An encounter with the Ollendorff Method

Adler's Practical grammar is an Ollendorff.

This means, it follows exactly the methodology for aquiring a language developed by Henri Ollendorff. In the following excerpt, basil Hall describes his experience of studying German using this method. Once can satisfactorily substitute Latin for German in what follows, as Adler's textbook is in effect a Latin translation of his own English-German edition of Ollendorff's German textbook.

Skimmings, or “A winter at Schloss Hainfeld” by Basil Hall. Pg 80

"By good fortune however I fell in with a truly philosophical professor of German at Paris M Ollendorff author of a new and most luminous method of teaching that language He soon satisfied me of what I had indeed myself begun to suspect that German to be understood properly must be attacked exactly like mathematics and that as there is no royal road to knowledge in the one case so is there none in the other I gave a sigh or two over the ten months labour I had almost entirely thrown away and commenced the study anew through he medium of M Ollendorff's method which well deserves the title of the Euclid of German After six months close application I can venture to pronounce that by his method alone so far as I have been able to understand the subject can this very difficult but very charming language be taught without confusion To those who like me have none of that readiness by which instinctively as it were foreign tongues are breathed in by some people and are made use of seemingly without effort such a method is quite invaluable By it the scholar advances step by step understands clearly and thoroughly every thing he reads and as he goes on he becomes sensible that all he learns he retains and all that he retains is useful and practically applicable At the same time he scarcely knows how he has got hold of it so slightly marked are the shades of daily progression and sq gentle is the rise that he feels no unpleasant fatigue on the journey Of course the student is called upon to exert no small degree of patient application and he must consent to devote a considerable portion of his time to this pursuit but he will have the encouraging conviction that every of effort is well bestowed I wish I could persuade this admirable teacher to publish his work in English and in England and to fix himself in London where his abilities his knowledge and his skill in teaching so difficult a language in the most agreeable and patient manner I ever witnessed would soon earn for him the distinction he deserves I write in these strong terms of M Ollendorff's method because I feel convinced that a familiarity with it would go far to spread the knowledge of this delightful language in England where of all countries in the world it is most likely to be duly appreciated The almost matchless beauties of German not only from their own excellence but from their analogy to those of our own literature and the great similarity of character between the two people are calculated to produce a much greater effect with us than elsewhere Independently also of the wholesome pleasure which belongs to an elegant pursuit the study of German may do much good not only by the generous cultivation of the national taste and the vigorous exercise of individual thought which it requires but by its placing within our reach an immense store of mental merchandize in exchange for which the labour of six months is the cheapest possible payment"

I'm going to focus on Adler

I'm finding as I'm part way through a couple of grammars that I'm not doing a good job of pronouncing the vocabulary to myself in a consistent way. That's making me have to "relearn" words in a way as I'm hearing them spoken on the CD I got for Lingua Latina and hearing the Latinum podcasts. Though I realise they aren't use the same rules between them. Some of my internal attempts have been WAY off. Having then thought about it more I now realise that all my native pronunciation is probably based on "hearing" the words pronounced more than from deriving it correctly from seeing the words. So for me I think it will be a huge help to focus more on learning from sources that also have audio available than only working with a written text. So I think I'm going to focus on Adler and Lingua Latina and them come back to some of the other grammars later as additional practice once I feel I am pronouncing most of my vocabulary consistently. I think I'm going to try and stick to the way the words are pronounced on the Latinum podcasts. Now I hope I can find somewhere that has greek audio using the same approach that includes the tonal accents as I'd like to handle pronouncing accents consistently between both latin and greek to make it easier on myself. So as an aside, if anyone knows where I can find that type of greek audio samples I'd love to hear it. Back to the original topic, I'd be happy to do a combined adler/wheelock as that is sorta what I'm going to be doing anyway.

LOCŪTŌRIUM VIRTUĀLE SCHOLÆ

Si cyberpressōrium tuum super internexum qvī suprā appāret premis, qvadrātum vidēbis ubi "Screen Name" (Nōmen Cybernēticum) inscriptum est. Dēlē "Screen Name", in locum qvōrum verbōrum inscrībe deinceps in qvadrātō textuālī nōmen usōris tuum. Deinde preme cyberpressōrium tuum super spatíolum qvod iuxtā est, ubi verbum ánglicum "Log In" (Inscrībe hīc nōmen tuum ut intrēs) legitur.

