Customer Reviews

Cambridge Latin Course Unit 2 Student's book North American edition (North American Cambridge Latin Course)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This series almost entirely bases its learning technique around translations, introducing new grammar concepts as they appear in the readings. This is a very different approach from most languages, but for teaching Latin, it is a very effective one. If you are getting back into Latin and familiar with the rudimentary concepts I would recommend starting with book 2. For beginners, book 1 is a must- I promise it's worth it. It's fun to read and easy to follow along with. I am looking forward to learning from book 4 in this series.

This book is the best out of the other Latin learning books. It clearly states what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Since I'm a teacher at Franklin Learning Center High School, we use Cambridge books in all of my classes. So, I highly reccomend this book for beginner learners.

I am currently teaching Latin to homeschoolers using this series. It is a great step-by-step Latin text book. We only get together once a week for an hour. We find it fun, interesting, and well put together. The worksheet masters truly help to round out the books!

Sometimes your reviewers surprise me. I see someone has given this series one star. It's hard to understand why. My son and I have both been using it (as a new learner in his case, as someone who learned Latin a long time ago and has forgotten it in mine) and have both greatly enjoyed it. Its direct-method approach to the language, introducing the grammar bit by bit, is fine and an easy way in. And the general background material is well put together. Warmly recommended.

I took Latin I and II using the Ecce Romani series. When I switched schools, I had to switch to using the Cambridge Latin Course Unit 3 book for Latin III. It is a very poorly written textbook. The new vocabulary for each chapter is not put together very well in a way that makes it easy to learn. Since there are many little stories in each chapter, as opposed to the one big one and occasional second enrichment reading in the Ecce Romani books, there is vocab under each story. They tried to make a vocabulary list at the end of each chapter, but it never contains all the vocabulary listed under each story. The Ecce Romani books do a much better job of condensing the vocabulary and putting it all in one place, making it easier to learn. The Cambridge books are very confusing to look at and read because only proper nouns are capitalized. The back of the Cambridge books also only contain a Latin-English dictionary, so you're out of luck if you want to look up what an English word translates to in Latin. The Ecce Romani books contain both an English-Latin and Latin-English dictionary. The Ecce Romani series also does a much better job of explaining the grammar you learn each chapter. All the Cambridge books do is give you an example, not actually telling you how to form it in a sentence. The Ecce Romani books also have more challenging practice problems, and more of them, than the Cambridge books. On a more artistical note, the Ecce Romani books are much more interesting to look at, with color pictures that don't look like quick sketches, like the black and white Cambridge pictures do.
DO NOT buy the Cambridge series books. The books are very poorly written. The Ecce Romani series is a a much better Latin textbook series, which I highly recommend for anyone studying or planning on studying Latin.