Title of the resource
Title of the resource in english
Publisher
First Éditions
Original language
Target and Age Group
The general public
Author of the Entry:
Marta Pszczolińska, University of Warsaw, m.pszczolinska@al.uw.edu.pl
Peer-reviewer of the Entry:
Elżbieta Olechowska, University of Warsaw, elzbieta.olechowska@gmail.com
Second Peer-reviewer of the Entry:
Ayelet Peer, Bar- Ilan University, ayelet.peer@biu.ac.il
Julien Soulié
Julien Soulié is an alumnus of Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), certified professor [professeur certifié] of Classics and a member of the Voltaire Project’s Committee of Experts. He authored many books on French spelling and grammar, such as Trucs et astuces pour écrire sans fautes [Tricks and tips how to write without mistakes], Le Petit Livre du participe passé [The Booklet on the Past Participle] or Exercices d'orthographe pour les nuls [Spelling exercises for dummies]. He composed crosswords and dictations for spelling bees.
Source: fr.linkedin.com (accessed: April 3, 2020)
Contents & Purpose
Le latin facile is a mini textbook of Latin grammar. The author wants to convince the reader that Latin is not dead because it is still present in the French language: it is responsible for 85% of its vocabulary and that is why it is not so difficult to learn. Though the textbook is really of pocket size (8,5x12cm), it contains a 160-page full grammar course starting from Latin pronunciation according to French rules, through declensions and conjugation, to the syntax. There is also a glossary divided into thematic groups including Latin words used today. In the end, there is also a section with famous phrases, proverbs and quotations.
The references to classical antiquity are not many, but they do appear even in such a small textbook. First of all, on the cover, a witty illustration: a she-wolf sits holding twins, presumably Remus and Romulus, on her lap and they sing together the declension of rosa (which to the French evokes the song Rosa by Jacques Brel). The introduction to the book presents Latin as the foundation of numerous Western institutions (senate, republic, president, minister etc), but also as a language which has been impacting myth, thought and literature through its writers such as Seneca, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Plautus or Cicero. At the end of the book, one can find a collection of famous quotes to be learned in the original Latin, along with explanations of their meaning and provenance.