Nec cryptographēma necesse est intrōdūcere nec inscriptiōnem ēlectrónicam.

In Locutōriō Virtuālī nostrō cum aliīs colloqviōrum participibus vel microphōnō vel machinā phōtographicā tēlārī vel símplice scriptiōne commūnicāre potes.

De Lingva Latina Recte Pronuntianda

De Lingva Latina Recte Pronuntianda



I found Mr. Whalen's public criticism of Evan Millner's pronunciation of Latin on the latter's website "Latinum" curious to say the least, all the more so because I am by profession a simultaneous interpreter (as well as a translator) practicing this vocation in a number of modern languages, including a few of Latin's granddaughters. Like other interpreters, I am obliged to improve continuously my language skills I have lived eight years in different foreign countries, working on one or another foreign language to gain the required vocabulary, fluency, and pronunciation. In this office I am compelled to pay due attention to the niceties of stress and intonation, especially in my non-native Spanish, French, Italian, German, Romanian, all of which I have interpreted in trials and court proceedings, lest my listeners be left scratching their heads in partial or total incomprehension.

In all this time I have not come upon one human language that does not exhibit both stress and tonality. Some languages, like English and its Germanic cousins, feature more stress than tonality, but the tones are still there and are easily heard in almost any utterance one can imagine, except perhaps from those emanating from an actor or comedian speaking in a monotone for comic or dramatic or anti-dramatic effect. Even our modern English speech, in its most atonal form, i.e., that heard from the relatively immobile mouths of U.S. Midwesterners and farmers and ranchers living on the Great Plains shows some small variation of pitch.



I cannot imagine the Latin of any period having been spoken in a monotone, especially in the Classical period. I speak to a greater or a lesser degree the five major Romance languages, and none of these offspring of Latin wants for tonal variations. Indeed, Italian, Romanian, and French have a very marked tonality in educated speech.



There may have been some backwaters in the Roman Republic or Empire where where farmers, dung-spreaders, and other locals spoke Latin with lock-jaw monotony. But I cannot believe that the philhellene optimates and litterati of Rome and other urban centers eschewed musical pitch in speaking a Latin which, of course, also featured stress. But both the abundance evidence cited by the great American linguist E. H. Sturtevant in his "The Pronunciation of Latin and Greek " and the marked musicality of Latin's children, esp. French, Italian, and Romanian convince me that Virgil did not compose his hexameters with a monotone buzzing in his ear.



If, however it is the monotonous backwater speech that Mr. Whalen wishes to impart to his pedagogical charges, he is welcome to do so, clamping his jaw shut with surgical wire and avoiding arpeggios up and down the musical scale in favor of atonality.



I am not a Latin teacher, hence do not know with what ancient Roman professions today's students of Latin might identify. But I would wager that those of "cantor" and "musicus" at the court of Augustus would win hands-down over those of "agricola" or "stercorator" on the eastern edge of Dacia (Qvid diceret Ovidius?).



As for Latin's modern avatars, it is impossible to hear a native speaker of Italian uttering that at once ancient and modern Italic word "cantare" without noting the delightfully falling interval of a musical fifth, a characteristic of the Italian language that Verdi and Donizetti exploited to such great advantage and which did not simply appear out of nothing. It is also eerily similar to the Greek circumflex accent as described by Dionysius Halicarnassus and deftly reproduced by Mr. Millner on Latinum).



And "cantare" is what I would suggest that Mr. Whalen do a little more of, especially in his classes of Latin, lest whatever acoustic appreciation of Latin that his pedagogic charges have retained be completely obliterated by a stress-heavy or atonal pronunciation of Latin.
.
John Doublier

A BRIEF NOTE ON ACCENTS:

A BRIEF NOTE ON ACCENTS:

W.S. Allen, in his “Vox Latina”, dismisses the idea that Latin had a pitch accent, despite the description of this accent in great detail by a number of Roman grammarians writing prior to the fourth century AD. Allen states that the accent is “a minor detail of the Greek”. This would be like saying that the musical accent of Italian was “ a minor detail of Italian”. In fact, the survival of the pitch accent, albeit in modified form, in Italian, Catalan and Sardinian, provides evidence that educated Romans adopted it into their Latin. Cicero himself speaks of the musicality of Latin, likening Spoken Latin to a form of singing. Further evidence exists in the adoption of the tonal accent into Hebrew recitiation. Indeed, the Jews adopted the Greek system, including the method for manually marking the tones. (Manuum variis motibus altitudinem, depressionem, flexus vocis significabant) Talmudic texts were printed with accents for this tonal singing, until well into the mediaeval period. This accent has similarities to the Greek accent , and probably developed in imitation of the Greek recitation of the Laws to a chanted tune.

