DO NOT Learn Latin From This Channel

[@marcello7781]

The correct pronunciation of "Veni, vidi, vici" was one of the first things I've learned when diving into Latin and its linguistic evolution. It should be as basic as "The book is on the table" for English learners.

[@jhoughjr1]

thats so Roman lol

[@christos49]

Same, I am doing 2 latin classes, learning classical latin at university and Ecclesiastical Latin for fun at local church, and within both classes they tought that and how it was pronounced differeantly in each.

[@justguy-4630]

I saw, I conquered, I came... Wait. What?

[@christos49]

@@vincentfernandez7328 kinda. Ecclesiastical Latin is pronounced as 'Veni, vidi, vichi' and Classical Latin is pronounced as Weni, widi, wiki.

[@pat7785]

Yeah it's usually used to introduce classical pronunciation when most students have only been exposed to ecclesiastical pronunciation. It's pretty obvious that this guy hasn't had any formal Latin training. Nothing against him, he just shouldn't be teaching others how to pronounce Latin when he hasn't been properly educated himself.

[@THE_KIRYU]

What I hate about this guy is that his videos are among the first results you find on Google when checking pronunciations

[@hebl47]

His channel is an example of just how much damage KZbin has caused by removing the dislike button under videos. Some random naiive viewer who just came to check how a word is pronounced now had no feedback on whether a video is actually good or not.

[@cosettapessa6417]

@@hebl47 true

[@ricebeansrockroll882]

​@@hebl47 100% this

[@yourroyalchungusness]

Dude i just checked his channel, went into his most viewed, and i instantly regret doing it

[@Zack-xz1ph]

​@@hebl47 true but anyone can disable voting and comments

[@natsuyuki8415]

I'm a native Finnish speaker. In college my French teacher told us that the French do not hear the difference between short and long vowels. I think this demonstrates it. ( Of course those who have trained can hear it.)

[@corinna007]

I'm a native English speaker and I've been learning Finnish for about 8 years. The long and short vowels and the double consonants were definitely a bit tricky at first, but I got used to it really quickly. The biggest challenge for me in terms of pronunciation is definitely the rolled R. The way languages like Finnish and Latin approach vowel length makes so much sense, especially compared to English.

[@Gubbe51]

Many nations don't hear the difference of vowels length, and even if they hear them, they can't imitate it, or even they don't care. Not everyone is so lucky to have Finnish as mother tongue. Many languages don't mark long and short vowels in writing in any consistent way (unlike Finnish), and make it extra difficult for foreigners.

[@louismart]

Funny experience with a French speaking English that proves what you are saying : In a very formal context he said “there are very nice bitches in Brazil.“ He meant beaches.

[@cedricmasset1827]

Yes there are native french speakers who don't make or can't make efforts in prononciation of words like sheep/ship cheap/chip beach/bitch etc.. but I don't think that's an argument against his "course " of Latin prononciation. Many native English speakers don't or can't pronounce any good French or speak it. They often make mistake between male and female gender. So native English speakers could not teach Latin because it has also this distinction (and neutral)? And I appologize if I've made any errors in this text because I'm native french speaker and so....

[@cedricmasset1827]

But It's right he should not try to teach Latin with so few knowledge and training in reconstructed classical prononciation.

[@absolutmauser]

This was the most authentic "boopita-boppy" rendition possible

[@Tony32]

Bada bing bada boom.

[@bendover9620]

Aaayyee, I'm woohkkin eaaaaa!

[@peterfireflylund]

Well, he is a native speaker after all.

[@brunolima7402]

just the first part when that guy said "emperor Julius Caesar" i knew this would be hilarious. Thanks Metatron.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/fIa1Yad3ir2DgMk

[@mercipourlevenin3834]

Yeah exactly I've had Lain for three months and that's like six months ago and even I know that's so wrong

[@divicospower9112]

He was emperor if you take the Latin word as emperor means general in Latin. But in all other languages, it would be wrong.

[@eh1702]

I was introduced to Latin by a teacher whose English was very different to ours. We often couldn’t decide whether he was giving a word a “Latin” pronunciation or if it was his English accent inadvertently coming out. It didn’t occur to us that, in England, for centuries, teachers and students had made no effort to pronounce Latin like Romans did. We didn’t know they just pronounced it as though they were speaking in English. Sometimes we tried to compensate: when he said “soo-PEH-boose”, we’d say “suparr-buss”, and wonder why he got mad at us. Other times we didn’t compensate, and ended up saying ekaaai for ecce. It was months before we realised his son was not named Adrian but Hadrian.

[@feleslucis-emanueldearaujo6237]

Don't even remind me of these people 🤣 the worst part of it is that many still think that they're pronouncing correctly, and trash the ecclesiastical pronunciation is less acceptable than that disgrace of a pronunciation.

[@omegacardboard5834]

From my experience in England they pronounce Vs as Ws and pronounce hard Cs but other than that make no effort. Although I thought that the -bus in superbus is pronounced closer to boose than buss

[@magyarbondi]

The fact is that it's very simplifying to divide Latin into classical and ecclesiestical. Ecclesiastical Latin was used mainly in writing and everybody pronounced Latin according to their own native language.

[@oz_jones]

Yo, Adrian

[@nimax97]

OMGG he drops the r's even in Latin... That's a capital crime

[@canamus1768]

i took latin for four years at a catholic high school, so ecclesiastical pronunciation was predominant. however, for our final year, in advanced placement, our professor had us switch to classical pronunciation, as we worked almost exclusively on classical texts, dramas, comedies, poetry, etc.

