How to take Latin class notes on iPad

Latin isn't like the other language classes. Nobody asks you to order coffee or hold a conversation. You learn to read, and every exam comes down to the same skill: take a sentence, figure out what every word is doing, and turn it into English.

That's hard because Latin puts the meaning in the endings, not the word order. Puella canem videt and Canem puella videt both mean "the girl sees the dog." So Latin notes have three jobs: reference tables for the endings, vocabulary written the way a dictionary gives it, and translation notes that show your reasoning.

Build paradigm tables you'll keep all year

A paradigm is a full table of a word's forms. Latin courses are built on them: five noun declensions, four verb conjugations, plus pronouns and adjectives. Build each table once, carefully, on its own page, and come back to it all year instead of copying it again in every chapter.

For a noun declension, use rows for the cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative if your course includes it) and two columns, singular and plural. The first declension looks like this: puella, puellae, puellae, puellam, puellā in the singular, and puellae, puellārum, puellīs, puellās, puellīs in the plural.

A few habits make these tables much more useful:

• Highlight the endings, not the whole word. The stem doesn't change; the endings are what you're learning.
• Mark endings that repeat across declensions. For masculine and feminine nouns, the accusative singular ends in -m. The dative and ablative plural are always the same as each other. Seeing those patterns cuts down what you have to memorize.
• Circle the forms that look alike, like puellae, which can be genitive singular, dative singular or nominative plural. Those are where translation mistakes come from.
• Drill by writing blank tables from memory. Draw an empty grid, fill it in, then check it against your reference page. It's the most common kind of Latin quiz, so practice the way you'll be tested.

Write vocabulary as dictionary entries

A Latin word on its own isn't enough to use it. Write each one the way your textbook's glossary does:

• Nouns: nominative, genitive, gender, meaning. Rēx, rēgis, m.: king. The genitive gives you the stem, rēg-, which you can't guess from rēx.
• Verbs: all four principal parts. Amō, amāre, amāvī, amātus: love. Every tense you'll learn is built from one of them.
• Adjectives: all three gender forms, like bonus, bona, bonum.
• Derivatives: one or two English words that come from it, like regal from rēx. They make the meaning stick, and many Latin exams ask for them.

If your course uses macrons, the long marks over vowels, write them every time. They change pronunciation, and sometimes they're the only thing telling two forms apart, like puella (nominative) and puellā (ablative).

Take translation notes that show your work

When you translate, don't jump straight to English. Parse first:

1. Find the main verb and note its person, number and tense. It tells you who the subject is.
2. Find the subject, the nominative that agrees with the verb.
3. Find the object and anything else in the accusative.
4. Label the rest: ablatives, datives, participles, and any clause starting with a word like cum or ut.
5. Write a literal translation, then a smooth one underneath.

Leave room for this. Copy the passage with a blank line under each line of Latin, and write your grammar labels right under the words they describe: abl., subj., abl. abs. Draw arrows from each adjective to the noun it agrees with. In class, when your professor goes over the passage, correct your labels in a different color, so you can see where your reading went wrong.

For poetry, add a line for scansion. Mark long and short syllables over each line of verse while your professor reads it aloud, and note where the caesura falls.

Prepare for the usual Latin exam

Most Latin exams mix a few kinds of questions: paradigm charts, parsing single words, vocabulary and derivatives, and translating a passage, sometimes one you've seen and sometimes one you haven't. Prepare for each separately. Charts and vocabulary are memorization, so use flashcards and blank tables. Translation is a skill, so practice on passages you haven't seen, parsing every word before you write any English.

Setting up Latin notes in Scribba

Paper. Grid or Dot Grid paper makes paradigm tables quick to draw. Hold the Apple Pencil still at the end of a stroke and it snaps into a straight line or rectangle. For translation, Wide Ruled paper leaves room for labels under each line. You can change any page's paper from the page sidebar. More in drawing straight lines and shapes on iPad.

Bookmark every paradigm. Name a bookmark for each table, like "3rd declension" or "Perfect system," so the notebook's table of contents becomes a grammar index you can jump through.

Quiz the tables with study tape. Drag a strip of study tape over the plural column or the ablative row, say each form, then tap to peek. See study tape on iPad.

Annotate the reading itself. If your professor hands out passages as PDFs, import them into your notebook and write right on them, or scan a printed handout with the camera. PDF text is searchable, so you can find a line later. See annotating lecture slides on iPad, which works the same way for readings.

Flashcards, with honest limits. Latin uses the Latin alphabet, so Scribba can read a handwritten Vocabulary page and turn each row into a card. Its recognition works best on English, though, so check every Latin word in the review step, and expect to add macrons back by hand. Or type cards: create a new deck, tap Add Card, and type a Front and Back. On the iPad keyboard, press and hold a vowel to pick the version with a macron. Cards come back after 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 days, and decks export to Quizlet or Anki.

Recording and transcripts. Latin classes are usually taught in English, so recording is useful for your professor's explanations and readings aloud. Ask first, since rules vary. Scribba transcribes English or Spanish, so the English explanation can be transcribed, but Latin words and passages read aloud will come out wrong. Tap the line you wrote to hear the reading again instead.

Frequently asked questions

Can Scribba read my handwritten Latin?

It reads Latin-alphabet handwriting, but it works best on English. Check Latin words and macrons in the review step before saving flashcards.

What's the best way to memorize declensions?

Build one clean reference table per declension, then drill by filling in blank tables from memory and checking them. Study tape over a column works well too.

Should I write macrons in my notes?

If your course uses them, yes. They affect pronunciation and sometimes they're the only way to tell two forms apart.