Resources for Listening to Spoken Latin

(NB: These resources are mostly intended for Latin teachers, and/or those with more than a few years of Latin under their belt. A separate page of links for beginners can be found here: http://johnpiazza.net/latin/easy-listening/)

Although you don’t have to be fluent in Latin in order to conduct your classes in Latin, practicing your active Latin skills will help your confidence level and imporove your reading comprehension. Whether or not you intend to use spoken Latin in your classroom, it is empowering to “activate” the Latin you have already learned through reading and/or translating into English or another language.  There are many opportunities to listen to spoken Latin and even to interact online with others who speak Latin. Here are some of the most accessible of those resources. When I say “practice” this includes simply listening to  spoken Latin, or Latin texts being read aloud.

Magister Piazza on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj_4efSXDuJxjyWhH0O46g
Here you will find a growing library of Latin-related videos, mostly in Latin. This includes explicationes Latinae for Latin poems–mostly by Catullus, as well as a preface I recorded in my car.

The Latin Listening Project
Short videos of people talking about everyday topics, in clear, simple Latin.

Quomodo Dicitur Podcast.
A weekly podcast, in which the hosts discuss a simple question, or a reading.

Justin Slocum Bailey and Jason Slanga, of Quomodo Dicitur, have started a series of thoughtful and comprehensible Latin discussions of Seneca’s letters. (You can find the Latin texts at thelatinlibrary.com).  Check them out at the following links

Seneca, letter 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dufpfe-bU5g

Seneca, letter 2

Forum Romanum
Originally produced in the 1990’s by Latin teachers, this is an Ancient Roman-themed newscast, featuring reports on literature, culture, history, even the weather. Each video has a link to a complete script, for those who prefer to read along.

Here is an actual newscast produced in Latin (for a German television station)

Josiah Meadows’s online Latin tutoring sessions
Read along with these recordings of online Latin lessons. Uses Hans Oerberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. (This is a resource that may also be appropriate for beginning students)

Videos in Latin Youtube playlist
Ellie Arnold has compiled all sorts of Latin YouTube videos here.

Lectures (in Latin) on the history of philosophy by Wilfried Stroh. Thanks to Justin Bailey for the reference. If you want to see Stroh speaking, you can find examples on Youtube (also, the podcasts have been posted on YouTube  by “the modern hermeticist”).

many many more links to come!