[@TP-om8of]

I knew Julie’s Caesar. He definitely said “Venny, veedy, veechy”. He was ahead of his times.

[@MayYourGodGoWithYou]

My first Latin teacher was also a Latin [and ancient Greek] scholar and he always pointed out that, just like English or German - another language he was fluent in - not everybody who spoke Latin pronounced the words the same. Someone who was upper class Roman would speak totally differently from a docker at Ostia [for example] who also spoke differently to a Roman citizen raised in Egypt or Gaul where local accents distorted the pronunciation. Just like people from Australia, USAmerica, England and Scotland all say the same words differently the same applied to Latin [and Germany, true as I have difficulties understanding a Bavarian rather than someone from, say, northern Germany]. However he also always told us to try and learn the Latin equivalent of received pronunciation if we could but to remember that if you have a strong accent then this will almost certainly always come through somehow. Interesting bloke and I suspect he did have a valid point, especially the more I listen to people from different countries speaking English and the different ways they pronounce the words. Plus language changes over the years and Latin was certainly spoken for long enough that it will have changed from the early days of Romulus and Remus to the days of Antonius or Hadrian. I also remember reading somewhere that the language differed depending on which part of Italy you came from as well although I have no idea how true that is. Great video and his channel isn't one I have come across, however now I know I am prepared if I do.

[@idraote]

The Latin texts that are left to us are for the most part the expression of Roman highly educated upper class. While it is true that authors would come from different regions of the empire, they would certainly strive to conform to that norm. And Latin changed little between II b.C. and II a.C., at least in writing as a literary expression. It is very possible that their original accent passed through, but these authors from outside Rome would have certainly intended their text to be read with a standard pronunciation. The situation in Rome was probably one of diglossia, especially from the I a.C., with people speaking Vulgar Latin but using literary Latin in formal and literary situation.

[@DucaCremisi]

Con ansia aspetterò il video sul suo "Italiano". Maybe even a few episodes of "learning classical Latin with Metatron". Keep it up compaesano!

[@kwinoh7772]

I consider myself lucky to have a teacher who takes her job seriously. She's spent her whole life studying both Latin and Ancient Greek and teaches them very well. She really makes them fun to learn and therefore a lot of words stick with me which is great because I don't have to be constantly asking her for vocabulary or constantly picking up the dictionary when translating.

[@fatgeorge5641]

As a greek native speaker I can't understand why in other countries you study ancient greek grammar

[@kwinoh7772]

@@fatgeorge5641 Because for language and linguistic enthusiasts like myself, it helps us have a further understanding of our languages that we use in the modern day due to the fact that a lot of words come from Ancient Greek and Latin. Furthermore, being familiar with said languages will help you be more articulate in your native language if it's a romance language or even English, and it will also help you tackle more difficult languages, which in my case would be Russian. Lastly, knowing the etymology of words is extremely cool. I study Latin and Greek at school instead of mathematics or economics, reason being is that when you turn 16 here in Spain you start Bachillerato and you have to choose between scientific studies, social studies or humanities (classical studies). I chose classics and I've thoroughly enjoyed my first year up to now because I haven't had to worry about maths. Sorry for the extensive comment but I hope it clears things up! :)

[@fatgeorge5641]

@Kwinoh understandable i also study classical studies as you understand im not a fan of grammar and suntax but I know how important those languages and their history and evolution is after all like you said there the foundation of an awful lot of languages in Europe and we can find greek words in medical terms such cardiology that comes from the word καρδιά. Although of my realtions with this subject I found it very nice and honestly a great honour that you study they early form of my language. Me personally I like styding history that's why I choose the classical studies

[@fatgeorge5641]

@Kwinoh I fell you I dont like maths either ! The truth is I despice it🤣

[@PC_Simo]

@@fatgeorge5641 I *_LOVE_* Mathematics. In fact; my kindergarten had these Maths-cards, with basic Arithmetic problems that I used to solve, as a pastime. Good times. ❤😌👍🏻

[@ashuraalexis]

It makes me sad seeing all the people thanking him for teaching them wrong pronunciations.

[@metatronacademy]

Yeah, tell me about it!

[@rdbom4252]

It's ridiculous. I learnt Latin for six years at school, and I reckon I know more than Julien does about how to pronounce it, but I wouldn't DREAM of trying to teach pronunciation because I'm just nowhere near proficient enough. What a grifter.

[@bonbonpony]

That's beause: 1. They're none the wiser, so they are unaware that his teaching them wrong things. 2. If someone notices and comments about it, such comments are most likely getting removed. Only the praises remain.

[@Wavy77]

This guy used to be a professional wine maker in Bordeaux and has made a lot of great wine videos as well. At some point he started to focuse on these weird pronounciation videos. It's like he lost a bet, now he has to make pronounciation videos for ten years before he can go back to wine content again. I know he also currently make wine videos, and they're pretty good, so I don't understand this fixation with pronounciation videos.

[@Herr_Damit]

It's so interesting, that the correct pronounciation is always really close to the German one we use today. We just omit some syllables. Senatus is Senat, but the intonation stays the same. Same with Caesar and Kaiser, it almost sounds identical. The modern pronounciation of Latin is much closer to Italian though.

[@malarobo]

The "modern" pronounciation of latin is actually late roman. The classical pronunciation is that of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD (and even in those centuries the rustic pronunciation was different from the classic one)

[@Herr_Damit]

@@malarobo Yes, by "modern" I meant the way it was spoken in the church. By "correct" I meant the way it is tought in school, which I always thought of being closer to the way they spoke back in old Rome.

