Read Getting Started with Latin Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and SelfTaught Students of Any Age English and Latin Edition William E Linney 9780979505102 Books

Product details Paperback 194 pages Publisher Armfield Academic Press; Bilingual edition (June 1, 2007) Language English, Latin ISBN-10 0979505100

Getting Started with Latin Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and SelfTaught Students of Any Age English and Latin Edition William E Linney 9780979505102 Books Reviews

• Bad news first
  As others have stated this book can be finished quickly--not in half an hour as one reviewer put it, but a week is enough time for a serrious adult student to master the material in this course. At the end of the book you will have encountered basic declensions, a smattering of verbs and around 100 words . This approximates the amount of material covered by the first 40 pages of Wheelock's Latin. After completing this book, students continuing their study of Latin will need to use another introductory text.
  
  Now for the good news
  This is the best format for learning Latin I've seen! Each lesson clearly introduces one word or grammatical concept in two paragraphs or less, followed by ten example sentences that cover the lesson topic and review past lessons. Best of all, the sentences include only vocabulary covered in the book! This is the exact opposite of other Latin books that rely on dense grammatical explanations without many useful examples. Following this method the learner never feels overwhelmed, after learning a few nouns and verbs, one can quickly and naturally move on to correctly produce simple sentences. This is no small feat considering the fact that Latin nouns change based on case.
  
  Although the author's voice reminds one more of a cowboy than a consul, the fact that he provides free MP3 recordings for each lesson in both ecclesiastical and classical pronounciation on his website is fantastic. This is the only Latin textbook I've found that offers so much audio material for free online.
  
  This book needs a sequel or better yet two--ASAP!
• I used this book when I was in middle school because I arbitrary decided that learning Latin would be a fun thing to do. I'm currently a medical student, grateful for this book that helped inspire a passion for the language. Latin is very useful to me now. This book does a wonderful job at breaking Latin down so that it isn't overwhelming. It won't teach you a great deal of vocabulary, but it's the perfect thing to get started and make learning fun. After the completion of this book I recommend getting Lingua Latina Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, Pars I Familia Romana (Latin Edition) and downloading the FREE dictionary called whitaker's words. Its a Latin dictionary that runs through command prompt on windows and there is a version for mac, but you need to search around on google for it. It is the BEST dictionary because its speed is instant and there are no ads. When you are learning a language one of the most frustrating things is looking up words in a paper dictionary.
  1. get this book
  2. get Lingua Latina
  3. love Latin as much as I do
• I'm currently homeschooling a 6 year old and a 9 year old. This book is wonderful for homeschoolers. It makes no assumptions about the age of the student - no cartoonish animals, and grammar is presented very simply. The length of the lessons is perfect for younger learners. I really like this book, and I think it makes a good base from which to learn more Latin.
  
  UPDATE We've gone through 1/3 of the book. My kids are now 7 and 10. We've been doing one lesson twice per week so as not to overwhelm them. We do no other formal study of grammar. After 1/3 of the book, they both understand and can translate most exercises. They understand basic grammar as this book presents it, and 3 cases for nouns and how to use them. I'm really amazed. I personally speak 3 languages fluently and partially many others, and I think this way of teaching a language is superior to a lot of other books I've seen that teach in a cutesy way various words. For a native English speaker, it is very difficult to understand the conjugation of nouns and verbs in other languages. This book focuses so simply on that making further study of the language much simpler. Highly recommend!
• The study of Latin is addictive. I was “bitten” by it when I entered my senior years as opposed to my previous “younger” years.
  I look for texts that are easy to understand and those that “cut to the chase” fast without extraneous material. I look for texts that slowly move me along without hurrying me, and I look for many practice exercises that are repetitious because repetition gives me time to sort out ideas until they become understandable.
  William Linney’s book is the answer to all these preferences. There is so much that is excellent in this text, but my wish is that he would write either a Level 1 Reader, or a Level 2 text (in the same format as this text) so that older “newbies” can continue the study of Latin at a slightly higher level. I would like to encourage him to undertake both!
  If readers have had difficulty continuing their study of Latin, I recommend this text. I have it in and can easily make notes by copying some of the text to a WORD document that serves as a study notebook.
• My son wanted to learn Latin this year (we homeschool) and since I never taken Latin myself, I was a little intimidated. A friend recommended this book and we got it from the library. I kept having to renew it, so finally decided to buy it. It's really easy to follow and we've both learned a lot. A great book if you are unsure if you are going to enjoy Latin or not or are intimidated about getting started. It's laid out very well for a beginner. I wish he had follow-up editions!