Bennet, along with David (see below), both of whom I regard as authoritative on this matter, come down in favour of the "Greek" accent. Herman and Wright in “Vulgar Latin” also hold the view that the accent in Classical times was a tone accent (pg 36).

One major plank of the argument regarding Classical Latin and tone versus stress, (Vulgar Latin, J Herman) is defeated by Hungarian, which “has a very strong stress accent involving intensity, while at the same time a whole operating system of vowels based on distinctions in length”.

In other words, a clear strong stress accent and a vowel system based on phonological length distinctions are not ipso facto incompatible. Yet one hears this recited again and again by Classicists, educated linguists and laymen alike, so often has this notion been repeated, that is has taken on authority simply by dint of repition. I am not sure with which linguists this canard arose – for canard it surely is. There is no empirical scientific evidence for this opinion, only evidence that weighs against.

Classical Latin had both a stress accent, with tonal differentiation, and vowel length distinctions. Earlier Roman Grammarians assert quite explicitly that Latin used a tonal accent, similar to the Greek, and only from the fourth century onward to Roman grammarians talk about relative loudness, as opposed to pitch. (pg 36 Vulgar Latin, J. Herman & R. Wright, 2000, Penn State Press.)

The question of the nature of the Classical Latin accent was initially argued for cogently in English by Abbott, in his paper “The Accent in Vulgar and Formal Latin” (Classical Philology, II ppp 444 ff). Abbott held the view that the accent of the common people continued to be one of stress, but educated Romans developed an accent in which pitch predominated. This view is reasonable enough, when we consider to what extend Roman literature is based on the Greek. Also, educated Romans spoke Greek, with its pitch accent. This view is also supported by R.G. Kent ( Transactions of the American Philological Association, LI, pp19 ff), and Turner (Classical Review, 1912, pp147 ff).

Kent writes “In the middle of the second century BC the Greek teachers of the Roman youth set a fashion of speaking Latin with a pitch accent, for as Greeks they kept this peculiarity of their mother tongue when they learned Latin. From that time on, Latin was spoken with a pitch accent by the highly educated class, while the general populace retained the stress accent” (quoted on pg 55 of “Accentual Change and Language Contact” J. Salmons, 1992, Routledge.

Another recent study in support of the Pitch accent, is “The Non-European and Semitic Languages”, Saul Levin, SUNY Press, pg 236 ff

“ The ancient grammarians say clearly that the accent of Latin is either acute or circumflex, and they describe it just like Greek. In many details the distributions of acute and circumflex [between the Latin and Greek] agrees remarkably.”.

Levin continues to say “ Some in modern times have wrongly doubted, or rejected altogether, the testimony of the Roman Grammarians about accent. But since Latin literature conforms to the syllabification and vowel quantity of Greek, the literary language of Rome can hardly have failed to employ a pitch accent compatible with such versification and prose rhythm.” He then says even more emphatically, “ It will not do to dismiss the Latin pitch accent as an artificial imitation of Greek. The most classical Latin, the kind most thoroughly described in our sources, is the most thoroughly Hellenized. If Latin was ever free from Greek influence in some prehistoric time, that Latin is unknown to us, and to reconstruct it, be peeling off what we may label the literary, Hellenizing features, is a fantasy……..Admitting that there was a raised pitch does not conflict with the stress which undoubtedly was present in early Latin.”

See also the seminal work of J. Vendryes, “recherches sur l’histoire et les effets de l’intensite initiale en latin” (Paris 1902), which is quoted by Bennett.

“New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin” Andrew Sihler 1995, OUP , pg 241 also argues in favour of the pitched accent.

“ Roman Grammarians, down to the 4^th C AD, describe the Latin accent in terms only appropriate for a pitch accent. Scholars have been wary as taking this as cogent, however, as not only is the terminology of Roman Grammarians taken over entire from Greek, their statements are often cribbed from Greek sources. Some scholars protest, however, that ancient authorities could hardly have thus identified Greek and Latin accent had there not been at least an appreciable element of pitch in the latter….The familiarity of educated Romans with Greek accent in both practice and theory probably would not have caused them to adopt an element of accent wholly irrelevant for their natural speech, but could have made them more aware of an existing element of pitch, and even to a studied enhancement of it – Latin with a Greek accent, if you will, in oratory or recitations of poetry”

Pulgram 1975, pg 116, quoted in “From Latin to Spanish”, Paul M Lloyd, Diane Publishing, 1987, argues that speakers of Classical Latin adopted the Greek pitch accent, and certainly made an effort to adopt it on formal occasions, if not in general speech.

