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Chapters of Familia Romana that are hard, according to me

For background, most chapters are only trying to do one or two 'things'.

Chapter 8:
- all the declensions of quis/quī, hic, is, and ille dropped on you in a single chapter
- in some sense only one 'thing', but that's around 144 forms you've got to remember (4 pronouns x 3 genders x 2 numbers x 6 cases).
- tbh I just went past this and hoped I'd get used to them rather than having to memorize them

Chapter 12:
- the fourth declension
- datives for possession (e.g. "Marcō ūna soror est")
- comparatives
- third declension adjectives
- datives of commanding and obeying

Anyway I'm up to chapter 13 which is less bad, hopefully the density of hard chapters does not increase.

in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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the thing that's especially bothersome is how third declension adjectives almost decline like third declension nouns but not quite.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Ch 14 is going pretty smoothly, just covering participles, and I think ch 15 does first and second person conjugations (which I've picked up elsewhere) so hopefully it's smooth sailing for a bit.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Ch 16 is weird - it introduces deponent verbs (verbs that are structured like passive verbs but have active meanings) which itself is not that hard, but it introduces enough of them and they're abstract enough that I find it kind of hard to remember them.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Indeed I find myself kind of stuck on ch16 - maybe partly because I took yesterday off, maybe related to the fact that I have felt devoid of mental energy from ~1:30 pm to 5 pm yesterday and today, or maybe because I don't have my 4.5 conjugations down pat. Plan is to review the previous chapters on verb conjugations and hope that helps (and also hope it helps me get the declensions more down pat)
in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Chapters 20 and 21 are rough (altho I've only just started 21 so who knows) - the future tense has two "forms" which is kind of tricky, and the perfect tense comes with different verb stems? Altogether reading is not so hard, but correct production is still kinda slow and painful. Might consolidate and re-read starting at ch10 or so.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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My guesses about future chapters:
- 22 looks hard but maybe just because I'm not familiar with "supines" from English grammar
- 23 (future participles and infinitives) seems OK
- 24 is plurperfect, which doesn't seem crazy hard
- 25 seems easy and fun (deponent imperatives)
- 26 doesn't seem too hard either (gerunds)

So looks like the slog will continue but then get easier for a bit.

in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
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Looking back:
- 24, 25, and 26 were kind of hard not of their own accord, but just because I needed some time to get used to all the tenses.
- 22 was actually pretty easy.
in reply to Daniel Filan

Daniel Filan
Daniel Filan
•

I'm currently on chapter 27 and I have some aversion to re-reading it to do the exercises, because:
- it's just kind of boring (talk about how agriculture works, Julius demanding a tenant farmer pay some money he owes but relenting, Julius nearly punishing a shepherd for letting a sheep get away but then relenting)
- it's also quite long, longer than previous chapters
- it covers the present tense subjunctive which idk is not that hard I think

I'm currently procrastinating by reading the Cambridge Latin Course. But IDK maybe I should just skip the exercises and move on? Or do what I can without re-reading? The next chapter seems pretty cool...

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