Grammar vs Vocabulary
Which is more important for Latin?
What's more important for learning Latin: Grammar or Vocabulary?
Today I am going to break each one down to see which one is most important for you as a learner, and also reveal some exciting news from bambasbat HQ!
Grammar is how a language works
It’s all about how sentences are structured and how words change based on what they are used for.
In Latin, there is so much grammar to learn. It can feel very overwhelming!
Why do we need grammar at all?
Well, Latin is an inflected language and the endings do change, based on who is doing which verb, and what the nouns are doing in the sentence.
The endings tell me a lot of information that you do need to know. As you move through Latin, grammar becomes very important, especially when you're tackling complex passages. People like Cicero like to have long, flowing sentences. Someone pointed out I have clearly been influenced by this, so it’s a good job this isn’t in Latin or you’d still be searching in vain for the first verb.
Anyway, if you don't have a good grasp of grammar, you might struggle to understand what he is trying to say. Quite often, writers will leave verbs to the end of the sentence, and there'll be lots of complex clauses in the way between your main subject and your verb. So having a sense of grammar is important.
The mood of your verbs can change, and the voice of your verbs can change, and so can the subjects throughout the sentence.
So it's important in the basic sense: knowing who's doing which verb, but it's also important as you get further along to understand more complex passages.
Vocabulary is important for the very basics
If you don't know what a word means, it doesn't matter whether you know what the endings are necessarily. If you know who's doing a verb and what voice it's in, that's fantastic! But if you don't know what the root word means, you're not going to be able to write anything down.
So for sense, vocabulary is very, very important.
On the other hand, if you know what the root word means, but you're not sure of the grammar, you can take a guess, and it will be an educated guess because hopefully you'll know the context of the passage.
So if you're not 100 percent sure who is doing the verb, look at the sentences around it and look at what you've been told about the passage. This will help you have an educated guess based on the vocabulary that you know.
In this way, if you only have time for one, vocabulary is super important. I always say that if you don't know what the word means, you can't even guess at the grammar!
Vocabulary is also important for life outside of Latin
(if there is such a thing!)
Expanding your Latin vocabulary will also improve your vocabulary in English, and also in so many modern foreign languages. As I've said in so many of my posts, Latin is the root of English, but also French and Italian and Spanish and Romanian and Portuguese. By improving your Latin vocabulary, you're also improving your mind for many other languages.
Latin is Fun!
Your Latin vocabulary can be fun as you're walking around. If you're lucky enough to live in a place where the Romans have been and you have some inscriptions left, or if you go to a museum and you can see some examples of carvings, or even if you can find images of Roman tombstones online, you can figure out what those carvings say if your Latin vocabulary is good.
This is especially because on carvings they often miss off the endings of things, and just give the root of the word. That's to save space, because marble is expensive, and the time of the carver is expensive, so Romans shorten the message.
If you know what the root of the word means, you can figure out what those carvings say, and you can decipher whose tombstone that is, or why that building was built.
So for pure enjoyment, vocabulary is key.
Now the question was, grammar or vocabulary?
Well really, you do need both. I'm not going to lie to you and say you can pick one or the other.
Grammar is very important on the whole, especially for more academic Latin learning.
But if you're doing this for fun, or you're doing this for not just exams but general knowledge, then vocabulary learning is going to be essential.
Daily Latin Vocabulary Tester
The best way to learn Latin vocabulary is to practise a little bit every day! That's why we've created a daily Latin vocabulary tester. Come back each day to be tested on a brand new set of words.
We've compiled a list of over 350 different words that are frequently used in Latin translations and catch students out.
Vocabulary was the thing I struggled most with when I learnt Latin. This is why I'm really proud that I'm going to bring out my own way to help people improve.
So: Grammar or Vocabulary?
Well in reality they're both important! You're going to have to learn grammar, and you're going to have to learn vocabulary. But if you have 10 minutes a day to spend on one or the other, I would always say vocab every time.
Which do you think is more important?
Grammar for the sense, or vocabulary for the meaning?
Let me know what you think in the comments, and I'll see you next time on bambasbat!