“A New Theory of the Greek Accent” A.P. David, Oxford University Press, 2006 pg 76-7 is the most recent, and authoritative of the new school of scholars who promote the view that the original statements of Quintillian, etc, are accurate descriptions of Latin as it was spoken. Here is Davis' argument:

“It is also possible that Greek forms with an acute on the antepenult are a product of the reflex described in Vendryes’ Law, if the Latin penult in these words was heard to be pronounced with a circumflex.

Might there have been such a contonation in Latin? A simple synchronic picture, which accords with the traditional account, emerges if we assume a contonation. We are informed by a recent commentator that “ Roman Grammarians, down to the 4^th century, describe L[atin] accent in terms appropriate only for a pitch accent” (quoting A.Sihler, see above, pg 241).

Modern scholars, however, tend to see a sort of ‘Greek envy’ in this native description and to be dismissive. But if we frame the new rule for Latin in terms of a recessive contonation, where the voice was required where possible to rise two morae before the ultima – without, in the case of this language, any stipulation as to the quantity of the ultima – the traditional stress rules for polysyllabic words in Latin automatically follow, if the combination of pitch and quantity worked in the way that I have described for Greek. A long penult, with two morae, containing the rise combined with the Latin version of the svarita, would produce a circumflex on the penult (amIcus); [circumflex on the capitalised I] while a short penult (of one mora) would cause the rise to revert back to one mora to the antepenult, producing the Latin acute with a deemphasised svarita (facilis).

In making an authoritative correction, Quintillian actually points to this recessive rule. Discussing errors in accentuation, he cites CethEgus [circumflex on the capitalised E] as properly having a flex on the penult (Institutio Oratorio 1.5):the common error was to pronounce the penult grace in this word instead of circumflex, which apparently rendered the penult short. (A circumflex requires two morae). He implies that this change in the quantity of the penult necessitates an acute first syllable (Cethegus) [with acute on the first e] – an erroneous pronunciation, but one which conforms to the proposed rule. The Latin accent was a recessive contonation, a rise and fall, where the rise occurred, wherever possible, on the second mora before the ultima.”

The most recent writer to put forward a theory on this subject, is A.P. David, who gives sound reasoning for dismissing W.S. Allen’s ill-supported view.

“A New Theory of the Greek Accent” A.P. David, Oxford University Press, 2006 pg 76-7

“It is also possible that Greek forms with an acute on the antepenult are a product of the reflex described in Vendryes’ Law, if the Latin penult in these words was heard to be pronounced with a circumflex.

Might there have been such a contonation in Latin? A simple synchronic picture, which accords with the traditional account, emerges if we assume a contonation. We are informed by a recent commentator that “ Roman Grammarians, down to the 4^th century, describe L[atin] accent in terms appropriate only for a pitch accent” (quoting A.Sihler, see above, pg 241).

Modern scholars, however, tend to see a sort of ‘Greek envy’ in this native description and to be dismissive. But if we frame the new rule for Latin in terms of a recessive contonation, where the voice was required where possible to rise two morae before the ultima – without, in the case of this language, any stipulation as to the quantity of the ultima – the traditional stress rules for polysyllabic words in Latin automatically follow, if the combination of pitch and quantity worked in the way that I have described for Greek. A long penult, with two morae, containing the rise combined with the Latin version of the svarita, would produce a circumflex on the penult (amîcus); [circumflex on the capitalised I] while a short penult (of one mora) would cause the rise to revert back to one mora to the antepenult, producing the Latin acute with a deemphasised svarita (facilis).

In making an authoritative correction, Quintillian actually points to this recessive rule. Discussing errors in accentuation, he cites Cethêgus [circumflex on the capitalised E] as properly having a flex on the penult (Institutio Oratorio 1.5):the common error was to pronounce the penult grace in this word instead of circumflex, which apparently rendered the penult short. (A circumflex requires two morae). He implies that this change in the quantity of the penult necessitates an acute first syllable (Cethegus) [with acute on the first e] – an erroneous pronunciation, but one which conforms to the proposed rule. The Latin accent was a recessive contonation, a rise and fall, where the rise occurred, wherever possible, on the second mora before the ultima.”