[@feleslucis-emanueldearaujo6237]

I can only find one video of his that tries to pronounce a Portuguese word, and his pronunciation was relatively decent. But it was a simple dissyllabic word, so there wasn't much room for mistakes.

[@publiusrunesteffensen5276]

I liked that you pointed to Polymathy for learning Latin, one of my favorite sources for topics on language and history.

[@happygamersloth9161]

So, to start of, I've been learning Latin for like 2 years now and completed LLPSI. I also was on some Latin online chats. I don't like to judge myself but I think that I am good if were are talking about pronunciation and Latin phonology (and of course other things like grammar etc.). When I first saw this guy's guides to Latin, aprox. 1 years ago, ... I died inside, I even left a few comments I think. As a person who was studying Latin for aprox. 2 years, It hurted my ears. And I also was thinking about all these people that have been mislead by him. And finally someone did, i don't know how to call, public debunking (?) about Latin in his channel. Grātiās maximās tibi agō, Metatrōn! (Nesciō quōmodō nōmen tuum dīcitur Latīnē, ignōsce mihi).

[@VikingTeddy]

Most comments thank and praise him, which really vexes me. Every now and then people try to correct him and the few times he actually responds, he gets defensive. May he stub his toe painfully every time he gets up...

[@bakters]

There are those other tiny semicircle signs above the vowels, and apparently they don't make the vowel long. Would you perhaps know what do they do? Also, you marked the long o in ago. I wasn't perfectly sure how to interpret this word in this context, so I checked it on online-latin-dictionary, and they write it differently there. It's an a with this semicircle, no dash above o. Is it a discrepancy, or I'm not understanding the context here? It's a similar thing with quomodo. You used dashes above two o, they used a dash above the first and those semicircles above the remaining two. Damn, it's all quite confusing, not gonna lie.

[@Lillyluri]

Valuable insight! Much appreciated.

[@happygamersloth9161]

@@Lillyluri thanks

[@starleaf-luna]

@@happygamersloth9161 in polish latin we have our own pronunciation that is different from ecclesiastical and classical (iirc we call it traditional, there is another one that is a little different but its not ecclesiastical or classical), one of the rules is that you dont have to differentiate vowel length (ā = a) and there are more rules like this, i.e. c is pronounced /k/ except for when its before i, e, æ, œ then its pronounced like the polish /c/, which is pronounced like the TS in the english word "pants"

[@hoathanatos6179]

I was terrified that he was somehow going to go after Luke Ranieri who basically speaks fluent Classical Latin.

[@Ptenlaeogramatikujo]

Me too lol

[@TTKDMS]

How to lose most of your subscribers in one video lol

[@stefanianoto4372]

You know that in Italian schools they teach the pronunciation according to ecclesiastic Latin. That is a fact. This goes because it is simpler as Italian is spoken just like it is written or spelled.

[@PC_Simo]

In Finnish schools, in my experience, it’s somewhere in between Classical and Ecclesiastical Latin; at least, in the ”Classical” High School of Tampere, where I studied Latin; like, we were taught to pronounce all ’C’s as ’K’s, and some ’I’s as ’J’s (IPA [j]); but all ’V’s as ’V’s, and all ’Æ’s or ’AE’s as monophthongal ’E’s. So, maybe in other schools, even in Finland, it’s even closer to Ecclesiastical Latin. 🤔

[@Praephyr]

Classical in France when I was in school

[@scusachannel1682]

My Latin teacher let us choose between Reconstructed and Ecclesiastic. We all still used Ecclesiastic because it's much easier on us

[@samplesample7178]

In Austria we were told to pronounce C and T as ts sometimes. AE was always like an E (german Ä). J like english y and V as v. And everyone here does it like that I believe.

[@malarobo]

It isn't only because is simpler to italians, it's mainly because the ecclesiastical pronuciation is used for the prayers (unless you don't use the italian). If you pray the Easter liturgy of the Pope, for example, you ear the Pope using the ecclesiastical pronunciation and you must answer in the same way. That is the only modern use of the latin in a pratical context.

[@GravesLilDarkAngel]

Oh...dude...this is one of the best schoolings I've seen in a long time...

[@3rdand105]

The way you explain how Latin pronunciation works, I'm kinda-sorta inspired to look into it. I mean, it's not a dead language if at least two people can speak it, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are conversant, if not fluent. Generally, my first step into learning a language is a basic level of literacy, and in this case, that requires a solid foundation in vowel length. Yeah, I'll look into that later today. Thank you!

[@mr.stonestar363]

Oh mio dio fra hai fatto un sacco di visualizzazione su questo video solo perché sei entrato dinamicamente in scena nella tua intro, camminando dal lato dello schermo per poi sederti sulla sedia, mentre negli altri video eri statico, già seduto e salutando con la mano già in posizione. La natura di questo meccanismo mi rabbrividisce alquanto, comunque buona fortuna per aver trovato il codice dell'algoritmo di KZbin, questa conoscenza ti porterà sicuramente molte visualizzazioni anche su questo secondo canale.

[@lrcx01]

Phonemic vowel length is an after thought the way Latin is taught in France, same goes for ancient Greek for that matter. It usually comes into play for poetry which can give the false notion that long vowels and elision only exist in this context. For the rest it's kind of arbitrary, especially when it comes to the "r".

