Two packs · 2,000 words · ten tiers · 44 lessons · out now on Steam
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Two thousand words, ten tiers, one skill. The sentences start built for you and end as Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Nepos and Livy actually wrote them — nothing trimmed but length, nothing invented.
One skill: reading
Legendō discitur — it is learned by reading.
Nothing here asks you to compose Latin of your own. The whole course is built so that you can look at a printed line and know what it says — and it gets you there by putting you in front of sentences from the very first tier, not by making you wait until the grammar is finished.
The order is the argument. Two thousand lemmas are laid down in ten tiers, each tier eight clusters of twenty-five cards, and the grammar arrives one lesson at a time at the exact card that first needs it. No example sentence ever uses grammar you have not been taught. By Tier 10 the ladder has nothing left to teach and you are reading Cicero unadapted — 17,007 words of Latin read in context along the way.
Latin Core — tiers 1 to 5
The alphabet as Rome said it, the pointing words, the connectives, the prime movers, the first nouns of senate and sword.
The accusative, the present tense, the imperative. The daily round, the forum, the body, counting and worth.
Genitive and dative, the full plural, two more conjugations, the imperfect. The road, the household, the turning year.
The ablative, the third declension, prepositions and case — and the first real Caesar, lightly adapted.
The perfect and its family, principal parts, relative clauses. Caesar is now on 86 of the 200 cards, and unadapted on 26 of them.
Latin Pareto — tiers 6 to 10
Participles, all three of them, and the passive. Caesar continues, and Nepos comes into his own.
The ablative absolute, the passive complete, deponents. Cicero's letters open the informal register.
The infinitive family and reported speech. Sallust arrives; 192 of 200 cards are now unadapted.
The subjunctive, cum-clauses, purpose and result, indirect questions. Livy joins the roll.
Gerund and gerundive, and how to read a citation. Cicero's speeches and philosophy close the trunk.
From made for you to written by Cicero
One card's example sentence from each of the ten tiers, in order. Nothing below is a paraphrase: from Tier 4 the citations are real, and the unmarked ones are the author's own words.
- Ut vides, Caesar noster est.As you see, Caesar is one of ours.built for the tier
- Dum Caesar in Gallia est, senatus legem probat.While Caesar is in Gaul, the senate approves the law.built for the tier
- Copiae nostrae iam discedebant et castra relinquebant.Our troops were already departing and abandoning the camp.built for the tier
- Tempestates et nostros in castris continebant et hostem a pugna prohibebant.The storms both kept our men in camp and held the enemy back from battle.adapted from Caes. BG 4.34.4
- Ibi ad ultimum iugum pervenit aciemque eo loco constituit.There he reached the furthest ridge and drew up his line in that place.Caes. BG 8.14.5
- Ne Vorenus quidem tum sese vallo continet, sed omnium veritus existimationem subsequitur.Not even Vorenus keeps himself behind the rampart then; fearing what everyone would think, he follows after.Caes. BG 5.44.5
- Omnia mihi cum eo intercedunt iura summae necessitudinis.All the ties of the closest friendship hold between him and me.Cic. Fam. 13.14
- Nobis est domi inopia, foris aes alienum, mala res, spes multo asperior.At home we have want, abroad debt, a bad case and a prospect much harsher still.Sall. Cat. 20.13
- Catilina postquam fusas copias seque cum paucis relictum videt, memor generis atque pristinae suae dignitatis in confertissumos hostis incurrit ibique pugnans confoditur.Seeing his forces routed and himself left with a few, mindful of his birth and former standing, Catiline charges into the thickest of the enemy and there, fighting, is run through.Sall. Cat. 60.7
- Videtis illum subcrispo capillo, nigrum, qui eo vultu nos intuetur ut sibi ipse peracutus esse videatur.You see that man with the rather curly hair, the dark one, who watches us with a look that makes him seem very sharp to himself.Cic. Verr. 2.2.108
The authors arrive in order
Tiers 1 to 3 have no citations at all, and say so: those sentences are built to a grammar ceiling, because real Latin has no register that simple. Caesar enters at Tier 4 and the scaffolding is gone by Tier 8.
Across the two packs, 1,052 of the 2,000 example sentences carry a citation, and 813 of those are the author's own unaltered words. Every citation on every card names its book, chapter and section, and Lesson 41 teaches you how to read one.
Ten tiers, eighty clusters
Every cluster is 25 cards and ends in a boss fight. Nothing is hidden — the full list is on the word lists page, free to read before you buy.
Core: 5 tiers · 40 clusters · 1,000 cards26 reference lessonsthe reading foundation
Pareto: 5 tiers · 40 clusters · 1,000 cards18 reference lessonsthe trunk complete
The macron is data, not decoration
Every headword is printed as a dictionary prints it — long vowels marked, gender and genitive stem for a noun, conjugation for a verb. 1,320 of the 2,000 headwords carry a macron. Tap a card to flip it.
The macrons stop at the headword. Example sentences are printed unmarked, the way every real Latin text you will ever open is printed — so what you practise reading is the thing itself, not a teaching aid. The card tells you the vowel length; the sentence makes you carry it.
Forty-four lessons, fired in sequence
A reference lesson unlocks at the exact card where you first need it, and stays available afterwards. Core's twenty-six and Pareto's eighteen are all free to read on the lessons page.
- 01Welcome to LatinThe four letters an English reader gets wrong — c, g, v, qu — in the restored sounds, and what a macron is for.
- 10The accusativeThe first case that changes what a sentence means, met on the card that first needs it.
- 14Genitive and dativeOf and to, and why the genitive singular is printed on every noun card.
- 18The ablativeThe case English has no name for, and the six jobs it does.
- 23Principal partsWhy a Latin verb is quoted four ways, and how to get from any of them to the rest.
