Source: AryAMsha
Length
- ă - it’s called a breve, it marks a short a
- ā - a macron marks a long a, two matras long
- The dictionary (LSJ) in particular doesnt mark final and initial shorts - angărĭa is actually ăngărĭă. They assume you know that final /a/ is always short unless specified.
- Post medieval latin doesnt mark macrons. However, all modern textbooks that teach latin mark macrons.
- Greek orthography is much more conservative here, they always mark pitch accent (udatta, anudatta etc). You have to learn how to mark the accent in all nouns and verbs when writing greek and even in medieval times they used to write the accent
- most people don’t write ă because its more work, so they just leave it as “a”
Looking up words
- noun stem in latin is identical to nominative singular, which you will try to guess from the form.
- we cannot form our own nouns, own adjectives just from dhAtus using krit or taddhita pratyayas. this exists in greek, but also to a reduced extent. skt is much more flexible here.
Learning
- I also recommend Lingua latina per se illustrata (Pars 1 Familia Romana) book series for learning latin. Its the only thing anyone needs, nothing else needed. it teaches latin in latin, not a word of english used.