As a final point, I would like to note, that one reason why one seldom hears Latin declaimed with this accent, is that one seldom hears Classical Greek spoken with it, even though there is not even a sliver of doubt that Classical Greek was spoken with a pitch accent. Current practice, however, is not necessarily a guide to good practice, and I would advocate the use of the tonal accent, for purely pedagogical reasons – it makes Latin more intelligible, and also makes clearer distinctions between stressed and unstressed, unaccented and accented syllables, and long and short vowels.

In monosyllables, vowels that are long take the circumflex, and vowels that are short take the acute.

árs	flôs
fáx	spês
párs	môns

Polysyllables take the circumflex accent when the penult is long by nature (This simply means that it has a long vowel, see above), and the final vowel is short. A circumflex can only appear over a syllable with a long vowel.

jûrĭs lûcĕ mûsă spînă

The circumflex accent is thought to have has a slight up-down tone, the acute a straightforward upwards tone. Final unaccented syllables had a slight falling tone. (This is called the grave accent, but this is not written, it is simply understood to be there.)

These accents were applied by the Romans in imitation of the Greeks, and may have been used when reciting poetry and during orations.

Learning Latin

Learning Latin

by Alex Sheremet

"Wheelock's Latin" is perhaps the best conservative book of its type -- that is, it's the best of grammar-before-understanding Latin textbooks, and it shows. It thoroughly explains the grammar in ways most college textbooks don't, and it has plenty of selections from the original authors, which, if quickly understood, helps build enthusiasm: "Look, Mom! After 1/2 an hour of sweating, I finally understand these three sentences!" Moreover, there are additional readings in the back, in case you'd like to test (or brush up on) your knowledge of mechanical decoding.

But, that's where the fun ends. I used this book in a summer intensive course, and loved it. We finished most of in 8 weeks, and I, too, was pretty confident like the hypothetical student above. Soon, though, I noticed that learning Latin felt unnatural. After a semester of prose, we moved on to Ovid, and something became clear: I wasn't "reading," but decoding.. Wheelock and subsequent instruction trained me to do exactly that.

Decoding -- it's when a student looks at a sentence, and hunts: there's a noun, there's the adjective, but, they're in different cases; oh, the adjective probably goes with this noun, then. Verb, adverb, subject.. and, ECCE! Puzzle solved.

Is this reading? Why are students of German, or Russian (a more difficult language, by the way) able to build the kind of proficiency in 2 years that many 5-year students of Latin only daydream about? The difference is in the approach: German and Russian are taught as languages, while Latin is usually taught as a synthetic, mechanical puzzle. And, don't try to say that German and Russian are still spoken -- that's not an excuse, considering that it's possible to at least approximate Latin fluency by constructing artificial social situations: audio, continuous prose composition at very early levels and beyond, and exposure to low-level readings.

Wheelock does not help this problem. Instead, Wheelock does the following: he gives you a great grammatical introduction, and then throws sentences at you, which you either translate into English or into Latin. These exercises are graded by difficulty, but there's no continuous reading.. there's no introduction of "baby prose," of substantial narrative-nuggets that might get the student thinking in Latin, and thinking of Latin *as* Latin -- that is, as an individual language, one that should not be forced into an Anglicized word order, or puzzled out, piece by piece.

Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with the above if it's immediately followed by a different approach. But, Wheelock is not designed with an alternative in mind -- high schools and colleges start you with Wheelock, and then throw you into advanced prose or poetry. There is no side-step, or, even more helpful, a step back.

Students that are just starting out, like me, at one time, don't realize the following: they will never learn to read Latin properly with such an approach. Sure, they may learn to read Latin properly if they do something on their own *in conjunction* with typical formal instruction, but, I suspect the formal approach then becomes a burden, a distraction from the student's "real work."

Obviously, that's a problem.. the student never really gets used to Latin word order, among other things, because he's never around enough of it in quick, digestible chunks. Moreover, if he never practices generating Latin quickly and proficiently, there will always be a barrier between the original Latin text and his true abilities, especially in terms of reading speed. Although we have only a tiny portion of original Latin literature extant, it's pretty much inconceivable for a student to ever get through those works in his entire lifetime, if, that is, he never leaves the Wheelock approach.

