Do you guys think that there will be an eighth edition of Wheelock’s Latin? The seventh was published in 2011, so it is becoming older. Also do you guys think there will be a new edition of the reader as well, this time having macrons?
There will undoubtedly be an eighth edition, to make money if nothing else. As for the reader: the current edition is the second and according to the preface it’s quite different from the first (with notes facing the text instead of in the back, a better physical book, a few additions and deletions from the texts). it’s easier to see how the Reader could be improved rather than the introductory book: the form “sprevi” isn’t listed in the vocabulary in the back and the lemma form “sperno” is not intuitive, for instance; I’m sure there are some notes that could be improved, too.
(ed: as with math, any reasonably-modern classical-language textbook shouldn’t be or become obsolete)
Regarding the macrons: real texts don’t use them and it’s better not to depend on them to distinguish between “-is” and “-īs”, for instance; there are macrons in my copy of De Senectute and in Pharr’s Aeneid (which makes quite a bit more sense) but by and large you should grow out of them, and doing it early in your career is as good a time as any.
Are you ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin by chance?
I’m not sure who ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin is, but if you’re asking if I love Latin, I do! I figured there would be an eighth edition, do you have any ideas about the release of the new edition? Also, yeah, I’ve noticed that most texts don’t contain macrons, but Wheelock really promoted learning them (just to rule out any confusion), and maybe they’ll make a new reader as well!
Also, maybe the new edition will be a bit stronger in its paperback form, as the Greek book From Alpha to Omega is. My Wheelock paperback lost its cover and ripped on the spine. So maybe they’ll be a bit stronger.
ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin was a guy who posted here a bit, and since you mentioned Greek I thought he may have broadened his username to ThatLanguageGuy. Just similar, I guess.
I don’t know when the new edition will come out; all I know is that there probably will be one. I used the seventh edition and yeah, the binding is chintzy.