I would like to ask could one studying Latin after Wheelock’s to produce a positive effect in the shortest time span and how should I learn in order to I’ll able to read classical authors and Vulgate?
Hello Ramon83. Here are my thoughts, in a numbered list.
- Identify some easy Latin, and some adapted Latin, and read that for a while. You can get some good recommendations here. The easiest classical Latin author I have studied is Cornelius Nepos.
- Keep Wheelock, and regularly revisit the example sentences, with attention to forms and syntax precepts.
- I found a “501 Latin verbs” book very helpful.
- I make much use of William Whitaker’s Words, not just for definitions, but also for practicing the forms. For an online version look here: https://latin-words.com/
- Since you want to read the Vulgate, find Epitome Historiae Sacrae. It’s a transitional text from the easy reading for beginners to the Vulgate.
- When you start reading the Vulgate, read first passages familiar to you in your native language.
- Take your time, and don’t worry about dying before you master Latin. Enter your study as if entering a fortress safe from painful thoughts. Seek pleasure in solving the puzzles that Latin study brings. I started studying Latin in my seventies, when troubled by the first health problems of old age, and it has been a wonderful refuge.
- I use translations in two ways. First, when I simply cannot construct a meaning for a sentence. Usually the English makes the Latin fall into its place. Secondly, when I want to check my understanding of a sentence. Both of these usually send me back for restudy of Latin syntax topics as well as unexpected word meanings.
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I’m 43 old and I cannot stand modern easy communicative introduction to foreign languages. I prefer classical methods of learning had applied in old schools of Europe
Hi,
What sort of classical methods of learning are you referring to? More rote learning and emphasis on grammar, that sort of thing?
Ramon83, hi
Question: What do you read after Wheelock?
Wheelock will have given you a good grounding in the verb and noun endings, plus the main syntactical constructions.
The point to grasp is that in order to learn Latin you will have to master two quite different skills. First is the ability to read Latin in the order in which it is written – word 1, word 2, word 3 etc. This is called “reading at sight”. The normal rate of speed is 2 or 3 words per second, and it is performed without conscious thought.
When reading at sight doesn’t work, you need to apply the second skill – conscious analysis. This means “find the verb, find the subject, find the object.” Once you’ve identified the verb, nominative and accusative you’ve broken the back of the sentence and can now go on to identify the oblique cases to complete it.
I’d suggest your next step is to spend the next two years developing your ability to read Latin at sight. This means reading lots of “transitional readers”. These are mostly in made-up Latin written by schoolmasters between 1870 and 1920, though I would include some medieval texts as well and maybe some of Jerome’s Vulgate.
Steer clear of Classical Latin authors during that time as they are far too difficult and you will be trying to run before you’ve learnt how to walk. The inevitable result is that you will default to conscious analysis, and never develop the ability to fluently read at sight.
I’ll put a list of some of these main transitional readers in the next post.
A LIST OF “TRANSITION READERS”
(Note #1 : there is a good discussion of available transition readers on the Latinitium website)
(Note#2 : for a list of ALL transition readers, go to www_fabulaefaciles_com and choose “Let’s Go”)
There’s lots of good transition readers out there, but for independent learners it is essential to have an answer key in the form of a translation and, most of them don’t. I’ll start with the two that do.
Transition Readers which DO have a translation answer key.
“Easy Latin Stories for Beginners” by George L Bennett,
This contains 285 stories of about 100 words each, largely about Greece and taken from Herodotus. They are translated in the companion “Key to Easy Latin Stories for Beginners”. If you want to try them out for free, both are very nicely set out on Wikisource or fabulaefaciles_com.
“Apollonius Prince of Tyre”
This was very popular in the Middle Ages. It’s a romance about Prince Apollonius and his love Tarsia who get split up and undergo many adventures. The goodies win in the end and are reunited, while the baddies get their come-uppance. Very easy Latin and a great read. A text with vocab and notes was published in 2025 by Matthew Horrell in his ALPS series, available from Amazon. A text with interlinear translation was published in 2026 by Bernard Howe and is available from Lulu. Both books are very modestly priced (£11.86 and £7.81 in UK).
Transition Readers which DON’T have a translation answer key.
Probably the easiest is Epitome Historiae Sacrae by Charles L’Homond, which contains around 200 favourite Bible Stories from the Old Testament. Published by Focus and others.
Two essential readers from Geoffrey Steadman are Fabulae Faciles by F R Ritchie and “Fabulae ab Urbe Condita”, originally Sandford and Scott. Fabulae Faciles has 100 stories about Perseus, Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts and Odysseus. Fabulae ab Urbe Condita contains 30 lives of famous Romans, starting with Romulus and ending with Cicero.
From H C Nutting comes a First Latin Reader, whose first 50 or so chapters contain an early history of America, from Christopher Columbus, to Benedict Arnold. His second book was Ad Alpes, describing the voyage of a Roman family around the Mediterranean and the stories they tell each other. Published by Latinitium from whom you can also buy a 7 hour audiobook.
Another thread in danger of being taken over by dictates from DavidCart. He is no doubt trying to be helpful, but my advice would be quite different, except in one particular, namely that Latin (like Greek, like most anything) should always be read in the order in which it comes. That’s not called “reading at sight,” it’s called reading, and it is not necessarily done “without conscious thought.”
I would emphatically not put off sampling classical Latin authors in favor of first spending years reading mostly “made-up Latin written by schoolmasters between 1870 and 1920.” Could anything be more stultifying? And I see nothing wrong with trying to run while still learning to walk.