[@PC_Simo]

That ”Veni, vidi, vici.” -”pronunciation” of his immediately left me confused as to, whether I should laugh, cry, punch a hole through the wall, or all at once. Like, he *_ACTUALLY_* went there 🤯?! *EDIT:* Exactly, Metatron; exactly 🎯.

[@okaro6595]

The first rule of pronouncing classical Latin is thr C is hard.

[@PC_Simo]

@@okaro6595 Yes. I learned that way before I even learned the whole ””V”:s were [w]:s” -thing. I guess it’s **ahem!** *_HARD,_* for the French to internalize; at least, if we believe NativLang’s video: ”Latin to French”. 😅

[@oliverkersting2852]

If you are living in Germany, just learn it at school. Even the traditional German pronunciation isn't that bad, and a lot of teachers are teaching a good pronunciation.

[@familiescharf4207]

Ich lerne sogar Latein(bin 13)

[@utinam4041]

Thank you! I came across this fellow sometime ago and thought he was almost always wrong in any language. Now I know.

[@LaineyBug2020]

I had a teacher that told me to imagine the long vowel having enough time to raise itself up on it's tip toes and down again while it's being said, and that my tone should follow it. Ever since then I have to stop myself from going up on my tip toes whenever I say one in a word...

[@TheGrmany69]

I've been working on this some time now and people simply have no idea how vocal mechanics work on a regular basis. From Pinyin to how we think about letters here in the west: Regarding Latin, most people are not aware the language went through different stages and its later forms resembled Greek but it certainly has deep roots in Celtic languages, so to me listening to some random Germanic dude (yes, Frenchmen have a huge Germanic component in their culture) try Latin is very reminiscent to some typical US American trying to speak decent Spanish (olá amígou).

[@idraote]

Latin and the Celtic languages are sister languages, Latin does not descend from Celtic.

[@dariagorbunova6135]

This channel is just a testimony to the problems in teaching ancient languages in the French educational system. Not many teachers can give good quality pronunciation courses if there are any. I study philology at a prestigious Parisian university that I do not mention and we have merely three/four teachers who can pronounce Latin correctly or admit that their pronunciation is not correct. Many pretend to have an "Erasmian" pronunciation whereas their actual pronunciation does not correspond to any of the traditional ways to pronounce (neither reconstructed nor Erasmian or ecclesiastical). That's why so many people struggle to do Latin properly, being deprived of one of the most basic elements required by learning a language. Still, I don't blame that much the teachers who just undergo the consequences of the progressive elimination of Greek and Latin from the educational system :(

[@pascoett]

No matter what you say on KZbin, say it with confidence! People will believe you. And pronounciation is indeed one of the very first things you will learn in proper Latin class.

[@MagusBoreus]

One thing I'd like to point out is that, when the letter "o" is at the end of a word such as the word "crēdo", the "o" is pronounced long, so it's actually "crēdō". Latin dictionaries usually omit the marking from the final vowel, as it's not considered necessary since it's most often pronounced long, with few exceptions when it's marked as such like "ĕgŏ" and "mŏdŏ", where it's short.

[@aleee641]

That's not always true. Generally speaking, the last O's were mostly long before the start of the imperial era, but they had already started to reduce to short ones sometimes. All present indicative first person singular -ō would eventually end up being shortened in the later centuries. An example of this in the classical era can be found in the Catullus's poem "Odi et amo". Had the O of the word "nescio" been long, it would've not fit in the meter. That O has to be short for the pentameter to work out.

[@aleee641]

Moreover, there were such words as "ego" and "tibi" that could end both in long or in short vowel, hence the name "anceps" (meaning: having two heads).

[@stg213]

I think the intro parody you made is spot on for Italian pronunciation.

[@euls868]

The actual pronunciation of Caesar sounds like the german word "Kaiser" - "Emperor"

[@seven-ttoo5233]

lolllll🤣 I had no idea that was the guy behind all the "pronunciation" videos, anyhoo it was so funny listening it through your video. Such a deep and mysterious voice ahaha

[@bluesman1947]

I'm Italian from the Lazio region and in my dialect we still to this day pronounce a the "v" as a "u". So my suggestion for this gentleman would be " uedi de beue mene uino".

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Unlikely it's truly "still to this day" rather than a random return, but who knows

[@bluesman1947]

I guess you never heard the Ciociaro dialect.

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

@@bacicinvatteneaca That would be way too many steps of phonetic evolution for it to jsut randomly re-appear. And since italian is related to latin, it not "unlikely" for some dialects to still have some of the old habits. Not every language is change as fast as english do. For example there are still existing languages that could still understand a speaker of their own language from 900 years ago. While english not even able to deal with 300 years. So it's not impossibly for a language or a dialect to keep old features from long time ago without loosing and reintroducing it.

[@Brandon55638]

I'm so grateful to have come across languages that have phonemic vowel length (like Japanese) or at least remnants of phonemic vowel length (like German for example) so that in 2019, when I learned Latin from the Lingua Latīna Per Sē Illūstrāta playlist, I would build on my prior knowledge of how phonemic vowel length actually works. Also, "imperium" has a short "e".

[@thethrashyone]

That "a-boopity bappi!" bit ruined me. Also, I've listened to this guy's Spanish pronunciations and they are kinda 'bleh' too. Better than most beginners to be sure, but you can tell by his vowel quality that it's not authentic. His 'A' is too far back in the throat (whereas the authentic 'Spanish A' is more of a mid vowel), and his 'O' sounds like more of an English 'diphthong O' than an actual pure 'O' vowel. And even some of his 'E's come off sounding like that distinctive French 'schwa E' rather than a Spanish 'E', which never schwas (can you use schwa as a verb like that? Well, I just did. XD).

