Since you said a couple of weeks ago that Chinese (Mandarin) was nearly ready for alpha testing, does that mean it’s in alpha now? And you’ve made a decision about how to show the words on the screen / whether to use romanisations?
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Yes, it’s in Alpha! Contact Rich to get added to the Alpha testers group.
I’ve been through the first 10 hours of it and it’s really good.
Yes, there are a few mistakes here and there but in terms of the learning experience it really works.
We’ve gone for simplified Chinese for the script. We think it’s important to teach without romanisation to avoid interference.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating…
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FYI for everybody:
This image is where we are currently with our courses-in-progress for English speakers.
There are a few not yet in alpha as well! So the team is working very hard on things.
Courses are expected to stay in Alpha until they are checked for basic functionality, which will be around 1-2 weeks.
The Beta period is expected to be longer, since there will be a small number of the following things to sort out:
errors in translations
errors in audio file generation
odd or misleading phrases
and we would expect it to take 3-6 months to get all of these
after which point we intend to declare the courses as ‘out of beta’
We also have just released the alpha for English for Japanese speakers and we will release a new version of English for Chinese speakers anytime soon.
Exciting times!
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I remember it too.
As a teenager I desperately wanted to learn Latin. I’ve got no idea why, and I never did it. It’s now way down the list of languages I want to learn, but I do know there are communities of Latin speakers out there, as in they actually converse in it. There are even residential immersion courses. I imagine it would be very useful for an aspiring time traveller.
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Awesome! Do the Chinese and Japanese courses include any introduction to the writing system(s) or are learners expected to find other resources for themselves? If all goes well, these two languages may be a way of proving Aran’s point that our brains can learn languages just by hearing and speaking, and may actually learn better that way, since there’s likely to be some people who have no time to track down a second course for reading and writing until later! And unless I’m totally wrong, Chinese has little to no pronunciation clues in its written form anyway.
Ha, I really thought if you resisted romanisations on Chinese, that would be the final word on how to display any language going forwards (its own script, duh, the end!) but of course I now realise life is not that simple!
Japanese is normally written in a mix of kanji and hiragana, but learners (including children in Japan) usually begin with just hiragana for a while because it’s simpler. So… kanji for SSi, or no?
And later, there are the linguistically, culturally, and politically contentious languages. Devagari script Hindi, Persio-Arabic script Urdu, or call it Hindi-Urdu / Hindustani but then which script to use? Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin… Serbo-Croatian? Latin or Cyrillic script?
Good luck with that!
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That is beautiful. Maybe a full Say Something in Latin course wouldn’t be so crazy!
I’d do it, for sure. It would have even less practical value than Welsh has in Sussex, but so what?! My motives for learning are based purely in whim. I don’t need to speak anything but English.
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If you like the idea of a no-English Latin course, you could try out the Lingua Latina books by Hans Örberg, starting with Familia Romana. It’s essentially a novel which begins with the very simple (Roma in Italia est) and leads you through to simplified Livy and Catullus, without a word that isn’t in Latin.
(Screenshot from the above Amazon page).
The second book (Roma AEterna) builds on that till you’re reading the real thing. It’s excellent – highly recommended for people who don’t get on with the more traditional exercise-book slog, so probably a good fit for those of us who like the SSiW…
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This entire community is detrimental to my bank balance. 
That looks great, but might have to wait until after Christmas!
Though I have definitely come to feel that speaking languages should come first, I realise that’s a pretty crazy notion in the world of classical studies. Reading just in Latin from the start is definitely innovative, and very much appeals to my puzzle-loving brain.
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That’s just gone on my Christmas list 
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Ørberg was first published in the 80s, I think and has built a following steadily from then. If you do go down that route, there’s a lot of information on the web about how best to use the method.
Luke Ranieri (Scorpio Martianus) is a name to look out for – he does video courses for both Latin and Ancient Greek, including a full reading of Familia Romana. This is the first chapter:
Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata Cap.1 Imperium Romanum | LLPSI FAMILIA ROMANA - YouTube
There are similar courses in Ancient Greek – Athenaze is often recommended, though apparently you have to get the ‘Not In Italian’ version rather than the ‘Not in English’ version to get the best edition.
Enjoy! (Et apologiae meae sacculo tuo!)
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Omg, that is amazeballs!
Has anyone done anything like this for Welsh?
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Really looking forward to seeing the Chinese course!
Hi @suw… Were you asking whether there was something similar to Lingua Latina for Welsh? Sorry, I don’t know – I can’t find anything obvious in an internet search.
Yes, I was! Sorry, should have been clearer.
It’s a great idea. Perhaps I’ll do something like that when I’m better at writing! In the meantime, I’ve started a list of audiobook–ebook/book pairs which I’ll start a post on once I’ve got a few more to share.
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We could crowd-source[*] it here:
Mae Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch yng Nghymru…
[*] May need proof-reading.
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Have you taken a look at Cadw swn and the associated short novels (some of which are available as audiobooks)? It’s not an exact match; but to my mind, it has some points of similarity.
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Agree!
And they worked really well for me! What I appreciated of Cadw Swn is that it has a storyline that works well, despite the very simple language and a few repetitions to help the learner memorize and understand them. There’s the translation of the whole text, and just a little bit of grammar and exercises at the end of each chapter.
The reading is done by the author himself (with a lovely Southern accent, I would add).
The latin book seems to have put sentences you’d normally find as grammar exercises in a sequence. There’s a background story and characters, but not exactly a storyline.
There’s lots of grammar notes, and no translation at all.
And the reading - if it’s like on the YouTube clip, seems by AI- not a real person?
Did I understand it right, @David_B?
Well, of course I’m afraid it’s impossible to find a first language latin speaker and with exact classic pronunciation, anyway!
Which by the way sounds strange to me because in school in Italy we used the later Church standard one
p.s. It’s strange for me to see how people around the world like @verity-davey @M2017 are charmed by Latin while most of us in school hated it, since it seemed pointless and boring spending time on a dead language.
Now writing it, I suspect it’s a bit similar to what a lot of Welsh people felt about having Welsh in school, but…hey it’s not the same thing! 
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