Table of Contents
1 Introduction
Once technique that may offer some help in becoming fluent in Latin is called sentence mining.
Here's the idea.
A person naturally learns a language by being exposed to the language, hearing it over and over. This is called immersion. Every newborn baby is immersed into a language environment, and after a few years they begin speaking. If you have kids, you've seen the process. Mom and Dad, along with older siblings, constantly talk to the baby. Eventually, baby talks.
The process in the mind of the child is undoubtedly complex but it seems that through hearing thousands, tens of thousands, and even millions, of words, and sentences, and through its own efforts to speak and communicate, the child develops a vocabulary and internal grammar.
Think about that. The child's brain, somehow, takes the examples that are presented to it and begins to make patterns and form rules. That the brain can do this is pretty amazing.
Again, if you're a parent you've seen this happen. One of the (grammatical) rules that children will invariable make is the rule that says to make the past tense of any verb, put -ed on the end of it.
This is a pretty good rule. It works a lot. But it doesn't work all the time. So children will say things like, "I eated all my food." Eventually, the child's brain will get enough other patterns that the internal rule will be nuanced to something like: "Form the past tense of a verb by putting -ed, on the end of it, unless it's one of those verbs."
Again, that the brain forms these patterns out of the thousands of language samples it receives is amazing.
But do we lose this ability? If we immerse ourselves in a different language environment can't our brain learn new tricks? If immersion worked the first time, can't it work a second time, too?
Sentence mining is the process of gathering and learning hundreds, even thousands, of target language sentence samples, in the belief that the brain will naturally begin to see patterns, make internal language rules, and even begin to think in the target language.
Usually these sentences are put on flashcards for easy review. But, note, that when I talk about flashcards, I'm actually using Anki.
2 How to Sentence Mine
So, how do you use flash cards for sentence mining?
It's easy. On one side of the card put a phrase, sentence, or paragraph, in the target language, or course. On the other side, put . . . nothing.
Yup, that's right. Nothing.
Why nothing? Because the goal is understanding in the target language. As such, there's really nothing to put on the flip side.
Suppose you were trying to gain fluency in English (totally theoretical here, because you already are, but let's pretend). Let's create some sentence mining flashcards.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States.
How about another one?
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Perfect. Create a few more.
Now review them.
Did you understand them?
As an already fluent English speaker, of course you did, but let's keep pretending that you're trying to learn English.
The cards will fall, roughly, into three categories. Those cards you understand perfectly, those you sort of understand, and those you don't understand at all.
Lay aside those that you understand perfectly, and work on those that you have trouble with.
But what exactly do you do with them?
Read them, speak them, memorize them. If there's a word you can't figure out, or some weird grammatical point that is bothering you, look it up (if you feel the urge). But above all, repeat, repeat, repeat, until understand and the sentence feels natural to you.
When this happens you have made it. You just understand the card in the target language.
3 Sentence Mining in Latin
How does sentence mining work in Latin?
Pretty much like it does in any language.
Let's trying some phrases based on Orberg's Familia Romana, Capitulum I.
Roma in Italia est. Germania in Italia non est. Germania in Europa est. Ubi Sparta est? Sparta in Graecia est. Nilus fluvius est. Quid est Nilus? Nilus fluvius est. Danuvius fluvius magnus est. Estne Sparta fluvius? Sparta fluvius non est. Sparta oppidum est.
All of these could be made into flashcards. I don't need tosince they feel totally natural to me. I have no sense that I am translating them into English. But there are plenty of sentences to mine in later chapters!
But why stop with Orberg? Take a trip out to Nuntii Latini and mine for sentences.
Here's one that I found.
"Si Unio Sovietica voluisset," inquit, "murus non cecidisset neque Germania orientalis et occidentalis unitae essent. At quid tum factum esset? Catastropha aut plane tertium bellum mundanum. Equidem sanguinem effundere nolebam."
This is taken from a speech by Gorbachev about the fall of the Berlin wall. It's a bit advanced for me, mostly vocabulary that I don't know. I look up the words and get the meaning.
Now I review the card, saying it out loud, until it feels totally natural.
And that's it! I've mined a great sentence.
4 Conclusion
Sentence mining is a simple method for simulating language immersion.
Does it work?
We're going to find out!
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