Yes, I got the book and answer key from textkit.
I’m planning to go through a couple of text books and an anotated bilingual text or two before I move on to something like the Latin-French editions or that “De Bello Gallico” you just linked.
Excellent, as Mr. Burns would say (The Simpsons). Going through more than one textbook is good. I’ll always be glad to give suggestions as to which ones I like :), and there is this free online course SCHOLA LATINA EUROPÆA & UNIVERSALIS. Latiné loqui disce sine molestiá! Learn to speak Latin with ease! ¡Aprende a hablar latín sin esfuerzo! Apprenez à parler latin sans peine! Impara a parlare latino senza sforzo! Lernen Sie Latein zu sprechen ohne Mühe! , which uses the old (not the new) Assimil Latin. I don’t know the teacher, but it appears she uses the materials prepared by the originator of the course, which are really good (for instance, after lesson 50 or so all class notes are in Latin). It goes through the course at a rate of 3 days per Assimil lesson, so it takes 300+ days . . . or I guess it can be done in 2 years, too. If you don’t want to wade through all the prose, skip down to “The Schola Latina Universalis.”
Anyway, I’ll stop bugging you about this. (It’s easy for me to give advice when I’m not doing any studying.) Have fun.
Feel free to go ahead and suggest your favorites, please.
I was going to start with the one I mentioned and Collar and Daniell’s “Beginner’s Latin Book”, as those are the ones that the folks at textkit follow. An Assimil style course would be nice. I’m going to take a good look at the Schola Latina.
I think the D’Ooge book is just the thing. (A few years ago I went completely through it as you are; unfortunately, in a way, that effort was derailed by my re-starting Russian.) I meant suggestions for your second run-through of a primer. Collar and Daniell should be very good, although I have not looked very closely at it and so can’t really say. A primer by Harkness I would recommend–I’ll hunt it up when I have a chance, to find the correct title. So many of the books available free online are excellent, I don’t see why you should have to buy something new–unless you like to buy books, of course.
Of the non-Public Domain books: Wheelock’s Grammar is a great primer, espec. in the 3rd ed., (if you can find it), which has less bells and whistles, a smaller size, and better layout; it provides an excellent answer key and an appendix of supplementary translation exercises. The book by Moreland and Fleischer, Latin: An Intenseive Course is also excellent in almost every way, although there is no key available for it that I know of.
You could check here for online materials: http://www.edonnelly.com/ ; look under the G’Oogle link, where among many other things you’ll find a list of Latin exercise/composition books w/ keys.
You might very well enjoy the “Schola Latina”; I would definitely recommend it. Also, the groups on the “Latin Study” mailing list (the Quasillum link that I gave) are great, and they “pace” you, reminding you each week, anyway, to study.
I would actually prefer to have a hard copy of the book(s), but I’m trying to cut down on my book splurges as I have neither the time to read them nor the space to store them.
I checked out Wheelock’s Grammar on abebooks.com, and there are plenty of cheap copies, but there’s no information regarding the editions. I think I’ll refrain from spending for now, even though most of my language studying is done on the computer, and I’d love to have more real life books to study the old-fashioned way.
I have bookmarked the edonnelly.com site, and it should come in handy pretty soon, as I’ve started going through the D’Ooge book, and I seem to remember much more than I expected from my college Latin classes.
" . . . seem to remember much more than I expected from my college Latin classes."
That’s super. Have at it, and enjoy yourself.
Whet your appetite by looking at this, Pericla navarchi Magonis; sive, Expeditio phoenicia annis ante Christvm mille - David-Léon Cahun - Google Books , if you can see it from outside the U.S. (It’s not Cicero, but it’s an adventure novel. I love popular literature.)
BTW, any edition of Wheelock from 3 on is okay, other than 4, which has a lot of typos I’ve heard. The newer ones are just fine: although they have a lot of new “enrichment” material that isn’t necessary, and the book is now oversize, less well laid out–allthough not horribly so–and so not quite so easy to use. If you were to study Wheelock w/ the Latin Study group, they almost always use the latest edition, but it sounds like you don’t need their helping hand.
