Has anyone used this text before? It’s quite nice as it comes with a 550+ page work book to accompany it. From what I’ve been told it’s not unlike Moreland and Fleischer in its approach to the language.
On that note, I have a translation question. I’m a first year university Latin student, so bear with me (I’ve only got a 75.5%).
Oppida in insula videre poteris.
“You will be able to see the towns on the island.”
Am I correct?
Thanks!
Has anyone used this text before?
I have heard of it though, and a Latinist recommended it to me.
But , as for the price… well, I 'm no rich man. 
I learned Latin out of M & F, and then later became a Latin teacher. Whenever I taught out of M & F, I was always so annoyed by the fake- really, really fake- Latin that was the exercise sentences, not to mention the errors in the book. LTRL is modeled on Hansen and Quinn’s Greek text; it is THOROUGH. Seriously, anyone who works their way through the book will know Latin better than most because the book provides such concise explanations and so many more and better drills than M & F. I’ve been using LTRL with my middle and high school students for the last six years - I had a copy of the prototype- and I can honestly say that once my students finished the grammar book, they could read Cicero, Vergil, Catullus with uncanny ease. The title of the book says it all. If you want to learn to read Latin, pick it up. It is worth its weight in gold. It is far better than Wheelock or M & F, and I can’t say enough against books like Ecce or Cambridge.[/list]
Oppida in insula videre poteris.
“You will be able to see the towns on the island.”
This is, as far as I can see, perfect.
Good to see the books are respected. I did pay quite a bit for them though (I didn’t have much of a choice). It was $58 for the text and $36 for the workbook.
Canadian prices 
.
oh, I was dumbstruck until you mentioned that it was Canadian Dollars.. whew…
ptran,
Whenever I taught out of M & F, I was always so annoyed by the fake- really, really fake- Latin that was the exercise sentences
What do you mean by ’fake Latin’? The absence of participle constructions, accusative-and-infitives and gerunds or …? Please give some examples of BAD LATIN from M & F!
I can’t say enough against books like Ecce or Cambridge.
I personally witnessed the murder of Latin by a dictate-and-stare-out-of-the-window teacher holding a dull-as-ditchwater Latin book in his fist in an English grammar school many years ago – while I dreamt of a girl in the adjoining girls’ school. Since then I have learnt enough Latin to enjoy Horace and to lust after more of the same (ie Latin). My personal learning strategy has been to work from both ends simultaneously – a) beginner/ intermediate books and b) the Real McCoy – constantly narrowing the gap between the two.
Page 1 of a slim volume called ’ECCE ROMANI 2: Rome at Last’ from 1971 (first edition) - without macrons – finally knocked me off my horse in fine St Paul style. Wow! Instant conversion! Latin was actually readable! After that, whole pages were devoured in a matter of minutes. Words, phrases, structures resurfaced again and again and became familiar. Preposition-deprivation syndrome faded.
Can you really snub Ecci, Cambridge, Oxford and the rest? ’Raeda in fossa haeret’ and ’caupo me necare parat’ make Latin concrete and comprehensible to early learners. Lines like ’Caesar in Hispaniam transgessus legatos Pompeii vicit’ and ’Hannibal cum Scipione ad Zamam congressus atroci pugna victus est’ may come later.
Int
Salve Interaxus,
To be brief, since this seems like a chat that we could have elsewhere, much of the word usage in M & F is not attested in real Latin. For example, there are tons of sentences that use “ruo” in phrases like “ruo in ruinam” when such a phrase does not occur anywhere in extant Latin literature. Keller and Russell used the PHI Latin CD ROM to search all of Latin to make sure that any idiomatic uses of Latin in their workbook were attested in real Latin literature; hence, my distinction between “good” fake Latin sentences and “bad” fake Latin sentences, i.e., Latin that you would never, ever encounter in reading. I’ll email you more bad Latin examples if you like.
As far as I am concerned, the only goal for learning Latin is to read real Latin. To that end, I think that Ecce, Oxford, Cambridge waste an inexcusable amount of time teaching first year students vocabulary that they will never, ever see; you just aren’t going to read about inn keepers, butchers, dormice, the rooms of a Roman house or Roman bath in Caesar, Cicero, or Livy. Sure, you could make the point that you’ll encounter those words in Horace, Martial, or Petronius, but that diction is so specialized that it isn’t worth learning in your first year- or even second year- of Latin.
If we disagree over the goals for learning Latin, then obviously we’ll disagree over what text is best for what. As I said in my first post in this thread, for me it’s all about reading Latin with as much confidence and without as much extraneous aid as possible.
I’ve seen fourth- and fifth-year students who have toiled through Ecce et al., who cannot read Latin authors without a huge amount of help with simple things like independent subjunctives or indirect statements.
