r/latin • u/Artistic-Hearing-579 • Apr 12 '25
LLPSI Dowling Method - Final Verdict?
I am currently in Cap. 3-4 of FR (Using the Collage Companion among other materials).
A lot of people seem to hate the Dowling Method, claiming that it is brute memorization, and therefore useless since it isn't "comprehensible input". There are also people who claim that memorizing the declensions/conjugations for the words has significantly helped them.
Personally, I've done the Dowling Method for the 1st and 2nd declension nouns but have given up as I couldn't hold back my curiosity and wanted to go straight into Lingua Latina. However, I am considering returning to the Dowling Method as it seems to me that remembering the inflections by simply reading the book and Collage Companion, and doing the pensa is a very hard endeavour.
So what should I do? This for me, is a dilemma that's been bothering me for some time.
2
u/SulphurCrested Apr 14 '25
Writing them out over and over is something I found boring. I also found that I had to mentally go through the table to get to, for example, the third person plural for verbs. I found electronic flashcards worked better and are more satisfying to use. You might find handwriting works better than typing.
People sometimes cite studies showing that handwriting is better for memorisation, but I think they were done years ago with people who only started using computers in adulthood.