I’m using BLD Latin for Beginners for my 1st year of Latin, and am making a SRS online flashcard set of the 8,000 most common words in Latin with principal parts which I hope will be finished by 2017. Is there anything I should be doing in addition to working on Latin for Beginners, and once I complete this, what books should I buy for the 2nd and 3rd year of Latin? I wish to take the AP Latin Exam in 2017/2018. Will I be better off enrolling in Latin II and III from an accredited online virtual school (Florida Virtual School)? I really enjoy working at my own pace (about 1 or 2 lessons a day, including weekends when I can do 3, 4 or occasionally more) in addition to being able to skip exercises that are too easy for me. Plus, sometimes I can’t do any schoolwork at all because of extreme financial stress. This happened for the entire month of November when I was also sick with a severe case of bronchitis that only got diagnosed in December! Though I must admit, it’s a plus to have your work stored on a different server so you can’t delete all of your 30 Latin exercises that you did before like I did… That’s always fun… So far, I’ve rarely had to google any questions but I’m only at lesson 33 after making up what I deleted from my computer. I can’t really afford $50 textbooks plus an answer key plus reading material for the most part… I wish to stick with Latin texts found in places like the internet archives, college sites, etc. but a link to an affordable book that includes reading material and includes notes on grammar and that sort of stuff will be most appreciated. I enjoy learning grammar!
How does BLD Latin for Beginners compare with Wheelock? I’m aware there’s a thread on here about what to do after Wheelock, but I have no idea for BLD compares. I apologize if this question has been asked before; my forum searching skills are less than adequate.
Bump (is this allowed?). It dawned on me that I probably came off as a snob or something like that with my former post. I apologize; I’m just very happy that I’m able to accomplish as much as sitting down and working on a textbook! I used to have immense difficulty with focusing and my memory was so horrible that I’d forget most of the math/history/etc. I learned by the end of the year, so I’d have to guess and use common sense on my exams whenever possible. I’m just so happy I can actually work, read, translate, and do anything now. I’m taking ADD meds right now and some other things to make my thoughts more coherent (I’d rather not say what they are due to stigma against those kinds of things).
Anyway, I hope that the reason why no one replied wasn’t because my question was stupid, and if it was because I sounded like a snob, I hope I cleared up any misunderstanding. If it was stupid, then I’m probably accurate in my notion I should stay away from interacting with people online. I know I’ve sent my fair share of horribly, horribly, stupid e-mails. It’s a tad bit better than my in-person social skills, so that’s something I have going for me!
I did find some books on my own though that I think will suffice as main textbooks, but I’m not sure if it would be okay to say the name of them… I’m a bit paranoid that I’m doing something against the rules even if I’ve read the rule book/page/post 10 times because I still forget. Frequently. ^_^;
If you have any knowledge of Latin literature with grammar and vocabulary notes, your mentioning it will make me very happy (: I love books and I really don’t care if it’s something like Harry Potter in Latin (which I read exists, along with an Irish Gaelige version), a novella, or some old dry dusty thing from Cicero’s attic. I’m just kidding. Anything will make me happy except bodice rippers or crime novels. I said that last bit as a joke.
Once you’ve completed first-year Latin, you should have the grammar under control and a good basic vocabulary. Then it’s time to start reading real Latin to solidify your command of the language and expand your vocabulary.
Caesar is the traditional choice for second-year Latin because his style is very simple and unadorned, and he uses a wide range of syntactic constructions that you’ll have learned in first year Latin (lots of indirect speech). Any number of annotated texts of Caesar aimed at second-year Latin students, with notes and vocabulary, are available on-line second-hand at bargain-basement prices. The only problem is: Caesar is boring unless you enjoy military operations.
Cicero’s Catilinarian speeches are somewhat more difficult; his style is more florid, but the material is a little more exciting. This usually is read after Caesar; again, you can find second-hand annotated texts on-line. Selections from Cicero’s Verrine speeches (against Verres) are another alternative, and the stories of greed and rapacity make for more entertaining reading.
At first, you will probably find yourself at sea in either of these, but if you persevere, making sure you understand everything you read and how it fits together syntactically, even if it means reading just a little at a session in the beginning, you’ll develop reading fluency over time.
You’ll probably want to acquire the abridged version of the Lewis and Short Latin dictionary, which has all the words you’ll need for the “authors most commonly read in schools.”
This site has a number of out-of-copyright annotated student texts available for free download that would be a good starting-point for reading Latin. This one would seem particularly useful to you. It starts with easy selections, moves into Caesar, and then offers selections from other authors:
I’m about 3/4 of the way through Caesar so I haven’t got much to tell you, but read as much as possible. When I first finished the Wheelock’s Latin Reader (a good little book, if a bit on the easy side) I tried to start with Livy but that was too advanced for me, so I ordered the Gallic War. Caesar has a very small vocabulary so you won’t be looking up every other word, but it’s extensive enough to build a strong core. In addition to that, it’s fairly easy reading: there have been about a half-dozen hopelessly difficult sections for me but for the most part the text is simple enough to read through quickly and copiously. After six books of Caesar I’ve found that I can read through parts of Livy without too much difficulty (it’s still more daunting than the Bello Gallico but the point is that reading pretty much anything, even the simplest stuff, can help you read anything).
I’ve got In Catilinam, De Senectute, and De Amicitia (among other Ciceronian works) waiting after I finish the Caesar. I figure I’ll follow tradition and start with the Catiline.
Like Qimmik, for my second year I’d find real Latin a more tantalising prospect than the simplified Latin of a coursebook.
Two excellent introductions to real Latin are the works of Kennedy and Davis: Two Centuries of Roman Prose and Two Centuries of Roman Poetry, published by Macmillan. Being in many cases former school copies they can generally be had secondhand for very modest sums.