Intensive Latin First Year & Review: A User's Manual [Paperback]

Carl A. P. Ruck (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Latin

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Pr (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890899126
• ISBN-13: 978-0890899120
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,266,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting approach, February 11, 2002

By 

Richard A. Weaver (lawrenceville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intensive Latin First Year & Review: A User's Manual (Paperback)

If you're trying to learn Latin on your own (as I am), you've probably experimented with different texts, looking for something that works.

Although Wheelock is my favorite for clarity, this book may work for you. He uses an interesting approach; the grammatical forms and structures that are most used by Latin writers are introduced early in the course. So you've got indirect speech in Lesson 1, and the subjunctive in lesson 2. Other less common structures (like the future tense) are not introduced until later lessons.

Definitely not the standard presentation, and kind of quirky, but there's an attractive logic to it. A big plus is the fact that there are a lot of drills and translation exercises, and the answers are given in the back of the book so you can check yourself.

Bottom-line, it's not for the faint of heart - you need a lot of stamina to stick with it, and a good deal of linguistic sophistication doesn't hurt. But the price is right, you get a lot of real Latin right off the bat, and the answers to the readings and exercises are there to help. I'm using it as a supplement to Wheelock, and I think it's doing me a lot of good. Try it!

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Carl Ruck was the best language teacher I have ever had., February 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Intensive Latin First Year & Review: A User's Manual (Paperback)

Ruck taught me Greek;he was the best language teacher I hav ever had. Carl A.P. Ruck taught me Greek for three years at Boston University. He was the best language teacher I have ever had; I have taken courses in various foreign languages for 12 years at Boston University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Fordham University, and the City University of New York. Ruck's methods are proven, modern, logical, unorthodox. The goal of an ancient language textbook is to allow the student to read the original texts as expediently and as well as possible; Ruck's textbooks accomplish this goal better than any other available. Having finished course work in elementary Greek and Latin, Ruck's textbooks are still valuable to the continuing student: they are clear and concise sources of reference - far more accessible to the intermediary student than the esoteric, highly advanced, and cumbersome Greek and Latin grammars which are typically thrust upon the student beyond the first and second years. Carl Ruck's textbooks are the ideal starting point for any student who wishes to truly learn the classical languages and they will remain a rich source from which to draw throughout the student's education.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad -- but not as good as Moreland & Fleischer, June 5, 2011

By 

Kevin (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intensive Latin First Year & Review: A User's Manual (Paperback)

I've been studying Latin for over five years now and picked up this book by Carl Ruck because I wanted to engage in a thorough grammar review and thought that it might be fun to do with a text that I haven't used before. I began studying Latin using Wheelock's excellent text and have also used Moreland & Fleischer's "Intensive Latin" to review the language in the past. I find that Ruck's text is certainly usable -- but it is overly laconic in explaining some points of grammar that would be very helpful for students approaching Latin for the first time. His English translations can be somewhat off-putting and, again, might confuse a first-timer approaching the language. Thus, on page 34, one of his offerings for "Patris vita gloriosa" is "The father life is glorious." While this is technically grammatically correct, it does not reflect common usage in English for many decades now and lends itself poorly as an example of translating the genitive case, particularly since it is included without explanation. To be fair, his first two suggestions, "A father's life" and "the life of a father," are just fine here. There are other examples of awkward translation into English peppered throughout the book.

To be fair, it is inordinately helpful that this book, unlike Moreland & Fleischer or Wheelock, includes the answer key -- a critical aid for self-study. Nevertheless, as an aid in quickly becoming proficient in the reading of Latin -- perhaps in preparation for academic work -- I do not think that Moreland & Fleischer's intense but effective approach has yet been surpassed. If one were to use this book for the purpose of self-study (without the aid of someone familiar with Latin), I would suggest utilizing it alongside Wheelock's text as one of the other reviewers did. At that point, the question becomes -- why purchase two books when you can just buy Wheelock instead?