Need Students' Advice for my Book

[rmansker]

I am currently working on a Latin Textbook (Wheelock's gives me tons of students to tutor but I'd rather they be able to learn from an awesome textbook/teacher).

What I would like to know is:
1. What do you find lacking in your textbook? (and, of course, which book are you using?)
2. Which parts of the Latin language do you find most confusing?
3. Are there any areas you feel aren't covered in-depth enough and what are they?
4. What would you like to see in your textbook?

Thank you so much for reading my posts and any advice you can give would be wonderful! Thanks!!!
R. Mansker

[beerclark]

Keep macrons in the beginner books!

I started reading D'Ooge but needed more practice problems so, for now, I decided to read "Latin Made Simple" first. But the author states "The Romans didn't use macrons, so neither does this book". Well that's fine for native speakers of Latin...however there aren't any! But since this book is clearly trying to teach pronunciation, it seems a silly. aloof, and hypocritical attitude to not include them in a book meant for beginners of the language. If I didn't enjoy the rest of the book so much, I would have dumped it, but I really like the format. I'm simply creating a spreadsheet with all the vocabulary from the book as a reference.

I had the same problem with "Idiots Guide to Latin". I'm just using that as a quick read from the library. But I'd like to ask the author why they also bother with U's, J's, and lower case for that matter.

Anyway, I'm off the podium now on macrons! Otherwise I would just say keep a lot of practice tests/problems throughout the book. Including just simple reading.

Just my amateur opinion.

[rmansker]

Well, thank you very much for your (as you put it) amateur opinion. It is most helpful!

I agree that the macrons are extremely useful especially since the ommittance of one can change which word it is supposed to be. As for the use of "alternate" spellings (J or I, U or V, etc) a lot of this comes from what time period they are pulling information from. A large portion of works that include the letter J come from Medieval Latin or else were preserved through Medieval scholars. Only a couple hundred years ago the English lower case "F" looked more like our "S" today when handwritten!

R. Mansker

[jaihare]

Well, thank you very much for your (as you put it) amateur opinion. It is most helpful!

I agree that the macrons are extremely useful especially since the ommittance of one can change which word it is supposed to be. As for the use of "alternate" spellings (J or I, U or V, etc) a lot of this comes from what time period they are pulling information from. A large portion of works that include the letter J come from Medieval Latin or else were preserved through Medieval scholars. Only a couple hundred years ago the English lower case "F" looked more like our "S" today when handwritten!

R. Mansker

I think "beerclark" was being facetious. If they justify leaving off the mācrōns (:D) on the basis that the Romans didn't use them, "beerclark" is saying that the Romans didn't employ (at least early on) a distinction between the groups I/J or U/V, so why would the authors do so (on the assumption that they want to do things like the Romans did). Similarly, why would they even use lowercase letters, since the Romans originally used only capitals? He (she?) was, I think, trying to get at the absurdity of the book's attempt to justify leaving out macrons on the basis of the Roman conventions in the language while employing other later conventions without worrying about what the Romans did or didn't do.

[beerclark]

jaihare: You are correct! I was being facetious so thanks for clarifying any confusion I may have left in my post.

...and my first name is Mike... so you were also correct with the initial "He".

rmansker: Best of luck with the book! Keep us posted.