How should I learn reading latin?
I don't want to be able to talk latin, I just want to be able to read and understand. I was thinking of buying ORBERG's lingua latina,is that a good choice?
How long should it take before I can read a real text?
I studied latin for 6 years in school but that was mostly grammatica and translating sentences, that's not how you learn to read a language
>>3021204
also my first language is french but my english is pretty decent and I have some notions in dutch so learning a new language should not be an issue in itself and french / english allow me to easily understand simple sentences in latin
>>3021204
learn the dialect and meter of ancient texts (dactylic hexameter) and learn how to look at latin sentences holistically instead of linearly. Vocab will take time, but looking at entire sentences and lines as constructions rather than strings of connected ideas helps with understanding the language
>>3021257
you mean focusing on getting the general idea instead of focusing on every word?
>>3021269
no, every word is important, especially when in the case of participles and subjunctive verbs one word can tell the story of an entire english sentence. I mean that changing your brain to look at classical Latin texts in a different manner than you do with modern languages, mostly because all latin texts are written as poetry not in prose or paragraph form
>>3021204
I'd recommend starting with Ecce Romani (initially very easy but progressively more complex Latin textbook). It's probably available online somewhere. Once you've got a fair amount of that down you could try Fabulae Graecae, and after that you could start on the Aeneid if you have the patience.