Hi everyone !

[mariek]

<br />Hi Everyone ! I just thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce myself. I am an English speaker who has been trying to learn French for a few years. Now I would like to add Latin to the list. I'm a complete neophyte at this point as I haven't yet even started learning Latin. I want to learn Latin on my own since I don't really have the time to take a course. So I will be learning by independent study. I stumbled upon this site while seaching for information about learning Latin. At this point in time I am trying to decide which book(s) to get. I've browsed through the few books at the bookstore ... there's Wheelock's, Idiots, Dummies, Teach Yourself, and one or two others whose names escape me. Any suggestions on where to start would be greatly appreciated. <br />

[Milito]

Hello back!<br /><br />I suspect you're going to get a whole host of responses and recommendations...<br /><br />My first Latin text was Wheelock, which has its pro's and con's (there's a long thread on the subject further down in this forum, actually...) but which did get the basics across in a pretty clear fashion. <br /><br />Another favorite is "Latin: An Intensive Course" by Moreland and Fleischer, which could easily be substituted for Wheelock, and which throws more at you at once. However, in order to obtain it, I had to order it online.... That having been said, it's also caused Wheelock to pretty much retire as a reference book in my library.... <br /><br />Then there is the "Latin for Beginners" by Benjamin L. D'Ooge which is actually available here, and which has some enthusiastic fans, too. I can't comment on it, because I haven't looked at it, I'm afraid.....<br /><br />Another useful little beasty, which I also had to obtain on-line, which was recommended here by Erica, is a book called "English Grammar for Students of Latin" by Goldman and Szymanski, which has been extremely helpful as an auxilliary book.<br /><br />I learned French in school, and have maintained a sketchy sort of ability to converse (with a horrendous accent, I'm sure) and a pretty good ability to read in it. Knowledge of French grammar assisted some in learning Latin, so I suspect that the same would work in reverse. I find that Latin is an incredibly regular language - it seems to have been designed by an engineer of some sort, rather than tossed together out of spare parts, like English. It's actually surprising how many English words turn out to be directly related to Latin, when you start learning it. Good luck in your learning! <br /><br />Kilmeny

[mariek]

<br />I don't recall seeing "Latin: An Intensive Course" by Moreland and Fleischer at the bookstore. It sounds like you find the Moreland/Fleischer book to be far superior to the Wheelock book. I will try to find it in a bookstore so I can flip through it, I find that it helps to look at a book to determine whether the style actually "fits" me... because I've bought way too many books sight unseen that have turned out to be disappointments. <br /><br />I did not know that there was an "English Grammar for Students of Latin". I've heard of "English Grammar for Students of French" which has been highly recommended to French learners. When I was at the bookstore, I noticed a thin Winnie the Pooh book, all in Latin ! Perhaps some day I will be able to read it. The learning curve is always greatest at the beginning, and I just need to get over this hard part before it becomes (I hope) a little easier.<br /><br />I'm happy and relieved to hear that Latin is more regular than English... I'm hoping that it won't be so painful to learn. I think I can cope with "cookbook" rules and a few exceptions. English seems like a few rules and lots of exceptions. I can see that some Latin words are very similar to English words, and that an understanding of Latin can help in understanding or guessing what an unknown English word means. So I have to wonder ... why didn't we learn Latin in high school ? I'm sure it would have helped in the English portion of the SAT exam. In my case, my high school did not offer Latin. We only had French, Spanish, and Italian. One of my friends even left our high school to go to another one which offered German. Languages aren't really emphasized in schools in the United States. <br /><br />May I ask how long you have studied Latin ?<br /><br /><br />

[Milito]

[quote author=mariek link=board=6;threadid=223;start=0#1113 date=1057698899]<br /><br />May I ask how long you have studied Latin ?<br /><br /><br />[/quote]<br /><br />Certainly!<br /><br />(Okay, I'll assume that you asked...)<br /><br />I've done four correspondence-based university courses, each a semester long, and I've just signed up for a fifth.... University of Waterloo in Ontario has one terrific program, so I'm actually working on a BA in Classics through them.... I discovered that I pretty much loved it from the first point I met it, which was Wheelock, Chapter 1. The first two courses went through the whole book, 40 lectures, one per chapter, with additional reading thrown in. The second two courses involved Julius Caesar's Gallic War (book 4) and Vergil's Aeneid (book 1).<br /><br />I heard about both Moreland and Fleischer and "English Grammar....." here, actually. The "English Grammar for Students of French" that you found is, according to the back of my "Latin" one, in the same series. If you're anywhere near a university, the bookstore there might have an M&F to browse through.<br /><br />Canadian high schools, from my experience (which involved a very small town in the interior of British Columbia, so it isn't all-inclusive by any means....) don't seem to teach Latin, either. It appears to be dying out of curriculums as "not relevant in today's society", which is a tremendous pity. I agree - learning Latin is tremendously useful for working in English, even if one has spoken it all one's life!<br /><br />Being in Canada, the high school was required to teach French, and because the area I grew up was predominantly Russian-speaking, Russian was also offered. (In fact, the area now has a kindergarden-through-Gr 6 Russian immersion program going.....) But other languages just weren't available. (No, I didn't take the Russian, for which I'm now sorry.)<br /><br />Kilmeny

[Carola]

Hi Mariek<br />I was in the same situation as you at the start - trying to teach myself Latin again (having forgotten everything I learnt at school many years ago). Peter Jones had a course (run by the English "Daily Telegraph" on-line newspaper) which has now gone from the internet, but I believe he has brought out a book of the same course. This was a big help just getting started and after this I saw an old school textbook in a 2nd hand shop and plowed on through bits of this. Then I found Textkit and used the books posted here. After this I signed up for external studies at university and found it reasonably easy to handle because of all the preliminary work. I don't think it matters in the beginning if you teach yourself in a rather haphazard way, after all, that is how we learn our native language! Once you get further into learning then it pays to be a bit more methodical, but it is a thrill to start being able to speak a simple sentence or suddenly realise you can understand a Latin motto or one of the many Latin phrases that we use (per annum, post .. something). Good luck!