Customer Reviews

Latin Made Simple: A complete introductory course with practice readings and exercises, plus a handy Latin/English vocabulary

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This book is indeed easy to use, but the reader needs to exercise a high degree of caution with it. There are a large number of typos throughout the text and, more importantly, the answers to the translation exercises consistently use the wrong verb tenses, thus making it very easy for the novice to 'learn' the wrong thing! Moreover, the supplementary readings use quite a number of vocabulary words that are never introduced anywhere in the book. While the reading exercises are fun practice for beginners, this book needs to go through another revision, with careful attention to grammatical consistency, before it can be recommended without qualification.

With scores of editorial oversights (tense mismatching, singular nouns translated as plural, etc.) this book is not only very confusing to the first-time Latin student, but also not worth spending your money on. A thorough editorial review would probably fix most of the problems, but since the last edition was published in 1992, it doesn't look like the publishing company cares too much.

Publishing the book in this state is nothing short of a disservice to the public. I wasted my money on it. Don't you do the same.

This book's teaching method is great, but it is ruined by its over-simplification of the language. Its very concise pronunciation guide says that everything is pronounced as in English with a few exceptions. It gives very few consonants and a few diphthongs and explains them. It does not say anything about the varied pronunciation for long and short vowels. It also does not mention that the R is trilled as in romance languages, which would lead one to believe that it just as the English R (The English pronunciation of R is unique and found nowhere else). This book is good for its comparisons to English, for each word it usually gives you a related English word (you could find which syllables are long from an etimological dictionary). It also has little stories and excerpts from the Latin bible throughout. Sadly, this book stops giving the pronunciation of each word after the first chapter which leaves the reader feeling naked and insecure especially since the stress of the word depends on which syllables are long (when this book does not mark the vowels as long or short like most latin instruction books). In conclusion, this is great if you already have a Latin dictionary that explains pronunciation and stress, but don't buy this book as a sole source or you'll not learn Latin correctly.

This text is loaded with typographical errors, mistranslations, and inconsistencies. It does not explain important points accurately, so that if you depend on it alone for instruction in Latin, you will learn the language incorrectly. For instance, the authors never mark long vowels, which, in some cases, changes the meaning of a text. Translations are inconsistent; sometimes third person is translated "he" and sometimes it is "he, she or it". One exercise translates all present tense verbs in the past tense.

Using this book is not merely frustrating; it's counterproductive. Don't buy it.

I think the other reviewers have adequately summarized many of the shortcomings of this book. Of the many things I could add, I will simply say that the book offers seven guidelines for the pronunciation of Church Latin: two are wrong, one is at best misleading, one is too vague to evaluate, and one manages to combine all three of these problems; of course, that leaves two that are correct. But you will probably want to spend your money on something with a higher batting average. Wheelock's is better in essentially every way; if your particular interest is Church Latin, Collins's "A Primer of Ecclesiastiacal Latin" is an excellent choice.

This being my first Latin text, I cannot vouch for its correctness in Latin context--although it seems by the other reviews that this book has some consistent shortcomings in that area. However, as a student of other foreign languages(Spanish, French, and Japanese previously), I can decidedly say that the presentation in this book is confusing at best. The beginning chapters are filled with "this is one way to do it" explanations that are later contradicted with the correct (?) method. Teaching someone how to do something incorrectly for the mere purpose of simplification is an absolutely useless practice which should be stopped immediately. I would NOT recommend using this book as a learning aid without a Latin-fluent companion to help "fix" the book.

Errata multa in libro sunt.
Miserabile dictu, mihi necesse est reprobare librum istum.
There are many errors in the book.
Sad to say, I must repudiate the book.

I learned Latin first using Wheelock, one of the standard texts available today for Latin instruction; I have used other grammars, readers and texts since then, and seem to pick up another volume every other year or so, just to keep up the practice, and to see what else is available. I purchased 'Latin Made Simple' by Hendricks some time prior to my Latin instruction using Wheelock, but had not used it; it sat on the shelf waiting to be read, but I must confess, I hadn't got round to it prior to my classes in Latin.

When I picked it up off the shelf to use it to help refresh my Latin several years later, I found it a mixed bag. I liked the fact that it addressed topics such as Church Latin (Wheelock is primarily for classical -- Republic or Imperial - Latin), and found many of the examples more relevant to my needs as a churchy person. I also liked some of the page layouts for verb conjugations and noun declensions, and some other grammar points.

However, there are many typographical errors here, and several problems I noticed even with my then-rusty Latin. Some of the verb conjugations did not match with the guide to Latin Verbs I used as a companion. Checking against Wheelock and Henle, I found that Hendrick's text was indeed incorrect. While this is probably more of an editorial problem than an author's shortcoming, it still reflects badly on the text (as the student won't in general care if the problem comes from the editor or the author, but rather takes what is on the page).

Since this is a book designed primarily for those who have not had any Latin training, identifying the errors is not really possible for most readers (this is a bad thing). Also, since this is a book designed for the absolute beginner, many of the issues are presented in the most simple format possible -- the problem here is that Latin is a very complex language, and there are many exceptions to almost every rule -- the presentation here doesn't really prepare the student for the variations, leading to a bit of confusion.

I found this book useful as a review, but could not really recommend it as a beginning text.

This book was not Latin Made Simple, but Latin Made by Simpletons. Wrong information, and a terrible learning technique as well. Instead of this, go get yourself a copy of Lingua Latina: Pars I: Familia Romana, by Hans Orberg, and then move to Wheelock's Latin. Together, these two books will get you off the ground.

Stop buying this dry, emotionless, ridiculous book regurgitated from the 60's.

This really is a waste of time- buy a good Latin Dictionary, a Latin Grammar review chart, a good basic program-( Oxford, or Cambridge is good for younder students- Wheelock's is tedious but good, especially for older students,) and then supplement with some fun stuff like Latin Mythica or other great publications from Bolchazy-Carducci . This should be a good book but the editorial carelessness just makes it not so!