What to read after Wheelock's

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pin130
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What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

I'm getting toward the end of Wheelock's and am wondering what I should do next. I've gone through
Wheelock's fairly thoroughly. Though I can't say that I've got down all the paradigms, I can't imagine
going through it again at this point. I tried Lingua Latina before Wheelock's but found the lack of a
translation a hindrance. In the end, after reading or doing exercises, I need to check myself with a
translation. This is the problem with the Loci Antiqui at the end of Wheelock's. As far as I know there's
no translation available. Same for Wheelock's Latin Reader. I wonder what other self-learners have done
at this point?

ed-lanty
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by ed-lanty »

This seems to be the eternal question. The prospect is a steep one. I found Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles in the edition of Geoffrey Steadman, with vocabulary and notes on facing pages, to be most useful in consolidating what I had learned from Wheelock. Ritchie hits the ground running assuming from the outset most of the major accidence and builds from there with increasingly more complex syntax. Though I have not seen this recommended elsewhere, I find Seneca's Epistulae Morales fairly accessible, in that the sentences are short and conversational in tone, and the subject matter, to me at least, quite interesting. Of course there is always Caesar, either in the Loeb edition to check your work as you mentioned, or in an annotated edition. Steadman also has a selection of Caesar similar to the Ritchie volume titled "College Caesar."If you're so inclined, you might check out the neo-Latin translations by Arcadius Avellanus, such as Insula Thesauraria. These are available online.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thanks very much for your advice. I have heard of Steadman's books which I've downloaded. The problem is getting a translation of Richie's text. I've ordered a Parallel Text Latin-English edition done by Brian Smith. I have no idea if his translation is accurate. It's the only thing available as far as I know. After using
Steadman's notes, I'll still need to check myself with a translation. Since I'm really more inclined to
non-fiction, your idea of trying Senaca might be a good one. I've assumed to this point that he would be
beyond me. As I mentioned, I don't have the paradigms down pat. Even Richie might be a steep climb.

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calvinist
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by calvinist »

I know you said you tried Lingua Latina before Wheelock's and didn't like it, but I think it would be a great way to consolidate what you know and build some more vocabulary after finishing Wheelock. I don't think LL is good for a self-taught absolute beginner (and that's not what it was intended for), but it's an excellent graded reader for someone in your position. I would say read through it and try to understand it in the Latin without translating, but there are translations of all the chapters here: http://llpsi.blogspot.com/p/llpsi-translations.html

The Vulgate is easy Latin reading as well, especially the gospels. There are a number of different sites that offer the Latin side-by-side with the English such as these: http://vulgate.org/ http://www.latinvulgate.com/

There is also this site http://nodictionaries.com/ which gives a running dictionary to assist you.

Another option is to take an old Latin prose composition book and read the key (the Latin) using the book as a translation. This has the benefit of systematically covering the major constructions and a lot of common idioms with a limited vocabulary, although it is less exciting than reading a real work of Latin. You can find North & Hillard's and the Key here on Textkit.

Whatever you do... read, read, read, and then read some more. :D

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by Interaxus »

pin130:

You'll find an excellent line-by-line translation of the Ritchie texts here:

http://ritchieslatin.blogspot.se/p/list ... ciles.html

Vale!
Int

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thanks for the great advice. I did try the Ritchie's translation site. I get the site but I can't bring up the material. Must you do something before the site works? Thanks for the Lingua Latina translation site.
It should be a big help, though I wish it were printable and not audio. I'll probably use Ritchie as a
reader while reviewing with either Lingua Latina or M&F Latin Intensive. Both have their advantages
and disadvantages. I've tried both before, though I never gave M&F a serious try.

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by Carolus Raeticus »

Salve pin130!

The content is easily accessed. Just look to the right of the "contents list". There you will find a list of blog entries including the blog archive. Press the "2011" and scroll to the bottom. The first blog entry was an introduction. The first real entry is about The Ark. Very kind of Angela Thomas to post these (and very well done).

There is plenty more material on the Internet. Have a look at some of the Level 2-material listed on my web-site.

Enjoy,

Carolus Raeticus
Sperate miseri, cavete felices.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thanks for telling me how exactly to access the Ritchie translation. I also found things of interest on your site. It's a pity that so many old, public domain, Latin textbooks have limited usage for lack of answer
keys. One of the first books I tried was something called Using Latin. A high-school book, rather simple,
but available for Latin 1 through Latin 4. But without the answer keys ( or they have rare book prices on
ebay) they're not much used by self-learners. Same goes for the Jenny series.

Shenoute
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by Shenoute »

I'm a bit late but I'd like to suggest the classic De Viris illustribus urbis Romae by Lhomond. It was intended to be used as a graded reader for pupils who could not read Latin authors yet.

There's a translation in the "Handy Literal Translations" series.

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by Carolus Raeticus »

Salve pin130!
pin130 wrote:It's a pity that so many old, public domain, Latin textbooks have limited usage for lack of answer keys.
Actually, the situation is not quite that dire. Mr. Donnelly, one of the Textkit-users has created a very good list of scanned books. It includes a list with the title Latin Books with Keys. Perhaps there you will find what you are looking for.

Vale,

Carolus Raeticus
Sperate miseri, cavete felices.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thank you. Mr. Donnelly's list should be very useful. I wish all such resources could be listed in one place
that one doesn't have to dig so hard to find gold. One down side is that it seems all the Google resources
cannot be printed out; at least I've not found a way to do it. Nothing like a book in hand.