[@cbhlde]

Boopity-babi spaghetti mussolini robert di niro? ;)

[@surfingbird1985]

Translating vici as "I conquered" is the first blunder the guy does in my opinion.

[@generationclash5004]

I still struggle with Latin phonemic vowel length! 😫😭

[@Canev821]

Same

[@joseph3225]

Same

[@omenoid]

Easy for Finns, though ;)

[@elimalinsky7069]

@@omenoid Also easy for Japanese and Arabic speakers.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

*phonemic :)

[@PC_Simo]

5:21 Also; in ”Populusque”, he pronounces the final ”-e”, like the English ”Ay”, as in ”May”. 🤯 Also; I’m noticing that he’s aspirating the ”T”, in ”Senātus”, à la Anglophones; which, I don’t think, the ancient Romans would have done. 🤔

[@lakonikos8791]

I learned so much. "Vivere" = "We were A" "Veritas" = "Weretaz" (probably a man who turns into a Tasmanian devil)

[@crusaderACR]

That's... good enough? You actually can't represent it in English. The R between vowels does exist in American English and is how Americans pronounce their double T, like in "better" or "butter" I'd do it like this - Weewetteh* (tt like in America, not Britain; stress goes in the beginning and the wee has to be slightly longer than the other syllables) - Wetteetas (ditto on the tt, and the final s should NOT sound like a Z, don't even try)

[@lakonikos8791]

@@crusaderACR thanks for the input, but I was trying to be accurate and funny. And apparently I failed at both.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

@@crusaderACR I think representing the intervocalic American T as a tap is a long lasting joke. It's so much closer to a d. And Italian today has a flap anyway, not a tap. It's like a single cycle if the trill

[@Epsilonsama]

Ngl I was waiting for the Caesar to sound like Italian/Ecclesiastical.

[@aleidius192]

This is what the Romans called "Bunkum et Hokum"

[@Eulers_Identity]

actually learning vowel length can be really hard for speakers of languages that don't have them. I know from experience, as a slavic language speaker. The same is true in reverse - speakers of languages where vowel length matters speak foreign languages with too much of an emphasis on that, even though it doesn't make a difference

[@p4radigm989]

original Latin is very easy to pronounce for me as an Austrian/German. It's basically like we talk German in Austria anyway. lol

[@MiKenning]

Germans really struggle to say the Es in dicere properly from what I've heard. 😆

[@p4radigm989]

@@MiKenning no idea. maybe the northern Germans, they talk funny anyway compared to how we talk "High German" in Austria. I guess Austrian speech is heavily influenced by the Romans because it was just next door (south of the Alps) and trading partners, there are several old Roman towns too in Austria. Of course in the Austrian countryside they talk pretty funny too, sometimes hard to understand for myself, lol. And the Viennese have particular weird dialects, probably influenced by French and Czech/Hungarian from when we were a Kaiser Reich.

[@eh1702]

“All I’m asking is, before you teach something…you should know it. Is that too much?” Too much for most of youtube (except woodworking) - yup.

[@bonniebrown1566]

😂 You cracked me up. A great example to point out the importance of vowel length to the hearer would have been “anus” (annus) which, depending on the vowel length could be heard as 1. Year 2. Old woman or 3. Anus I’m sure you know that, just thought that would have been a good example. 😄

[@malarobo]

2 and 3 are vowel length (2=anus with 'a' short, 3=anus with 'a' long), but 1 is consonant length (gemination) the spelling is "annus" not "anus"

[@bonniebrown1566]

@@malarobo Yes, that’s why I put “annus” in parentheses, in order to point out that the spelling was different for one of the words I used. And though that example isn’t about vowel length, I included it because I thought it was a good example of how not pronouncing correctly can make the word completely different to a listener.

[@3rdand105]

This does have me wondering how Mr. Miquel would pronounce "Romanes eunt domus," and would he understand what's wrong with this statement? For those who don't know, it's from a Monty Python film, and it's on my list of Top Ten things Monty Python has ever done.

[@subversiveasset]

At 1st, I thought, "I don't know this channel" but as soon as I heard the guy's voice, I realized, "this is basically going to be in the top 5 results if you Google for how to pronounce words and names from other languages, right against Emma Pronounces." And like, I hate that. Because I know it's not right but good pronunciations are never at the top of the search results

[@AUser-t6n]

Had to confirm it with a language I speak myself, and guess what, his German is also absolutely hilarious.

[@majkus]

Looking at a high school Latin text book from the 1890s (Collar and Daniell, Beginner's Latin Book, still used in U.S. schools at least as late as 1906), the discussion of Latin vowels seems to hesitate between a qualitative and quantitative difference between long and short vowels-it must have relied heavily on the classroom instructor's knowledge to convey the sounds. 'Ā like the last vowel in _papä'_ and Ă like the first vowel in _papä'_ seemingly implies a quantitative difference (a similarly opaque distinction for long and short o, as in 'holy' and 'wholly' ("That is, as the word is commonly pronounced; the sound heard in _holy_ , shortened.") is also quantitative); but the distinction between long and short 'e' is 'they' versus 'met', for 'i' as in 'machine' versus 'pin', and for 'u' between 'boot' and 'foot'. One suspects that ecclesiastical pronunciations slipped into more than one high school Latin classroom, notwithstanding the textbook recommendations.

