I received this email:

Dwane,

My daughter is currently on Lesson 15 of Visual Latin. When I go to check her “Reading and Translation” part, she goes for a literal translation compared to yours. Do you have any suggestions to correct this or should I not worry about it?

For example…

Lesson 15C:

(Pabulum cibus bestiarum est.) – She has translated it to “Animal food is for the beasts.”

I just want to make sure that to correct her now before something becomes a bad habit. I have encouraged her to read it out loud to make sure it makes sense.

Thank you again for this program! I appreciate your sense of humor in the videos (a main reason that we chose your course) and have highly recommended your videos to others. 🙂

Thanks!

Here is my reply:

Hi,

Think of her translation as translation with “training wheels”.  Training wheels are great when starting out.  Eventually, they need to come off.  Usually, it is the kids who want to remove the training wheels.  The parents want to leave them on a bit longer.

Eventually, she will produce more fluid translations.  It may take time, but it will come.  I wouldn’t worry about it at all if I were you.

Let me know if you need more help!

Dwane