Instead, I'd recommend Orberg's "Lingua Latina." It's an excellent book designed for Latin fluency, if used in conjunction with other materials. It's all written in Latin, as one continuous narrative broken into different scenes and chapters. Although it starts out very simple, it moves up to real sophistication, but slowly enough that, with a little patience and review, the student is reading the final chapters (which approximate unadapted Latin, by the way) at a respectable speed, and only sometimes hunting for objects, subjects, etc., in some of the more difficult or unclear sentences. At the end of the first chapter, you will have done several pages of solid reading, which might be more reading than in all of Wheelock's chapters combined. Interestingly, your reading speed, while it will decrease as you move on to the harder stuff, won't decrease significantly. And eventually, you can get it back, and move beyond your initial stages.

I'd also recommend Adler's "Practical Latin Grammar," which is out of print, but nonetheless available on Google Books. Adler's textbook is especially good as a supplement to "Lingua Latina," since it eventually covers every important point of grammar, including complex subordination. It's focused on *conversational* Latin, which forces the student to generate and verbalize good Latin sentences from the very beginning. The entire book has been rendered into audio on Evan Millner's "Latinum Podcast" site, which -- at least a few hundred hours worth, if not more -- is available for free. In this way, you're doing two things: you're practicing complex prose with proper reading skills with Orberg's book, and practicing listening and speaking Latin with Adler and Millner.

An article criticizing the typical Latin-teaching approaches mentioned something interesting and revealing: in the Renaissance, students were first taught conversational Latin for five or six years before ever cracking open some Caesar or Cicero. And only years later, perhaps, did they ever touch poetry. Doesn't this seem sensible? To truly understand a language, or even to simply be competent enough to read at a decent speed, from the start of a sentence to the end, without juggling endless case endings and objects in your mind, requires this kind of approach. Sure, if you're doing Latin academically, there may be no time -- you're expected to have decoded at least a couple of hundred of pages of Latin by the time you hit your Ph.D. stage, in some schools. But, if you're interested in doing well and improving every day, and visibly, for that matter, forget about Latin literature for as long as you can tolerate it, and start with the basics: easy reading, and conversation.

And it's not all bad: I'm glad I did Wheelock, because "Lingua Latina" was much easier for me, given the vocabulary and abstract grammatical knowledge I had. So, if you're completing Wheelock now, or about to start it, consider it preparation for what comes ahead.

For more information, read William Dowling's homepage -- a fluent reader of Latin, he first turned me on to this "natural method" of language acquisition. He doesn't accept e-mails, but you can write some snail mail to him, as I did:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~wcd/Latin.htm

by Alex Sheremet

Latin is extremely useful.

Latin is extremely useful. One major advantage it has, its its grammatical regularity, and its clarity and beauty. Also, the reason it has survived so long, is that a great literature exists written in it, and learning Latin to have access to this literature is well worth the effort.
Thousands of people allover the world learn Latin, even people who have to struggle to do so in places where there are no formal Latin programmes. Many use the Latinum podcast’s free lessons.
The Latinum podcast now has over 50 lessons online, each lesson is composed of several individual episodes comprising:
a. grammar
b. English-Latin conversational dialogue (question and answer)
c. Repetition of the same short dialogues in Latin only, first with pauses, then again more quickly.

There are already thousands of regular users of the lessons, located all over the world. The clickable map on Latinum’s home page gives an insight into where in the world people are studying and listening to Latin.

If you cannot attend an actual Latin class, (and even if you can) then Latinum’s lessons, and extensive vocabulary learning resources, classical text readings, etc, will be an invaluable resource.
Many established Latin programmes, including schools and universities, are also now directing their students to it.
With over 1,300,000 lessons downloaded to date, this is the largest single Latin programme available.
http://latinum.mypodcast.com

Also, if you want to build up your vocabulary and you are a visual learner, then there is an ever growing resource of visual learning aids on Schola.
http://schola.ning.com

You need to sign in, and visit the photographiae section.

Here you will find over 2 800 photographs of objects, with the latin word for the object written on it.
Some also have basic phrases, introducing related verbs. Everyday objects are included as well, such as furniture, crockery and cutlery, transport, boats, etc.
There are also images related to learning greetings and salutations.

This resource is constantly expanding, and anyone serious about learning Latin will find it useful

All of the above resources are free of charge