short Latin stories

[spqr]

As a companion to Wheelock I am considering 38 stories by Anne Groton or Familia Romana. What are the merits of these 2 books and do they offer a companion translation? Thanks, Paul

[thesaurus]

(I moved the topic here from the general forum so that you can get more feedback.)

As a companion to Wheelock I am considering 38 stories by Anne Groton or Familia Romana. What are the merits of these 2 books and do they offer a companion translation? Thanks, Paul

Both books have their merits, but they are very different beasts.

Groton's book is very small and a true companion volume to Wheelock. It is graduated to match the grammar/vocab of Wheelock's chapters, starting in Chapter 3. It's intended as additional reading practice. The stories are short and simple, but good practice and interesting enough adaptations of popular myths. I don't know of any translation, but, if I remember, there are notes that help you. However, since the readings are short/simple, you can easily post any questions here or elsewhere to check your translations.

Familia Romana, of the Lingua Latina series, is intended as part one of a comprehensive two part course. It starts you off with simple writing, but it's completely inductive and doesn't use any language but Latin. The texts become quite long and involved, so you get a lot of terrific practice. You learn the grammar and vocabulary through reading, but the end of each chapter also includes a review of the new grammar points and exercises--both written in Latin.

There are many discussions of Lingua Latina on these forums, so I recommend you browse a few topics. Generally, it's highly recommended and many people have had terrific results with it. I used Wheelock/38 Latin stories when I started and later worked through Lingua Latina, and I got a lot out of both of them.

If you're currently working through Wheelock, I'd stick with it until the end and do the 38 stories as you go. When you're done, embark on Familia Romana and really develop your reading ability and take it to the next level.

[lauragibbs]

I'm working on a project that might be of interest - it's not a book, but rather a blog where I am collecting short Latin stories from the 19th-century Latin readers at Google Books - I'm not reproducing the vocabulary lists, but the books at GoogleBooks do have vocabulary lists, and sometimes notes too, which I've linked to at the bottom of each blog post.

Right now, I'm working through Spencer's Scalae Primae - here's the blog, with various indexes and lists in the sidebar to help you navigate the contents:
http://anecdotalatina.blogspot.com/

[jtm]

Here are a couple other intermediate readers. I haven't read any reviews of them, but I remember liking them and finding them very useful. I'd like to hear others' opinions of them.

Short Latin Stories, by Philip Dunlop (Cambridge University Press, around 1987). It has 50 stories, which start out quite easy and increase in difficulty. Each story has vocabulary listed at the bottom, and there is a full vocabulary at the back. It is geared for students learning from the Cambridge Latin Course, but it can be adapted to other texts. There is an appendix that notes what grammatical features are introduced in each story (for most stories). E.g., Story 31 has final clauses. The Latin is printed with macrons, which is helpful for people still learning them.

Slightly more advanced is Intellegenda, by M.G. Balme (Oxford University Press, 1970). About 70 stories (125 pages). Each story has vocabulary and some notes on the page. All are selections from classical authors. Most have been changed somewhat, but some are unchanged Latin. No macrons.

Neither of them has a companion translation.

[jtm]

Thought of one more thing. There is also Auricula Meretricula by Ann Cumming and Mary Whitlock Blundell, which was intended for students using Wheelock. I read it in college and loved it. It was a useful antidote to the usual Wheelock exercises -- "The wicked man has been expelled from the city; the good men are being praised by their friends and all the citizens."

On the subject of tedious translation exercises, my favorite comment is from Mountford's preface to Bradley's Arnold, where Mountford acknowledges that some of the exercises are "dull and uninteresting in content and not always felicious in expression." He goes on to say that he revised some sentences: "I have tried to smooth away some of the angularities in the English, and have occasionally modified a sentence so that the circumstances in which it could have been uttered by a rational human being will be more immediately obvious."

[Sinister Petrus]

I seem to recall that Latina Mythica by Bonnie Catto is also keyed to Wheelock in some way or another.

To throw another reader out there.

[Perseus]

Where is Groton's book available? on Amazon or where?

[Craig_Thomas]

Where is Groton's book available? on Amazon or where?

You have the book's title and author, take them to google: you will find the book more quickly that way and will not burden others with the (negligible) work that is rightly yours.