Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95015 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

A worthy addition
Despite Latin not being widely studied any more these days, it seems that there are more introductory Latin books and courses around than you can shake a stick at, and no guide for the perplexed to help make a choice. Most courses suffer from an approach of almost giving the impression that Latin was confined to a relatively small geographical area (Italy) over a relatively small period of time (mid 1st Century BC - mid 1st Century AD), trotting out dry bits of Cicero and Caesar and bombarding with declension tables. This approach may still have been considered fine in public schools of half a century ago preparing kids to run the British Empire on a late Republican model, but is likely to put many people today off for life.

Fortunately this book takes a somewhat different approach. The main teaching text is a constructed story specifically designed for beginners, set in an English monastery of the 9th century, against the backdrop of the threat of Viking attacks. Big declension tables are largely confined to the appendix for reference rather than overwhelming the beginner; individual considerations of declension are brought up as and when they are needed. Also, even though Latin is not much used as a spoken language, having the CDs available to hear and practice speaking the language is a huge boon for anyone doing self study (slightly oddly, given that the teaching story is set in the 9th century, the chosen pronunciation is presumed classical, albeit stricty speaking the accuracy of some pronunciation used may be a bit debateable - see Vox Latina).

Don't be put off by the "beginner's" tag, or the "teach yourself" brand which can sometimes seem a bit basic. Though you will need to move on to something a bit more sophisticated after completing this to progress your study, it's probably the best initial introduction to Latin I have seen - a worthy addition to the number of courses available.

The idiots guide to learing a language
Having bought this initially for my partner (she's a student teacher) I decided to have a go myself. To be honest it isn't really simple but if you read it properly and listen to the cd it all falls in to place? Remember the old Janet and John books? Well, this course has a similar feel. You read a story and then translate it yourself. try it for yourself and see how easy it can be, after all latin isn't a dead language. If you speak fluent english you will find this infinitely easier as latin is the root of a lot of our words. French and German speaker will find it easy too!