[@eltrew]

It's interesting when you speak a language with phonemic vowel length, it's hard to imagine what it would be like not being able to distinguish dofferent vowel length.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Imagine then the difference between a French person, who can't make sense of vowel length because their vowels are all identical, an Italian person, who can't make sense of vowel length because to them a long vowel is just one that is stressed and in an open syllable meaning there can only be one per word, and an English person, who can't make sense of vowel length because to them it's associated to specific sounds and generally to diphthongisation AND also stress, meaning they can tolerate more than one per word but then it MUST trigger aspiration of onset stops (and short vowels must be reduced anyway)

[@eltrew]

@@bacicinvatteneaca that's not entirely true, non rhotic dialects of English do have phonemic vowel length distinction

[@Mercure250]

The sad thing is the fact he has such a cool low-register voice, it's a shame he's not making better use of it. Also, it's ridiculous how he sometimes sounds English when pronouncing these words when he's French (I can tell because I'm a native French speaker myself). Like, bruh.

[@gabrielmaiaz]

I don't know for sure how it is in Portugal, but in Brazil we use a lot of expressions and slangs in Latin

[@wartburgphilology]

From the buildup in the preamble I was expecting far worse, but I have to say though, anecdotally speaking, this guy is doing WAYYYY better than the majority of Anglophone priests I've heard at Latin Mass in North America...

[@NoName-yw1pt]

YES!!! YES, PLEASE. Make a dedicated video about his Italian 😆

[@llutac]

This "Julien Miquel" Channel has over 30K videos, uploading several a day, every day. Always the same short one minute pronunciation videos with the same deep voice and maybe 50 views. The description says it is about wine, but there is no recent content about that topic at all. Just tons of the short generic pronunciation clips. My best guess is: This was once a channel about wine tasting and that way it got 700K subscribers. Then somebody else got/bought the channel and posts AI-generated content on there. Although your criticism is totally valid I think there is no real Julien Miquel making these videos anymore. Edit: Additionally, if you look at the most popular videos, its words like "sex", "sex vs.six" "X" "XXX" "XXX-XXX". Looks like a view-farm trying to trick the algorithm to me.

[@cosettapessa6417]

That’s scary 😮

[@crusaderACR]

Interesting post. I've seen that before on other channels, yeah it's likely a bot type of thing now. Mass produced, low quality content.

[@sirknight4981]

Welcome to the modern age! 🙃

[@PC_Simo]

My thoughts, exactly, when I heard him refer to ”IŪLIUS” as Caesar’s ”first name”: I had a shitstroke 🤯.

[@GratiaCountryman]

There are a couple of Universities in my area that offer degrees in Classics. I think I’ll just go with that for Latin. You learn the literature and history with the language.

[@tayebizem3749]

He's a proud French what are you expecting

[@balbarard4041]

how do you not have more subscribers? absolutely criminal state of affairs

[@metatronacademy]

Ahah thanks. I've only opened this channel a month ago, so I supposed it will take time. I appreciate your comment though.

[@t_rizz]

Thanks for covering this. Stuff like this is getting dangerous

[@martinwallace5734]

Just to follow on, I might note that the practice in modern Latin liturgical books such as the _Missale Romanum_ , right up to the present day, is to place an acute accent over the stressed vowel in words of three or more syllables. So we get "Deus, qui nos cónspicis ex nostra infirmitáte defícere..." But again, this is quite different to marking every long syllable. It is done, though, as an aid to pronunciation, and is only done with texts to be read aloud, not with the instructions (rubrics) on how to carry out the rites.

[@theonlybilge]

The KZbin pronunciation rabbit hole is insane.

[@wulfheort8021]

I studied Latin in middle and high school in Flanders (Dutch part of Belgium) and in our schools we learn to pronounce Latin correctly the very first few classes.

[@eliteteamkiller319]

LOL your Italian caricature is perfect.

[@TheAlison1456]

he's italian he better be 🤣🤣

[@Netro1992]

Megatron trying to gaslight us into thinking family guy isn't a documentary series about the world.

[@ShamanKish]

You need to remove that lil lamp behind the monitor because it appears like stress sign above letters 😎

[@mikemerinoff]

For the past couple of month I’ve been entertaining the idea of creating a channel where I would teach people utter bullcrap. E.g. physics (which I have little knowledge of) or music (plenty of knowledge), but just complete nonsense with the air radiating self-confidence. Now I’m looking at the guy and go “aw, it could have been me”

[@PC_Simo]

3:00 Also; as far, as I understand, the name ”Caesar” came from Africa, where it meant: ”Elephant”.

[@giannifois8948]

Hi. I’m an italian guy who’s 17 and is learning latin and ancient greek at school. To prove to you all how important it is to pronounce long and short vowels correctly, I’m gonna do two examples: 1. In latin, the main past tense of every verb is formed starting from the perfect stem of the verb; you take that stem and you add personal endings to conjugate the verb (these endings for the perfect tense are always the same: i, isti, it, imus, istis, erunt). Easy right? Yes, in fact it’s not that hard, but there are words that have the present stem equal to the perfect stem (in writing), like “venio” (to come, arrive) whose present stem is ven- and perfect stem is also ven-. Where is the difference? In pronunciation. The present “venio” has a short /e/ sound, the perfect “veni” has a long /e/ sound, so if you say “Caesar venit” with a short e, it means “Caesar comes”, but if you say “Caesar vēnit” with a long e, it means “Caesar came” (or “Caesar has come”). 2. In latin the word “anus” means two things: “old woman” and “anus”; the difference, in pronunciation, is in the length of the a in the word: if it’s long “ānus”, it means “old woman”, but if it’s short “anus”, it means “anus”. So, in conclusion, if you want to pronounce latin using the reconstructed pronunciation, you HAVE to pronounce long and short vowels correctly. Edit: I have no idea why there is that line, if I try to modify the comment I don’t see it, but then I see it when I’m not writing anything. I don’t know how to correct it, if anyone knows, please tell me Edit 2: ok I fixed it.

