Customer Reviews

Reading Latin: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am one of those mature students who did not make out at school and found to my regret that I had hit my forties without achieving any academic qualifications. I studied Philosophy at Bachelors' and Masters' levels when I discovered I wanted to ultimately study mediaeval philosophy at Doctorate level. However, I had zilch Latin and Greek, for I was like the majority of my generation (the ones who had not paid to go to school) and had been denied these subjects at grade school. At the level I was now studying, I needed to read the original texts in Latin and this way was barred to me at that time. I ceased my academic philosophy studies and tried to acquire the necesssary Latin skills in order to read these texts. I tried various grammars and struggled until I came across this book and another set with which I worked a deux: 'the Cambridge Latin Course'. I will talk about the Cambridge course elsewhere. 'Reading Latin' consists of various texts from Latin authors like Cicero and Plautus with appropriate exercises and grammar explanations that take the reader through the essentials of Latin. It was tough going at first for Jones and Sidwell do not go in for the faint hearted. You could say that 'Latin is not for Wimps!'. However, after two years working with the exercises and conscientiously keeping plodding on, even when I felt 'grammar fatigue' coming on, I passed my 'A' level Latin with a grade A distinction! I am now reviewing some of the more grey areas and dipping into Sidwell's follow-up book 'Medieval Latin' (sic) which takes the keen reader and me, the hopeful mediaevalist, into the areas where Latin became the repository of Western Thought and the language of the scholar. I am presently working my way through the opening chapters of the sister volume of JACT, 'Reading Greek', that takes the same approach, albeit in three segments and not two. Due to 'Reading Latin', I am now commencing my DPhil studies in the Fall, confident I can handle the material. I would have been unable to do this without the basics covered in this book. As I have already emphasised, Latin is not an easy subject and is not for the faint hearted, although its rigours are ultimately extremely rewarding. I believe the educationalists, those hidden strategists of class education, were ultimately wrong to deny Latin to working class people like me, who they supposed would occupy some menial niche under someone who had. However, with this book and accompanying text and some steely perseverance, the dogged formerly classics-denied individual will finally get where they wish to arrive: easily reading and appreciating these immortal writings of great beauty and structure that underpin the very culture that we belong to; these works that were supposed to be so great that they were to be kept from the many, as a preserve for the elect. I believe Cicero, Ovid and Horace would agree with me!

This is the companion volume to Reading Latin, by the same authors (q.v.). This volume contains the vocabularies for the reading exercises in Reading Latin, as well as the grammar for each section and copious exercises. The combination is a thorough and effective way to learn Latin while introducing you to some of the best of Latin literature. The vocabularies are cleverly constructed so that you build up a good core vocabulary, without producing ridiculously simple reading sections by trying to keep the vocabulary too restricted. A hint: the authors suggest you don't do all the exercises, but choose a few. You'll do much better if you do most, if not all, of them. Secondly, the course is not called Reading Latin for nothing. There are exercises in translating from English to Latin, but if you want to write Latin, you would be better off with a Latin Prose Composition course. Latin is not an easy language and all language learning takes time. The whole Reading Latin Course will take 18 months to 2 years to work through at a comfortable pace.

If you are in search of a great book that will help you in your quest to learn to Read Latin, then, this is the book for you! The information provided is thorough, and organized in a way that every philologist will appreciate. It covers Latin grammar and vocabulary in a section by section manner, with each section building on the previous section learned. Each section follows the same format: Latin running vocabulary, learning vocabulary, and grammar, in addition to other helps such as "word building," "everyday Latin," and "Real Latin." Then, continues on with the following exercises that reinforce the students growing knowledge of Latin: Morphology (translating English into Latin), Reading (translation of Latin text using correct grammar), and English-Latin (translating Latin into English). This text also provides a "Glossary of English-Latin Grammar," "Total Latin-English Learning Vocabulary," "Total English-Latin Vocabulary for exercises," "Additional Learning Vocabulary," and a handy "Index of Grammar" used throughout the text. It is a great help for adult students and non-students alike learning the language, or for those studying classical culture in general. A must have for any Latin aficionado (from Latin "affectio" AFFECTION)!

If you are in search of a great book that will help you in your quest to learn to Read Latin, then, this is the book for you! The information provided is thorough, and organized in a way that every philologist will appreciate. It covers Latin grammar and vocabulary in a section by section manner, with each section building on the previous section learned. Each section follows the same format: Latin running vocabulary, learning vocabulary, and grammar, in addition to other helps such as "word building," "everyday Latin," and "Real Latin." Then, continues on with the following exercises that reinforce the students growing knowledge of Latin: Morphology (translating English into Latin), Reading (translation of Latin text using correct grammar), and English-Latin (translating Latin into English). This text also provides a "Glossary of English-Latin Grammar," "Total Latin-English Learning Vocabulary," "Total English-Latin Vocabulary for exercises," "Additional Learning Vocabulary," and a handy "Index of Grammar" used throughout the text. It is a great help for adult students and non-students alike learning the language, or for those studying classical culture in general. A must have for any Latin aficionado (from Latin "affectio" AFFECTION)!