I learned from Ecce, and I appreciated the way it made the langauge seem more down to earth - I could actaully say something releveant to my life in the langague. I think too many people are turned off by the way Latin is sometimes taught, which is straight to the Classics, such as Livy and Cicero. I much prefer Catullus and Horace to Cicero, mostly becuase I enjoy reading Catullus and Horace, while Cicero bores me to tears. If I had started working straight towards Cicero, I would’ve switched to a different language long ago (I’m in my eigth year of studying Latin; I started in 7th grade).
Salve ptran,
Thanks for the example of bad Latin. I get the point. A couple more would be fun.
If we disagree over the goals for learning Latin, then obviously we’ll disagree over what text is best for what.
We don’t disagree over the goal of being able to read real Latin, though our choice of preferred authors or periods might differ. I recognize a kindred spirit in yadfothgildloc who prefers Horace and Catullus (though lately I’ve started to enjoy some Caesar and Cicero has my rain check).
The question is really about how to achieve the goal - and even here we agree that confidence-building is essential. Where is the learner coming from? English. Where does he/she have to get to? Latin. Latin is an inflected language, English is not. To learn to sweep over a sentence and spot the sense chunks automatically by picking up the signals at the ends of words is the sine qua non of Latin learning. If baby Latin is used to create this habit hardly matters. The habit itself facilitates future fluency.
The last 100 years’ Latin textbooks for beginners offer rich seams for pedagogical archeology. Some books limit vocab to Caesar, some include the poets’ Latin, many use recommended lists, some treat Latin as a modern spoken language and use the ’everyday/classroom’ language you hate. ’Horizontalists’ offer all conjugations from the start but only in the 3rd person while ’verticalists’ offer full verb paradigms from day one. One book sticks to 1st declension nouns for ages and introduces the dative before the ablative. I have a German beginner’s book from 1952 that introduces the past and pluperfect subjunctive in its very first text. You don’t believe me? Read on !
Aeneas Troia profugus primo in Macedoniam, inde in Siciliam insulam, a Sicilia in Italiam navigavit. Troianis nihil praeter arma et navigia supererat. Cum frumentum ex agris incolarum captarent, Latinus, dominus agri, cum armatis appropinquavit, ut advenas propulsaret; is ante pugnam Aeneam ad colloquium evocavit; interrogavit, quis esset, unde viri migravissent, quid optarent.
So let a thousand blossoms bloom! Of course, I realise that a teacher has to make a choice and it’s got to be one the teacher is happy with. Wasting precious teacher enthusiasm would be a crime! As a DIY-learner I can afford to be eclectic, reinforcing my link with the classics by glancing over a simplified schoolbook text whenever the spirit moves me or reading a version of Horace in a straightened-out English word order version.
Cheers,
Int
I agree with you there- there are many paths to the same town. I think my main point of contention with the reading-method books is that the vocabulary is useless. Maybe one can say things that pertain to one’s life in Latin, but so what? At the end of the day, I still think that it’s a question of how well you can read Latin, and I don’t think that there are any wagons stuck in ditches in Catullus or Horace.
Having students become familiar with the most common and important words that they will encounter will definitely give them the confidence to press on with the grammar.
At the Yale University Press website, mention is made of an answer key for the workbook, which is available through that web site.
Does anyone have the link to these PDF files of the anser key? I have not yet heard back from the publisher.
Thanks 
Robert.
If you email Tim Shea at Yale, he’ll send you a key. I don’t know his exact email address, but a quick search of the YUP site should cough it up.
Hello
I emailed Tim Shea requesting an answer key and it arrived within two days.
Bene sit tibi
Brian
Is Learn to Read Latin suitable for an independent learner? Are answer keys available online or from the publisher? Is the Cdn $29.94 workbook edition just the workbook or is it the paperback textbook plus the workbook? That seems a little unclear on the website.
I think the whole point to LTRL is that it is, in essence, an free-standing text. In fact, I think that if you are a motivated person, you can learn a lot of Latin just by reading it thoroughly and doing the drills. Needless to say, you can learn even more by reading the real Latin.
If the question of suitability is “Is there anything missing?” then no, there is nothing- or very, very little- that is left out. If the question of suitability is “Is it appropriate for me?” well, that depends on you.
Tim Shea at Yale University Press will email you an answer key. In fact, you could even email the authors if you wanted to- I think their email addresses are posted on the YUP site.
There is a textbook- grammar and explanantions, vocab, etc.- and a workbook. You should get both.
Thanks for your help. I’ll have another look at it.
Salve,
I emailed Tim Shea at Yale Books for the answer key last week. I dunno, he may be out for the holidays but that was a week ago and so far I haven’t heard back. For those who requested the key how long did it take to get to you? LTRL is an excellent reference, but w/o the key the workbook is of limited value.
I emailed him. He responded with a letter asking where I taught. I sent another letter stating that I was a student and never heard back. If someone could get a link on this site that’d be great. As it is, it’s basically pants.
He responded with a letter asking where I taught. I sent another letter stating that I was a student and never heard back. If someone could get a link on this site that’d be great.
I imagine authors are rather loath to give out answer keys to a textbook that is actually used in class. Perhaps if he received an email from this very site, he might be more willing?