Hi. As the subject states, I’m just wondering whether someone knows some French books to learn Latin. Not that I don’t understand English, but rather that I would prefer learning in French (main language for me)… Thanks. 
Est-ce que le francais est votre langue maternelle?
(Is French your native language?)
Haha. Yes it is. / Oui, oui.
I admit I don’t know exactly how to say “maternel” in english, but anyway. “main” sounded good to me. Hopefully this clarified the question.
Try in the Assimil series. It comes with an audio cassette (I don’t know about CD) and is a fun way to learn Latin en français.
Salut!
Inero
There is also some talk about an online course that uses the books Inero mentioned right here.
WB
Soyez le bienvenu à Textkit, Laurent. Servez-vous en; cela pourrait faciliter vos études en latin de venir poser des questions ici. Il y en a parmi nous qui sont bien francophiles aussi 
Hehe. Thanks, Two days ago, I thought I was crazy about wanting to learn latin. 
I’m pretty happy to see I’m not the only one in such situation.
I’ll look for “Latin Sans Peine” and for the talk you were talking about. Thanks for the pointers.
Hey. I seached for “Latin Sans Peine”, but obviously, it’s not a common book and I would need to wait for a month. It’s pretty strange, in fact, since obviously, French is based on Latin while English only has little similarities with Latin… 
Assimil makes the series, and they’re based in France. They have a website that you can order the series off of. Does it really say it will take a month for them to get it to you if you order it from there? (For example, their English language website implies that there is negligible delay in the amount of time it takes for them to ship products).
Another option would be to look on Assimil’s website for a local retailer. It looks like they have a lot of retailers in France.
Anyway, I’m just slightly confused and trying to help. Good luck!
– reltuk
P.S. – Third party retailers, at least Amazon, don’t stock many of the Assimil series, so maybe that’s where you’re seeing the month long shipping time…
Ok, I understand your confusion: I’m Canadian, not French. Most provinces in Canada are anglophone. Only Quebec isn’t (second biggest province), which is the reason why Canada is a bilingual country.
And I didn’t go on “Assimil” website, I went in two different libraries, to see if they could get this book. However, I’ll still see if it’s possible to order it from there. By the way, I noticed that there are two different books with the same title. Besides, while one costs twenty dollars, the other costs a hundred dollars. Do you know the difference?
About the “Wheelock” book, I was wondering if it were only a book for novice people, or if it provided a good base, good enough to progress alone, without having to buy many other books.
Thanks for the answers.
Ahhh, completely reasonable. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
My initial inclination is to say that the $20 item is just the book, whereas the $100 item is the book plus the audio recordings (in tape or CD form, I don’t know which).
Wheelock’s will teach you a good deal of grammar and some vocabulary, but you wouldn’t want to stop with it. If you retained everything, you would “know” Latin, in the sense that you would be able to explain the grammar and grow your vocabulary as large as you wanted, but you wouldn’t be able to read with any proficiency/speed (I don’t think, at least; I suppose it depends on how you handled going through Wheelock’s).
I just started studying Latin two days ago and I’m currently reading Lingua Latina, with the understanding that if the grammar gets to heavy I’ll resort to rote memorization of many many grammar forms before I progress. This seems to be a (partially) supported method of starting out around here (see my recent thread: “Please advise: How to begin self-study”).
This method might be attractive to you as well, since the entire book is in Latin, so there are no English descriptions of the grammar forms or english definitions of the vocabulary forms. Despite this, the book is meant to be used from the very first day of a students Latin education.
Also in favor of Lingua Latina—the book costs about $13 USD on Amazon.com, much cheaper than Assimil’s audio programs. Then again, it’s a decently different approach and it’s not in French, so it might not be what you’re looking for.
Best of luck,
– reltuk
Laurent
Any decent bookstore should be able to order the Assimil Latin Sans Peine for you in less than a month.
As for Wheelock, it provides a good base for anyone learning Latin. Lots of discssion and help on these discussion boards. Some people swear by it; others swear at it!
Inero
Yep, you were right about the two editions of “Latin Sans Peine”: the difference is about the audio tapes. Pretty strange though: a difference of eighty dollars for a few hours of latin? Anyway, I guess I’ll order the book and wait.
For those of you who know a little of French, I was wondering how comparable are French and Latin.
Thanks.
I’m chiming in quite a bit these days. Well, sorry! It’s just that I’m interested in these things.
Not only is “Latin sans Peine” in French it is also one of the best introductions to latin available in any language. It is so without peer in fact that a course that I’m about to start taking at “Thules Academy” (you can find it on the net if interested) is using it as it’s text, notwithstanding the fact that most the students, myself included, don’t really even know French that well at all.