I am one of those mature students who did not make out at school and found to my regret that I had hit my forties without achieving any academic qualifications. I studied Philosophy at Bachelors' and Masters' levels when I discovered I wanted to ultimately study mediaeval philosophy at Doctorate level. However, I had zilch Latin and Greek, for I was like the majority of my generation (the ones who had not paid to go to school) and had been denied these subjects at grade school. At the level I was now studying, I needed to read the original texts in Latin and this way was barred to me at that time. I ceased my academic philosophy studies and tried to acquire the necesssary Latin skills in order to read these texts. I tried various grammars and struggled until I came across this book and another set with which I worked a deux: 'the Cambridge Latin Course'. I will talk about the Cambridge course elsewhere. 'Reading Latin' consists of various texts from Latin authors like Cicero and Plautus with appropriate exercises and grammar explanations that take the reader through the essentials of Latin. It was tough going at first for Jones and Sidwell do not go in for the faint hearted. You could say that 'Latin is not for Wimps!'. However, after two years working with the exercises and conscientiously keeping plodding on, even when I felt 'grammar fatigue' coming on, I passed my 'A' level Latin with a grade A distinction! I am now reviewing some of the more grey areas and dipping into Sidwell's follow-up book 'Medieval Latin' (sic) which takes the keen reader and me, the hopeful mediaevalist, into the areas where Latin became the repository of Western Thought and the language of the scholar. I am presently working my way through the opening chapters of the sister volume of JACT, 'Reading Greek', that takes the same approach, albeit in three segments and not two. Due to 'Reading Latin', I am now commencing my DPhil studies in the Fall, confident I can handle the material. I would have been unable to do this without the basics covered in this book. As I have already emphasised, Latin is not an easy subject and is not for the faint hearted, although its rigours are ultimately extremely rewarding. I believe the educationalists, those hidden strategists of class education, were ultimately wrong to deny Latin to working class people like me, who they supposed would occupy some menial niche under someone who had. However, with this book and accompanying text and some steely perseverance, the dogged formerly classics-denied individual will finally get where they wish to arrive: easily reading and appreciating these immortal writings of great beauty and structure that underpin the very culture that we belong to; these works that were supposed to be so great that they were to be kept from the many, as a preserve for the elect. I believe Cicero, Ovid and Horace would agree with me!

This course (3 volumes if you are learning on your own: Reading Latin, Vocabulary and Exercises, Self Study Guide) is excellent. It is prepared somewhat like a programmed course, giving little bits of information at each step with detailed explanations and full translations of the reading texts(in the self-study guide) and then having you test your mastery with exercises. Very effective. I have used a similar method to learn basic musical harmony and I can say that this step-wise approach which takes nothing for granted, explaining every piece of new information and then immediately testing it, is very effective. You can sense from the way the explanations are written that the authors really care about you learning Latin. I have used the Oxford Latin Course volume 1 and can say that that course is not for adult learners without a teacher. This is the one to get if you are an adult student learning on your own. Great course, highly recommended. The only problems I see with this method is first it's very dense, so your progress is slow. The authors recommend to do a bit each day , even if it's just half a page or so. I find that this works. Also, since if you are studying on your own you have to use 3 separate volumes, plus probably your notebook for vocabulary and notes to do the translations and the exercises, so it's cumbersome to say the least but the method is very good.

The entire three volume set of Reading Latin is excellent. Peter Jones and his fellow authors provide a highly structured, easy to follow, and excellent method for learning Latin. For those that can't take a formal course or courses, it doesn't get any better than this. Even for those like me who minored in Latin, it's the best review of Latin that you can get on the market.

John F. Gilligan, Ph.D.

This book and its companion volumes, already mentioned by previous reviewers, make up a large part of the material for the two Open University Latin courses in the UK. I am doing the first of these this year. It does start right at the very beginning for people with no previous experience of Latin but the learning curve is fast and you need to be prepared to work hard.

It is a very detailed volume and the OU miss quite a lot of exercises out, which shows you that there is enough material here to keep you occupied for years and years, if you are just learning Latin for fun. I suspect most people buying this volume will be doing more than that though!

Latin takes a lot of disipline to learn as I am finding out, and this volume and its companions will give you everything you need to know and more to reach a pretty high standard. The OU offer a diploma in classical studies of which the two Latin courses, based around this book, can constitute 50%.

This book was missing its first 7 pages, and those pages were kinda important, so that was upsetting. Other than that, there was just a bit of writing, nothing too bad throughout the book.