Tips and Tricks

Caesar loves to use ellipsis, a device wherein words are omitted if they are not essential to understanding. His definition of essential is perhaps different from our own - unsurprisingly, considering he was writing for an audience for which Latin was the native language. If you're struggling, try writing out the Latin text, including the words which Caesar left out (textbook notes will help with this.)
Caesar is also fond of long, dense sentences with multiple subordinate structures. Break down particularly hairy sentences, translate the pieces, and then put it back together to ensure that it makes sense and that you fully comprehend the meaning.

Find the subject, main verb, and direct object first.
Don't let adverbs get in the way unless they will significantly change the meaning (for example, 'nōn' is important to keep track of).
Once you have gained a basic comprehension of the text, play with your translation. Test different translations until you find one that stays true to the text while also sounding like good English.
When appropriate, use the same techniques mentioned in the "Caesar Specific" list. Caesar is not the only writer with those traits, he is just the most extreme, which is why we created the separate list.
When faced with a confusing sentence, analyze the pieces. Note noun-adjective pairs, make sure you know the case and function of each noun, understand why a certain verb form is used.

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