Amici docti,
Any thoughts on what the best Latin grammar currently available might be? I’ve been using Bennett’s New Latin Grammar, and although it is very thorough I don’t find it to be particularly user-friendly. Anyone here feel strongly about their favorite grammar?
D. T.
Salve, Discipule Tristis.
I really like Allen & Greenough and find it very useful.
Grammatica quam praefero et multùm utilem numero est Allen & Greenough, New Latin Grammar, quae in hoc loco invenietur http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001
Gildersleeve’s is excellent
Well, I consider Bennett’s to be a bit thin rather than thorough, but that is its charm as you can take it around with you. I also find it pretty clear with good, if few, examples.
A&G and Gildersleeves are the real heavyweight reference grammars in English and that is what I used when I was seriously studying Latin.
If you want to check out another lightweight title, Oxford has a paperback Latin Grammar that covers the basics.
daro
I use Allen & Greenough. Even though it does not excel at user-friendliness (as no Latin grammar will), the new edition is quite easy on the eye, unlike many grammars reprinted from century-old books.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll be sure to check out A+G, especially if it uses modern typography!
I am currently using Gildersleeve. He writes so abstractly that there are whole sections that completely go by me. More basic is Latin - an Intensive Course. Of the two the latter is much more accessible, the former more thorough. I guess though there are some who wouldn’t consider An Intensive Course to be a grammar but rather an introductory text. Still the explanations are quite lucid and succinct.
Ken
Although my German is really bad, I use the “Lateinische Grammatik” by Rubenbauer and Hofmann. I think its definitions are very clear, and often I find it more clear than English grammars. The only negative thing about it is i’s with a macron. Instead of replacing the dot above the stroke with the macron, the macron is places about the dot, so there is both a dot and a macron, and that looks really bad.
Hi. I am a beginner.
I am studying with Allen & Greenough’s too.
This grammar has in general too abstract grammatical explanations to understand without examples. It could be said this grammar is bad at explaining. But there are many examples to complement the explanation. And in the end we can understand what is supposed to be understood.
I bought Woodcock’s A NEW LATIN SYNTAX lately.
Though I haven’t read this book much yet, it seems very good at explaining. The explanations themselves can be understood, without example sentences, though there are example sentences. But this book’s layout is like ordinary books, like essays, novels, and not like ordinary grammars with abundant gaps in between, and explanations are very long, so it may not be for quick reference. I think it is supposed to be read like ordinary books.
Well I am using frequently two latin grammars in French, both secondhand books…
A.-M. Boxus, M. Lavency, Clavis. Grammaire latine pour la lecture des auteurs, (De Boeck-Duculot, 2e éd. 1993)
J.-H. Michel: Grammaire de base du latin, De Sikkel, 4e ed. 1967
There is an online adaptation of the first one(3rd ed., Helas I couldn’t find a cheap one of this latest edition) at:
http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/gramm/001.tabgram.html
It’s clear and well arranged typographically. And there is a combination of Lexique & Dictionnaire named INDEX accompanying CLAVIS.
The second one is more like A&G as it contains many historical comments, which are interesting as well as complicated for a beginner like me.