What is it? Why should you learn it? How easy will it be to learn?

Already convinced? Sign up very easily at this UK Catholic charity's page for the Traditional Church Latin course:
 lms.org.uk/Latin365

Not already convinced? Read our answers to the above questions below.

TRADITIONAL CHURCH LATIN: What is it?

You can learn Latin in many ways, nothing I'm about to say denigrates any of those pathways to understanding the language. However: if you are interested in praying the traditional liturgy or attending the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), you might want to have a course that uses - for its examples - material from the traditional Office, from the traditional Mass, and from the storehouse of Latin writers that make up the Catholic tradition (from Tertullian to more recent examples). I am not aware of courses that focus on these three things and that are taught in the way we teach ours (see below.) Perhaps they exist, then great. But even though the odd example from Cicero (so influential on some Catholic authors) and other bits of Latin may turn up in our course, by way of illustration, almost all the examples we use for LATIN 365 -the name of our course - come from "traditional" sources, and from the three kinds of "traditional" Church Latin just described.
 
TRADITIONAL CHURCH LATIN: Why should you learn it?

Good question. We won't be trying to convince you to attend the Traditional Latin Mass. But if that is the form of Holy Mass you attend then this course is for you. We learn Latin via the "traditional" Divine Office. Later in the course, the majority of examples come from the Mass itself.

TRADITIONAL CHURCH LATIN: How easy will it be to learn?

Don't get me wrong, Latin is not super easy. But you learned the language you are reading these words in, you're already "good at language(s)". You're human after all. 

Nevertheless, we have come up with a new method. You'll get one video a day. Then (for an extra fee) you can also access an hour's "tutorial" with me, every 5 weeks. This is a great way of making sure you are "on track" but it isn't absolutely essential. Some people prefer to study on their own.

Who am I to be telling you anything about Latin?

I'm just another person who reads Latin. There might not be so many of us these days but you'd be surprised. In my own case, I attended a secondary school (high school) where Latin was taught (I was lucky) and then I went to the local university to study it in depth for 4 years. Both the school and the university had been developing their methods for half a millennium so I figure that by the time I arrived, they had worked something out about all this. I don't think the university experience was more important than the school: both have made me the Latinist I am today. Oh yes, and I got my Church Latin pronunciation from my father who served Mass up to the 1960s in the old form. Pronunciations do differ across the world, I only know what I learned in the home and extended it a bit through what I heard, attending Mass in the older form.

If you can find a course that focusses on traditional Church Latin then excellent. That is what we are trying to offer here. It is a way of passing on what I have learned myself.