[@markkoetsier6475]

Did you put a dash at the beginning and end of that part? Cause that's how you do a strike-through here. Honestly, kinda annoying if it's not what you're trying to accomplish. Kind of like how asterisks make a *bold text* or underscores cause _italic_ unless they're connected to a *comma*, or _period_. It's a pretty dumb command system because you typically want to be able to use those for other things than strictly this type of emphasis. Wish it were more like HTML.

[@giannifois8948]

@@markkoetsier6475 oh yes I did, thanks man, now I fixed it

[@PC_Simo]

Is ”Venio” an exception among verbs? Because, for me, it looks more like the first person singular (”I come”/”I arrive”), than the infinitive (basic) form, which, I would guess, would be: ”Venire”. 🤔

[@AlinefromToulouse]

The pronunciation with a v sound is what I learned at school in France in the 80s :) at the time it was a mixture of ecclesiastic pronunciation and classical Latin I suppose.'Si wis patchem'...

[@changingme1412]

I haven't studied latin in... gosh... 33 years! I cringed. And we mostly read latin. Maybe read it aloud sometimes. I have decided to relearn latin... well, thanks for the heads up.

[@ashwinnmyburgh9364]

Ok...at first I thought you were just nitpicking because he used Ecclesiastic pronunciation, but di imortales, when he said "vivere" pars anima mea moritur...

[@PC_Simo]

I can hear a relative lengthening of the first vowel of all 3 words, in Julien Miquel’s pronunciation; though, it’s probably from the stress (and not independent), and it may not be long enough 🤔.

[@campbell1446]

So, Polymathy is the recommended channel. Shout out to Luke Ranieri!

[@gabriellawrence6598]

Metraton, can you point us to an online copy of the Vulgate that displays the long vowel marks?

[@crusaderACR]

I just realized I need that in my life

[@AlessioCollura]

Next we need a whole video for learning what's the correct pronunciation between arancina and arancino

[@marcusdirk]

Interesting, I've come across a couple of his pronunciation videos; I'll know to be wary of him in future. Thanks!

[@gangwu4541]

At 3:15 when that guy says “Kai-Sa’”, I thought he’s speaking in Chinese 😂

[@C_B_Hubbs]

Other than Luke, the best Latin speaker I've heard on YT is Alexius Cosanus.

[@monalisadavinci7076]

Julien Miquel's voice scares me on this video, but he does promote wine on his channel 🍷In Vino Veritas🍷

[@LeWayak]

Do you recommend to learn how the IPA works to help with pronunciation in other languages?

[@CrispyCircuits]

I certainly do. BUT! This is a rather hard thing to learn. For example, there is a good method to the madness of the vowels with a helpful chart dealing with where each type of vowel pronunciation is based on the different positions inside, lips, tongue, etc. The consonants have their own complicated layout too. So, all you have to do is select the correct dialect you are learning in whatever languages and the correct dialect of your native tongue you also speak. Then you have to put all of that together and learn the right pronunciation for all of the relevant IPA symbols. So it's no more difficult than weathering gale force straight line winds while also in a tornado during a hurricane. Nevertheless, I truly wish I had known about IPA when I took Spanish for one semester and Russian for one semester. The professors for both were awful. My true learning of Spanish was a mish mash of the curious mix that Mexicans within the USA use only here. (I worked and lived in almost 100% Spanish years ago). Now I am trying for both Latin and Russian by self study. I need the help of the IPA to have any hope of getting that all together. I'd also like to fix my bad accent in Spanish, too. Whew! Quite a task, but I think it's necessary.

[@crusaderACR]

@@CrispyCircuits Yes, Spanish pronunciation is crucial to us hispanohablantes! One crucial hint you can only get from me. While in English, if you speak lazily, you often degrade your vowels, never do that in Spanish! When lazy we degrade our consonants instead, because the vowels must always be clear! Take this word: Saxofón Spanish speakers, when talking fast and lazy, will tend to soften that N, or turn that X into an S, but never, ever, EVER will you hear anything but a clear A, O and O. English speakers tend to focus too hard on consonants and too little on vowels, which hurts pronunciation severely. Important note: Caribbean and Andalusian Spanish have a tendency to turn most final S into something like the English H. Don't do that elsewhere unless you hear a native do it consistently (like it may happen but not often). It's odd to listen and just plain weird... if you're not from there.

[@CrispyCircuits]

@@crusaderACR Yes, I got that listening. I tell everyone it's all vowels in Spanish and all consonants in English. I think that learning how to properly pronounce Latin vowels will really help my Spanish vowels. Thanks. Superb tip!