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calvinist
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by calvinist »

pin130 wrote:Thank you. Mr. Donnelly's list should be very useful. I wish all such resources could be listed in one place
that one doesn't have to dig so hard to find gold. One down side is that it seems all the Google resources
cannot be printed out; at least I've not found a way to do it. Nothing like a book in hand.
You should be able to download a pdf and from there you can have it printed from various websites. We are actually living during an amazing time with the technology we have for saving these resources.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thanks for the advice. I wonder though if you or anyone out there has actually successfully downloaded a
free Latin Google book into your own computer (not into your Google Library) and then printed it on your
printer. There are complicated methods to be found. I'm not very computer saavy. Is there a simple way?
I realize this is a computer question, not a Latin question. But it would make a difference to know the
answer.

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by bedwere »

pin130 wrote:Thanks for the advice. I wonder though if you or anyone out there has actually successfully downloaded a
free Latin Google book into your own computer (not into your Google Library) and then printed it on your
printer. There are complicated methods to be found. I'm not very computer saavy. Is there a simple way?
I realize this is a computer question, not a Latin question. But it would make a difference to know the
answer.
The simple way is provided by Google itself, e.g. print on demand links in the left column. More complicated ways involve using lulu.com, like Joel and I often do. For sometimes Google scans are missing pages or have duplicates.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Print on demand plus shipping gets expensive. What I meant was can you download a Google book
into your computer as a PDF and then print it for free (almost) on your own printer?

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by bedwere »

pin130 wrote:Print on demand plus shipping gets expensive. What I meant was can you download a Google book
into your computer as a PDF and then print it for free (almost) on your own printer?
Yes, you can. There is a download option, if you click on the gear symbol.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thank you very much! Just the information I was looking for.

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swtwentyman
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by swtwentyman »

I'm a bit late here, but:

I actually asked an old professor that (in an e-mail) when I was in your position and he sent on the Wheelock's Latin Reader. It's a book of fairly easy excerpts of a variety of Latin texts, and it includes a good primer of the Latin hexameter in the introduction to Ovid. It includes a full vocabulary and pretty copious notes on the page facing the text although there is no translation and since it's largely excerpted it can be hard to find the "answers" from an internet search (Cicero's and Pliny's letters as far as I can remember are entire, though, as well as the selections from Ovid, and the Vulgate passages include the chapter and verse). To be honest I struggled through it and just went onto Caesar after I was done as anyone else would have directly after Wheelock's (I'm probably behind where I would be if I had had a good teacher (though the help provided here has been invaluable)) but I was a bit of a mess at that point -- I didn't fully understand indirect discourse or the gerund/gerundive and I had some trouble with the Loci Antiqui, which is about as easy adapted Latin as you can get-- and the Reader helped consolidate it all. In any event it's more interesting and informative (being a bit of a survey of highlights from the history of Latin literature) than Caesar and if you can live with giving up on passages (it's pretty forgiving if you skip a sentence here and there) because of the lack of a translation I recommend it. Besides that I'd second the Loeb of Caesar.

Ed: one advantage the Reader has over Caesar is that there are a great many case uses (mostly ablative) that aren't covered in the Wheelock's Latin course (even in the appendix in the back) that are explained in the Reader's notes that would not be explained in the Loeb Caesar. I'm not trying to shill the book; I'm just giving my experience with it.

pin130
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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by pin130 »

Thanks for your reply. I have the Wheelock's Latin Reader. The problem is that I feel the need to check my
translation, or if I'm baffled, to find an answer. Can translations be found online? Aren't there several
texts for every ancient book? Even if they tell you where it came from, wouldn't you have to get a
translation of the same text that Wheelock's is quoting from?

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by swtwentyman »

From my (limited) experience differences in texts don't often affect the core meaning of a sentence a great deal (from what I've come across there are only a few differences on a typical page and where they are it's usually wording without a great difference in meaning -- ed: someone with more experience would better speak to this). Whatever the text, you should be able to parse the Latin after seeing the English sentence no matter what particular reading you have. The greater difficulty is the lack of a translation. The excerpts in the Wheelock's Latin Reader are unadapted but the sentences can come from different parts of a section of text. For instance, a citation of "Livy XXII.15 (excerpts)" can consist of sentences 1-3 and then 6 then 8-9. If you look up the translation it's hard to pick out the parts quoted in the Reader (i.e. XXII.15.1-3, 6, 8-9) out of that whole chapter (XXII.15.1-10 or whatever). (This is inexplicably hard for me to express at the moment, but I hope you get the idea).

To find a translation online all you'd have to do is Google "Livy XXII" and from there scroll down to chapter 15. Some texts are probably difficult to find but the major works (as are in the Reader) should be easy.

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Re: What to read after Wheelock's

Post by ThatLanguageGuy »

I know that this thread has been idle for a while but I have Ecce Romani I, II, and III, and III is great for an introduction to literature. A Distance Learning course that I'm enrolled in uses these (although I also bought them for myself, to look ahead and for days where I left my school textbook at school). III contains readings from Caesar, Eutropius, Livy, and Cicero as far as I know, and are pretty nice after Wheelock (which I used as self study). I'd recommend these to anyone, as it isn't too hard, but isn't easy. Fairly nice commentaries are included, and if you have no experience with Ecce Romani (I'm in year two now) you might look at books I and II (though they are fictional texts, like other textbooks such as Athenaze, also by Gilbert Lawell). It also includes grammar, comprehension questions, and a historical background on the texts.

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