OK, so I read each chapter of Wheelock and try to learn the grammar, vocab etc. presented. Then I do the self-tutorial exercises at the back, and then check my answers. Every chapter I find that I get at least some wrong, but that’s fine, because that makes me recheck that bits I missed, and shows me where I have to be more careful in future. Then I do the translations at the end of the chapter. If I get stuck, I can always turn to Textkit for help. And help unfailingly arrives.
But one of the nagging concerns that I have, is that when learning Latin without the benefit of a tutor, when I do these exercises, I’m sure I’m getting some of them wrong without knowing it. In which case I don’t even ask for help, and go merrily on my way, blissfully unaware that I’ve missed something important.
How would my fellow Wheelock sufferers react to the idea of a number of threads (maybe one per chapter) where we could post our answers to all these for exercises for comment and discussion? We could, in effect, all be each other’s tutor.
Is this an idea that appeals, or do you think I’m just trying to cheat and peek at your answers for the next chapter?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I tend to gloss over those exercises for which I don’t have answers… I use them as a pratice before doing the optional exercises at the back, and don’t worry too much if I can’t quite get it right, because usually everything becomes clearer after doing the other exercises.
but maybe others are much more diligent than I
also, I believe that there can be found answers to these online… I remember finding some once but now I can’t locate them.
but i definitely don’t want to discourage collaboration on the matter, and would be willing to participate.
One strategy, which I adopted about 2/3 of the way through the 3rd edition, is to read the grammar, then do the exercises in the back FIRST, since you have the answer key to rely upon. Of course, I didn’t have the benefit of the key here at the time, but I think the excercises in back are a good stepping stone towards the PR and SA readings. Of course, they’ll be much easier if you slog through the PR and SAs first, but the issue here is giving yourself an opportunity to correct misunderstandings before they cause you too much grief down the road.
I haven’t seen an old edition. You are definitely going to see some inconsistencies between the two versions’ exercises, but the reading passages are probably the same. I understand from the introduction to my book that the biggest changes were in the Practice & Review and Optional Self-Tutorial. Sententiae Antiquae might be ok. Hopefully they didn’t so much change old sentences as add new ones, but I can’t be sure.
