Customer Reviews

Matin Latin I: Student

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

 

 

This is a great study. It gives an opportunity to learn your english grammar at the same time. Lessons are clear and short. The vocabulary words total about 125 by the end of the book. We zipped through this, and my son is only 9 years old. He enjoyed the words, pirata, hasta and oppugno, pirate, spear and attack. This teacher's edition and student text, made latin enjoyable.

This series is particularly well done because it actually teaches kids to think in Latin! The author uses flash cards & picture association rather than just a list of vocabulary words, to help students grasp the meanings. The teacher's Guide even includes songs that help the students remember parts of speech, etc.

After reading reviews of various Latin curricula for 4th grade, I chose Matin Latin. Unfortunately, it is not a stand alone text. The lessons are not well explained and the worksheets are either too simple or too complex. For example, the first lesson is on nouns and it asks the students to underline the noun in a short english sentence. That was great, but it needed a followup with more complex sentences. The second lesson identifies the five cases in latin. However, it doesn't give any background on what these cases represent or discuss their parallels in english grammar. The student worksheet asks students to write out the cases for several latin words without a good description of how to do it. If you know latin and want to supplement other materials with items from this book, it would probably work. However, if you want to teach your child (or yourself) latin, save your money and buy a copy of Wheelocks.

The best word to describe this book is "lacking" - as in lacking an adequate glossary, lacking sufficient written exercises, lacking adequate explanation of the grammatical concepts, etc.

I come to this book with a solid understanding of Latin myself, 4 high years AP Latin in high school ad two years college work. I know what it takes to develop an understanding of the grammar and how much work it takes to memorize the case endings, verb endings, etc. This book doesn't support that level of study.

Perhaps this could be better described as "token Latin" rather than as serious language study material. If you want your child to dabble in the language, this could be the right choice. If you want to start your student on the road to proficiency in Latin, get a different book.

I can't imagine how I would have taught my 3 children Latin this summer without this book. It's perfect for normal kids who have not studied a foreign language before and have not been taught a lot of grammar in their regular school curriculum. For each new piece of Latin grammar there is a section teaching the concept in English before you move into Latin. The explanations are clear and useful.

Another reviewer said that the study exercises were insufficient, and that is true. I drilled my kids over and over, orally, making up new examples for them to translate. I can see that this might be hard for you if you didn't have much background in Latin or any other foreign languages. I don't know much Latin myself, but I'm good enough with foreign languages to stay easily ahead of my kids on this. Also, I bought the workbook pages that go along with this textbook, and they provided some extra, enjoyable exercises. But you'll need to find ways of expanding on the number of drills and exercises offered in the book.

Basically, though, for my family this was a wonderful textbook, clear and fun and easy to use for leisurely summer language study.