- 30The ablative absoluteThe construction that makes Caesar readable at speed.
- 34Reported speechAccusative and infinitive: how a Roman writes ‘he said that…’.
- 41Reading the citationWhat Caes. BG 5.44.5 means, and how to go and find the rest of the page.
Also inside: i acting as y, ch and ae/oe, the connectives, the prime movers, the present tense, the imperative, the sound system, the full plural, two more conjugations, the imperfect, the third declension, prepositions and case, the perfect and its family, relative clauses, connectives at speed, all three participles and their two jobs, the passive twice over, deponents, the infinitive family, the subjunctive mood, cum-clauses, purpose and result, indirect questions, the gerund, the gerundive — and a closing lesson on where to go next.
Two packs to literacy
Latin is a trunk, not a staircase of three. Core and Pareto together are the whole 2,000-word reading course, grammar-complete at the end of it.
The reading foundation. Sentences built to the tier at first, real Caesar by the end. Requires the base game.
On SteamThe second thousand, and the end of the scaffolding: Nepos, Cicero's letters, Sallust, Livy, Cicero's speeches. Requires Core.
On SteamThen choose your third thousand
Basic literacy is the fork, not the finish. The trunk stops at 2,000 words on purpose: past that, Latin genuinely divides, and which 1,000 words come next depends on what you want to read. Neither branch is built yet.
Verse word order, metre, and the vocabulary that only ever shows up in poets. The trunk's prose ladder is the prerequisite, not a substitute.
planned · not yet builtChurch Latin is its own register — different syntax, different vocabulary, and its own pronunciation, which is why it is a branch and not a chapter of the trunk.
planned · not yet builtBoth branches take Core and Pareto as their entry requirement. Neither has a date; both are inventoried and reserved rather than promised.
Flashcards as an integrated system
- Fibonacci SRS
- Rate each card 0–5. The better you know a word, the longer before it returns — spaced repetition on Fibonacci intervals.
- Boss fights
- Each of the 80 clusters is gated by a duel you can't win without confronting and overcoming your most difficult words.
- Graduation
- Beat a cluster and its cards leave your daily deck for good. The deck gets smaller as you learn.
- Audio
- A Latin neural voice on every headword and every example sentence — la_LA-flashboss_m, fine-tuned for FlashBoss and released CC0, reading Classical (restored) pronunciation and honouring the macrons as real vowel length. It is synthesis, not a recording of a speaker.
- Your language
- All 2,000 cards carry their translation, their example translation and their notes in German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian and Simplified Chinese as well as English — 30,000 fields, with no gaps. All 44 reference lessons carry the same five, and so does the game's interface. Latin is fully playable without a word of English.
- Macrons
- Long vowels marked on 1,320 of the 2,000 headwords, left off the sentences — dictionary convention where it teaches, print convention where you read.
- Real sources
- 1,052 example sentences cite the book, chapter and section they came from; 813 are unaltered. Everything is drawn from public-domain editions.
- Lessons
- Forty-four reference lessons across the two packs fire at the point in the sequence where they unlock what you are about to read.
Questions
The things people ask before they buy.
Where do I buy it?
Both packs are on Steam now: Latin Core and Latin Pareto. Both word lists and all forty-four lessons are readable here, free, if you want to judge the course before you buy either one.
Which pronunciation is this?
Classical — the restored pronunciation of Caesar's Rome, in the lessons and in the voice alike: c and g always hard, v as English w, Caesar said as the German Kaiser. An ecclesiastical voice is planned separately, and Church Latin proper is a branch of its own rather than an option inside this course.
Do I need anything else to play it?
Yes. Latin Core is a DLC for the FlashBoss base game, so you need the base game as well. Latin Pareto requires Core — the packs build on each other in order. Everything else — the lessons, the audio, the boss fights — is inside the pack. On Windows 10 you also need Windows Terminal — a free, secure download from the Microsoft Store.
Is the Latin real, or written for the course?
Both, in a stated order. Tiers 1 to 3 are constructed to the grammar you have been taught — no real author writes at that ceiling, and the cards claim none. Caesar enters at Tier 4, lightly trimmed. From Tier 8 on, almost every sentence is an author's own unaltered words. Across the two packs 1,052 of 2,000 sentences carry a citation and 813 of those are unadapted.
Can I play it in my own language?
Fully. Every one of the 2,000 cards carries its translation, its example translation and its study notes in German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian and Simplified Chinese as well as English, with no gaps anywhere. All forty-four reference lessons carry the same five, and the game's own interface speaks all six.
What does the course get me to?
Reading unadapted classical prose with a dictionary beside you. Two thousand of the highest-frequency lemmas, the whole grammar of the indicative and subjunctive, participles, the infinitive constructions, the gerund and gerundive — and 17,007 words of Latin read in context on the way there. Not speaking Latin, and not writing it: the course is honest that it teaches one skill.
Why is there no Pareto 2?
Because Latin forks instead. Core plus Pareto is a complete 2,000-word trunk, grammar-complete at Tier 10. The third thousand depends on where you are going — classical poetry or ecclesiastical Latin — so it is planned as two branches rather than one more staircase. Neither is built yet.
Can I see the words before I buy?
All of them. The complete word lists for Core and Pareto are on the word lists page, and all forty-four reference lessons are on the lessons page — free, printable, no account.
Is there a demo?
There's a playable boss fight in the browser, if you want to know what the fight feels like before you commit: try the demo.
Start with Roma est.
Two words on the first card of the first cluster. Two thousand words later, Cicero.
Latin Core · Latin Pareto — both on Steam
Or read the word list and the lessons first — they're free, and they're the whole course.
Everything here in one purchase: FlashBoss Latin — The Complete Course. Already own part of it? Steam charges you only for the rest.