how in English we use the word "I" if oneself is the one doing the action (I threw a ball), the word "me" if the action is done to oneself (The ball hit me) or "my" to say that something belongs to oneself (That is my ball).  "I" "me" "my" are all different forms of the same word depending on how it functions in the sentence.  A few more words are like this, for example:

he     him     his
she    her    hers

There are plural forms too:

we   us   our
they   them   their

Only a few words are like this in English. In Latin, practically all the nouns (words for a person, place or thing) have slightly different forms depending on what they do in the sentence and whether they are singular or plural.  This is why we say:

gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto
"glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit"

That should say:

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost."

but we say:

in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti
"in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit"

That should say:

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

A part of the word stays the same (for example, it's "fili" in the word for "son" above [and filio for 'of' the son, or filii for 'to' the son]) and the endings change to get the different functions.  There are five main functions that get shown this way. I just gave examples of two above.

There are also five different patterns of these endings that you need to know and you need to know which words go with which pattern.  The reason the "patri" and "filio" and "spiritui" have different endings after "gloria" is that they belong to different patterns.  Once you get used to words having a main part and an ending, it is not that hard to learn Latin.
 

You're trying to avoid the "languagey" words and you still have
to use words that take their places but don't do the job as
well:  "different functions"  --  "which pattern"  --  "main part"
You're not going to go far before these words lose their meaning
because you'll have to avoid using them for other purposes.  

You won't be able to talk about the function of nouns, or verbs,
or adjectives, or subjects or predicates, or objects, or prepositions,
or case, or number, or anything because you have co-opted the
word "function" to take the place of declension.

And what if the student had a terrifying experience in mathematics
class when he got an F because he couldn't understand functions?
Now FUNCTION is a dirty word!  

Learning Latin is a discipline.  You have to get over your hang-ups
if it's going to happen.  You don't have to LOVE the language,
either.  Just decide from the start that you're not going to HATE
it.  That's all you need.  

And you really need to hear someone speak it who knows how to
pronounce the words.  There are a LOT of bad pronunciations
of Latin words going around, and not a few of them are due to
heretics from protestantism who have endeavored to make their
own industry of being DIFFERENT from everything Catholic.  

The Catholic Church has been a great conservator of ecclesiastical
Latin over the centuries.  And it doesn't really matter to us, from
the standpoint of knowing Latin for its use in the CTLM and the
Breviary and the Latin Vulgate an Church docuмents, what the
language sounds like when a drunken Latin soldier is cussing or
carrying on with any of numerous vile activities.  Maybe that's all
that some so-called Latin scholars want to think about, though.

Fr. Francisco Radecki CMRI has a useful and simple book, Latin
Alive, that I recommend.  It's got 101 pages, "CI" (like CathInfo).






Traditio.com has an entire section devoted to lessons for learning
Latin. Use THIS LINK.  

It begins thusly (based on Wheelock's Latin):


EXERCISES  

[Traditio does not give the answer key!! I think that's too bad, but you'll
find that after you work through the long page, you can come back and
actually DO THIS EXERCISE and then you'll be proud of yourself!]
 
Each of the following Latin sentences has one error.  Can you find it?
 
1.  Cicero poetae magnae consilium dedit.
     Cicero gave advice to the great poet.
 
2.  Caesar suus impetum duxit.
     Caesar himself led the attack.
 
(The website has 8 more of these of increasing difficulty)

                                            (through Wheelock XV)


Answers:
1.  Cicero poetam magnum consilium dedit.

2.  Ipse Caesar impetum duxit.


Note:  For number 9, you don't even need to know any Latin
to notice one "mistake."  I checked these 2 answers with the
Google translator.  Machines are not very talented for Latin/
English translations, but they can serve as a backup to be
sure you're not missing something that's less than obvious.






About halfway down the page (it's a very long page!) you'll find
the following simple exercise after "Through Wheelock XXIII":  



EXERCISE


1. Circle the SUBJECT of the following sentences.

   Christ redeemed the world.
   Mankind was saved by God.
   God gave salvation to mankind.