[@crusaderACR]

@@CrispyCircuits You inferred that yourself? I think that's pretty impressive, you must be quite good already. I noticed this while I was practicing my English, it was like an "aha!" moment that felt like I discovered sliced bread. The first YEARS of learning English I was totally frustrated because even though my teachers (all were native Spanish speakers) were extremely easy to understand and could read "advanced" books no problem, I actually understood very little of most natively spoken English. Nevermind songs, I didn't even recognize it as English. It took me a while to notice that your vowels are placeholders for schwas when they aren't "emphasized" and my teachers were, in fact, terrible at natural-sounding English, lol. ¡Buena suerte en tu aprendizaje!

[@tovarishchfeixiao]

YES! Knowing IPA is the best thing that you could do if you learn a language. Because it helps way more efficiently than the "a is like english uh" kind of comparisions in language books.

[@killaken2000]

I never took Latin in college but just by being around people that did take it I already knew he was pronouncing them wrong. I learned a lot of stuff in college just by being around other people who were learning.

[@emilebel6804]

I can hear that he pronounces the "e" a bit longer on "credo". As a french speaker I feel like the issue we have is not much with differenciating long and short vowels but more with how long and how short to pronounce them.

[@2kratM]

He definitely did pronounce it longer. My native language (Czech) has phonemic vowel length, and the difference was quite clear to me.

[@PC_Simo]

I noticed that, too. I guess, in Latin, long vowels are really long.

[@PC_Simo]

⁠@@2kratM Same for me, as a native Finnish-speaker. Finnish also distinguishes long and short vowels.

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

@@PC_Simo but do Finnish and Czech have stress accent? Japanese has pitch accent so it doesn't mess with its long-short vowel system, and Ancient Greek had pitch accent probably dating back to when it had a pure long-short vowel system (and not the sort of "tense-lax" adjacent system it had in classical times). Latin had a pure long-short system AND stress accent. That might have made its long vowels longer, if stressed short vowels were longer than unstressed short vowels. Or it could just be native speakers of languages WITHOUT vowel quantity overcorrecting to overlong vowels. That being said, the "southern drawl" in American English DOES imply much longer long vowels, so I guess everything is possible.

[@PC_Simo]

@@bacicinvatteneaca Yes, they do (although, in Finnish, it’s constant).

[@erraticonteuse]

I thought there was no way I could cringe harder than I did when he called Julius Caesar an emperor...

[@Kanudelgruber]

The level of generalization of his channel should be an immediate red flag. All these languages on the same channel?

[@cbhlde]

It's the Metatron Multiverse! :)

[@SouthPark333Gaming]

I LOVE your new channel

[@PC_Simo]

2:50 I mean, ~2000 years is plenty of time, for languages, to change. Even members of a conservative language family, like Finnish and Estonian, of the Uralic language family, have diverged quite a bit, in that time.

[@captmoroni]

Put simply, to get a feel for Latin vowel lengths, say: "shave and a haircut." "Shave," "hair" and "cut" each take longer to say than "and" or "a." If "shave" takes one second to say, "and" takes half a second, "a" takes half a second. It sounds like SHAVE and a HAIR CUT. Now reverse the lengths: shave aaaaaaaand aaaaaaaaaa haircut. Messing up Latin vowel lengths sounds just as wrong.

[@chrisyoung5363]

but DONT SHAVE a HARE !! :D

[@crusaderACR]

That's a different phenomenon in English that's called weak forms. But yes it would also sound wrong to not use weak forms when you speak English. It's proven it actually makes understanding harder.

[@captmoroni]

@@crusaderACR I was tempted to mention dactyls and spondees, dactylic hexameter, ellision, prodelision, etc. Thought this was simpler. That scene from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" with Judge Doom in the bar is a great demo.

[@NaturalLanguageLearning]

Isn't he a winemaker as well? Sounds like one of those people (the internet is full of them these days) who become successful at one thing, they think they're geniuses and they think they are experts at everything they do or talk about.

[@Prospro8]

It's essential to read the classic volume, '1066 and All That", by Yeatman and Sellar on this topic. They remind us that when Julius Caesar landed in Britain, the main cause of his defeat was that the local Britons thought he was dismissing them as 'weeny, weedy, and weaky' and it made them very cross.

[@klementvaclav3201]

I am from Western Slavic country and the form of Latin we are learning is different than any version I heard you used. My teacher told me that it is late Roman and early medieval version. There is never c read as č, but as c if it is written before e, i, ae, oe, and as k if it is written before other letters.

[@larrygraysmith8411]

Yes, that‘s the so-called German (or Czech) pronunciation of Latin (it can also be called transalpine pronunciation). I know of four systems of Latin pronunciation: 1. The restored classical pronunciation 2. The Italian 3. The transalpine 4. The traditional English

[@Herr_Damit]

Oh wow this is the guy I landed on when looking up some chinese words, and after having watched videos from chinese people I felt like I got ripped off.

[@MulladeNegu]

"Inveniamne? Invenies. Fiamne dives? Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in lecto meo? Ita."

[@pedestrianrights1257]

Thank you, Metatron. You're awesome.

[@DanSolo871]

I recently started learning Italian and I started following Learn Italian with Teacher Stefano. I'm curious to know how you would rate him as a teacher. His early videos explain stuff like the CI, CE, CHI, CHE, GI, GE, GHI, GHE and and various other phonetic rules in Italian.

[@kevinprzy4539]

Hey Metatron! What's your opinion on polyMATHY's Latin?

[@Ranpyaku]

So this is why lately many demons roam freely... I was wondering who summoned them.

[@steelcomrade6871]

His English also needs work on. You should hear how he says "Salmon". 😐 Edit: I'm talking about the French guy.