Abstract/Summary

During the Roman empire many Greek speakers learned Latin. Their books and exercises, which survive in medieval manuscripts and in papyri from Egypt, show that some of their language-learning techniques were similar to ours and others very different. Some students, interested only in oral proficiency, learned Latin using materials in Greek transliteration. Others learned the Roman alphabet and then read not isolated sentences but complete texts, in a special bilingual format, while learning grammar and syntax from materials composed entirely in Latin. At more advanced levels students used monolingual Latin literary texts, which they read aloud and translated into Greek ; they also translated Greek literature into Latin.