2. Circle the DIRECT OBJECT (if there is one) in the following sentences.

   Christ redeemed the world.
   Mankind was saved by God.
   God gave salvation to mankind.

3. Circle the INDIRECT OBJECT (if there is one) in the following sentences.

   Christ redeemed the world.
   Mankind was saved by god.
   God gave salvation to mankind.

4. Fill in the blanks for the Latin sentence.

   God  gave   Christ   to the world for the redemption of men.
   Deus dedit Christum    mundo      ad redemptionem  hominum.

   The VERB is __________.
   The SUBJECT is __________ and is in the __________ case.
   The DIRECT OBJECT is __________ and is in the __________ case.
   The INDIRECT OBJECT is __________ and is in the __________ case.
   The OBJECT OF THE PREPOSITION is __________ and is in the __________
case.
   The POSSESSIVE word is __________ and is in the __________ case.



[#4, above, written normally, would say, "Deus Christum mundo ad
redemptionem hominum dedit," because Latin usually puts the verb
at the end of the sentence.  That doesn't make the way it's written
above incorrect, since the verb, 'dedit' is the second word, but that
is simply not customary.  It was done here to simplify the example
of showing how the parts of the English translation match the Latin
sentence below it.  Since Latin keeps the parts of speech in the
words themselves by way of their respective endings or suffixes,
this sentence could equally be written in other ways, such as:
"Deus ad redemptionem hominum Christum mundo dedit," or,
"Christum mundo ad redemptionem Deus hominum dedit," or,
"Ad redemptionem Deus Christum mundo hominum dedit," or,
"Ad redemptionem mundo Deus Christum hominum dedit," or,
"Hominum ad redemptionem Deus Christum mundo dedit," etc.
Notice that "ad redemptionem" are two words that stick together
because "ad" modifies "redemptionem" by its physical position in
the sentence before the modified word -- as English does almost
always with all adjectives, pronouns, adverbs and prepositions.]

["Deus ad redemptionem hominum Christum mundo dedit," or,
"Christum mundo ad redemptionem, Deus hominum dedit," or,
"Ad redemptionem, Deus Christum mundo hominum dedit," or,
"Ad redemptionem mundo, Deus Christum hominum dedit," or,
"Hominum ad redemptionem, Deus Christum mundo dedit," or,
"Deus Christum, mundo ad redemptionem hominum dedit," or,
"Deus dedit Christum mundo ad redemptionem hominum.," or,
"Deus Christum mundo dedit ad redemptionem hominum."

"God has given to the redemption of Christ in the world of men," OR,
"Christ in the world for our redemption, God has given to men," OR,
"To the redemption, God has given to Christ in the world of men," OR,
"To the redemption of the world, Christ, God has given to men," OR,
"To the redemption of men, God has given to Christ in the world," OR,
"God is Christ, the redemption of men he has given to the world," OR,
"God has given to the redemption of Christ in the world of men".OR,
"Christ in the world God has given to the redemption of mankind."

The last one actually looks like the best translation in English.]

You're trying to avoid the "languagey" words and you still have
to use words that take their places but don't do the job as
well:  "different functions"  --  "which pattern"  --  "main part"
You're not going to go far before these words lose their meaning
because you'll have to avoid using them for other purposes.  

You won't be able to talk about the function of nouns, or verbs,
or adjectives, or subjects or predicates, or objects, or prepositions,
or case, or number, or anything because you have co-opted the
word "function" to take the place of declension.

There is nothing wrong with explaining Latin in every day language rather than using specialized terminology.  The terminology just adds to the new things a person has to learn.  It can be confusing and intimidating.  The word "declension" does not do the job well when people do not know what it means.

Yes, if a person wants to use a conventional textbook like Wheelock, he needs to learn all the grammar terminology.  This is so complicated that it needs a textbook of its own:  If one wants to do Latin in university, this level of understanding is expected.  But it is not necessary for a person who only wants to be able to follow the Mass.

A person does not have to be a Latin scholar to learn enough Latin to understand the Mass.