I’ve been using the tapes for about a month - mostly pure neo-latin. Very amusing lessons too with lots of jokes! Some of the lessons are adapted from Paelestra Latina which I recently commemorated in another post. Other lessons are adaptations of Augustine, Winnie the Pooh, the the Little Prince, and Circero (in that order!) I actually put aside the Orberg books before I’d gotten through them in order to start with this program. Whenever I tire of NPR (which is often) I listen to these tapes as I drive about. In addition, a friend of mine from the class at Thules has remastered all the tapes and broken them up into single lesson chunks. Now as soon as I can figure out how to put his files on the mp3 player that I’ve ordered I’ll be listening to the tapes nighly at the Y while a toil away at the eliptical trainer.
Latin San Peine is a winner. Valete! Kynetus
Nothing wrong with interest, at all, chime away!
Here’s what I think. Wheelock provides very (good) introductory material, but he never said his book was intended to be more than an introduction, something most of the detractors of posthumous Wheelock seem to forget. Some of the areas he does not explain very well - for that you can either buy Allen & Greenough or, if you prefer, download it off this site for free. And there are many people here who are more than willing to help, and won’t laugh at you ‘usque ad abdominis vulnera’ (I know it’s out of context, E. -where have you gone to?-); just ask away on the Wheelock board or the Learning Latin board if you decide to learn via D’Ooge (free from this site) or Lingua Latina or some other means.
I personally feel that I need to try out all the stuff beforehand, then relearn them, and relearn them two or three more times as I progress and forget what I had learnt before. I am slow. Once I have internalised something however, it becomes very much a part of my speech. Yet I cannot simply look at a construction once and have it in my mental filing-cabinet. I commend those people who can - I know a couple of them from real life, and there are a couple of them on these boards (whiteoctave, for instance, who knows the language terrifyingly well, and also has a classical library that many would kill for, somewhere around the size of my last house).
Whatever you decide, so long as you communicate your frustrations, someonwe here will be willing to dispel them. I have said it many times, this site is a godsend. I’ve learned a lot just watching other people’s questions and the very expert answers they’ve gotten. And from what I’ve gathered, you can even ask in French! 
Hahaha. I don’t see what frustrations I should anticipate, right now, but I’ll see, I guess. Anyway, very luckily, I’ve been told there was another library that might have it… Called them… Learned that they had it… Reserved it… And I’m going to fetch it this afternoon. Hehe, no wait.
As for how good it is, I’ll rely on Kynetus Valesius’ positive opinion.
Thanks.
Laurent
Glad you managed to track down a library copy of Latin Sans Peine. While it is a good and amusing way to get into Latin, I wouldn’t rely on it as your sole source. The Assimil method (they put out books in several languages), as you can guess by the name, is to teach by assimilation. That means you read about and figure out what is going on and what the words mean. There are illustrations to help. But it does not give you a systematic grammer base. For this you should, as others in this thread have recommended, get yourself a grammar. Wheelock has all the verb, noun and adkective forms, etc., together with useful exercises. But any good grammar will do. I think you will make faster progress with the dual LSP + Grammar approach.
Bonne chance!
Intero
Hey. Darn, I took a look at “Latin Sans Peine” and… It wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Then, I asked the seller for other available french books about Latin and was pretty disappointed again. Yet, I was rather looking for a book about “Classical Latin”, not one about how to use Latin nowadays which is, obviously, useless. As a result, I took a look on “Ebay” and finally ordered “Latin via Ovid” because it is much about classical culture and mythology. I’m just saying that in case someone would be looking for the same thing. It’s still pretty expensive (60 USD for the book and workbook, which is more expensive than Wheelock), but I’m pretty sure it worths it.
Laurent,
If you want to learn classical Latin in Latin, buy Lingua Latina, just the one book for about 25 USD.
Neo-Latin is, I’ve come to believe, classical syntax - only some of the terminology has changed, modern terminology for modern times. But the syntax - the grammar of things - is the same as in Classical Latin.
Lingua Latina however teaches you classical latin with classical authors. I’ve read through it briefly (can’t wait to begin) and it’s come highly recommended by several others on these boards.
Laurent,
I agree with Nostos that “Lingua Latina” is an excellent book for learning classical latin. I absolutely, however, disagree with your dispargement of Assimil:
Yet, I was rather looking for a book about “Classical Latin”, not one about how to use Latin nowadays which is, obviously, useless.
Assimil, whatever you think, is a great entry way into classical studies. Learn to speak and think in latin now and the classical texts will come more easily. At least that’s Assimil’s theory and they are no dummies. By the end of Assimil beginning readings from Cicero are being introduced. I will be spending the next 10 months using the Assimil method in conjunction with an internet course being offerred through the “Thules Academia”.
If you are going to use “Latin via Ovid” and I have nothing against it I would strongly urge you to consider purchasing the CDs that go with the course. Aural conditioning is essential to the process of automaticisation and interiorisation of the forms..
Good luck.
Kyentus