Hi. My name’s Greg, and I’ve recently returned to reading Latin with Reggie Foster by way of his OSSA book. I took Latin via Wheelock at university and, quite frankly, hated it. (I still suspect the biggest problem was my professors, but it is what it is now.) I, however, loved Latin itself, and was always disappointed that I never learned it as well as I wanted to.
I’ve returned to Latin with Reggie’s system, and am quite loving it! I’ve already learned - and retained! - far more than I ever did with Wheelock.
Yes, Reggie sounds like quite the character! I met Fr Daniel McCarthy last summer, and boy, did he ever have stories about Reggie!
Speaking of Reggie, you may be interested in this new article on Reggie’s career. It’s a good thing the man never had children…??? (You’ll understand once you read a particular line in the article!)
I have been considering purchasing a copy of Reggie’s book – I really like everything that I’ve heard about him. But it doesn’t strike me as something for an autodidact. Hopefully bedwere can correct me if I’m wrong.
Hi, I bought Ossa and really like it. I agree an auto-didact couldn’t use it as their sole textbook – the basic idea seems to be to learn a principle quickly, dive into any real Latin text from any period, scan for words that appear to reflect the principle, look them up in a big dictionary (I really like his emphasis on this), think about whether it make sense, repeat. You obviously can’t think through whether the word you’re seeing reflects A or B or C or D when you’ve only learnt A, which is where a teacher would be needed.
However I would still definitely recommend it for auto-didacts, for a different reason. It feels different to other classics textbooks, more like – and this will sound strange, just my personal feeling – teaching you a practical trade by passing on working rules of thumb, like an apprenticeship or traineeship in a workshop, rather than an academic course under neon lights. An e.g. is his approach to learning verb endings by slight transformations of endings you already have learnt, rather than giving paradigms. There are typos (including in the Latin) and some rules given without exceptions but this didn’t bother me as much in this book as it would have in another book.
I think this book together with your usual library of other resources would be best. Reading the book left me thinking many times, ah that’s a really useful idea – but then after a while I’d be craving fuller explanations with exceptions etc. in Woodcock’s New Latin Syntax, around word order from e.g. Devine & Stephens, explanations of the Roman world in the Cambridge Latin series (which I’m using for home teaching), etc. But definitely try this book in addition to what you’re already using!
