Latin Language Pronunciation | Visual Latin Curriculum

You are still pronouncing the "e" the english way. And the vowel quality is often strangely english.

For people wondering about the "c-sound": There was actually a latin dude back then who created a literate school and proclaimed to change the hard c and make it soft in some cases. Before it was ALWAYS hard. Well documented in latin scripts. So the clasical hard c-sound is actually a fact. It also explains why romance languages today don't understand it. It was simply changed troughout roman times. Sardinians still pronounce it hard to this day.

somehow I doubt the romans were pronouncing the 'r' the american way..

"e" is pronounced "eh" not "ee" in Veni "i" is pronounced "ee" not "aye" in Vidi

What you're speaking here is best described as American Latin. Sorry :/

@ Janick: "veni, vidi, vici" = ['we:.ni, 'wi:.di, 'wi:.ki] = /wēni, wīdi, wīki/ classical pronunciation

Yes. Except that "Veni" is not pronounced "wini" like you said Dwane, but "Wéni". A "e" is a "e"... the english confuses the sounds, but latin languages never.

You, as an English speaker, have a bad pronunciation of Latin! Many Latin sounds are different of how you pronounce them, including C and T.

Hello, I am Italian, It was a very good lesson but I think you got the ecclesiastical pronunciation of the word Caesar wrong, the classical is indeed as you say, but in minute 7:00 you say that the ecclesiastical latin would read "cheesar" but no as far as I know "ae" is read like the English sound for the colour "red" so it's cEsar non cheesar", the "e" sound is like in the word "regina" or the English word "set" not like the English word "English", you got it right with caelum, you need to be careful with that tendency or students might get confused.

Brilliant. Explained everything in pronunciation. Hats off to you Sir.

Thank you Dwane. I really didnt know about classical. I often heard latin in catholic rituals and ceremonies. This is new to me. Thank you again.

Anglophones have difficulties when pronouncing vowels when learning foreign languages. That's due to their "Great Vowel Shift" that shaped modern English language in early modern times. Some vowels shifted some became diphthongs. Its very hard to "unlearn" this.

You were very helpful. Most people are afraid of Latin. You made it interesting and relaxing. You're a great teacher. Thank you. PS. Veni is pronounced "E=egg" Veni. It's very hard for American speaking people to pronounce Latin. AEIOU are pronounced differently in English. In Italian I'm able to understand the sound. In English I see where the problems are in the pronunciations.

Thanks for this simple and easy to understand explanation - fascinating!

I'm sorry, but I want to remarke that you pronounce the latin vowels as they were like the english vowels! that's very wrong! You have to read them as they are pronounced in Italian and in Spanish language.

Your videos are great! I'm happy I found them here.

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm from Rome and latin here is kept only by some small traditional catholic churchs during the service. Latin pronunciation is different from yours. Yours look more an Anglo-Saxon pronounciation!

How is ad and ab pronounced? Is it uh b or uh d (sheesh sound for a) or is it like we say it in English? Ab as in abdominal and ad as in addition.

Actually, what I have learned, is that classical latin around 0 AD was pronounced much more french, that vowels before nf and ns were nasals and the ns were dropped, and that m at the end of words were also dropped and the previous vowel was nasalized. And also that the s was more pronounced like in portuguese.