One of the great features for studying on one’s own w/ Wheelock are the supplementary exercises in the back of the book, which people often do not notice. They are just the right amount to “cement” the forms and syntax into one’s brain, especially when worked from question to answer, and then from answer to question.
Speaking of classical languages . . . looks like my brother wants to tackle some sort of ancient Greek–Homeric, Attic, or Koiné–and I’ll work in tandem. We’ll see how we do. I could read Koiné Greek quite well about 20 years ago, having used Machen’s book to learn it, so I know I can get through the grind, but I wonder if he knows just what he’s getting himself into! It should be really fun if he takes to it. We haven’t done anything long term together for well over 40 years. Choice of the available textbooks is narrowed down to 6 (actually, probably 4) for various reasons.
Google won’t let me access that book.
Working along with someone else sounds like fun. If I were going to start on Ancient Greek now, I’d definitely go with Clyde Pharr’s “Homeric Greek”, but since you’ve already studied Koiné, maybe a better option for you would be to go over Machen again, and then move on to something else.
The decision is up to my brother, w/ my “guidance.” He’s not a language nerd at all.
I like Pharr pretty well, too, although I find it irksome to flip to the back of the book for the grammar. However, my brother tried Pharr a few years ago (on his own, w/o help or encouragement) and didn’t like it, so we won’t use it. Machen was also not to his taste. For one’s first foreign language, ancient Greek is not an easy choice, that’s for sure. But I hope that this time maybe our doing it together will be helpful. You know what a grind it can be. I’m certainly looking forward to having a “companion” for a change.
FWIW, here are the 6 books I’ve narrowed things down to (he was off the Internet for the last couple of days, so I looked), and the others I’ve provisionally ruled out for various reasons. The way to do this right is to compare the books themselves, but I only have used copies of a few of them (marked w/ an asterisk), so I’ve been depending a lot on online reviews:
*Groton, From Alpha to Omega
*Hansen and Quinn, Greek: An Intensive Course
Beetham, Learning Greek w/ Plato
Beetham, Beginning Greek w/ Homer
*Schoder and Horrigan, A Reading Course in Homeric Greek
Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek
The Beetham books will prob., be rejected next, as they have only Greek->English exercises, although we could go from answers to questions, to supply that lack. I love Hansen and Quinn, but chapters 2 and 3 are absolute killers, and they may be too much for someone who is not used to memorizing, yet . . . and it doesn’t have an answer key, which would be useful. I haven’t looked much at Mounce, but it may be a nice gentle intro. Groton, and Schoder and Horrigan are leading the pack at this point.
Here’s the one’s I’ve rejected so far, and why–admittedly, often w/o seeing the book itself:
Keller and Russell, Learning to Read Greek–Lengthy stretches w/o exercises; i.e., too much memorization w/o practice
*JACT, Reading Greek–too scattershot
Saffire and Fries, Ancient Greek Alive!–reviews say not good for self-study
Wilding and Shelmerdine,Beginning Greek --not enough exercises, paradigm listings deficient?
Vernhes, Discovering Greek Step by Step (Initiation au grec ancien)–looks good so far, but it would take too long to get it from France
*Mastronarde, Introduction to Attic Greek–excruciatingly tedious exercises, poor arrangement, too much presented w/o adequate drill
*Betts and Henry, Teach Yourself Ancient Greek–maybe too brief a presentation
*Balme and Lawall, Athenaze–too diffuse; not enough grammar
*Machen–New Testament Greek for Beginners; not successful before
*Pharr, Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners–Not successful before
Assimil, Le Grec ancien–too experimental; needs to be translated from French (time consuming)
Luschnig and Mitchell, An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach–too many paradigms in a row?
*White, John W., First Greek Book–Written w/ the expectation that the student already knows Latin (grammar)
If you have any comments–such as, How can you possibly reject XXX!, or Have you considered YYY?–I’d love to hear them.
I read French well, but he does not. The Vernhes book comes highly recommended, and I’d like to use it, espec. as I would not have to translate it, since there is an English version, but it would take too long to order it from France, and I haven’t actually seen it, anyway, other than some online “answer sheets.” I can always work my way through it as a refresher, if we get so far as to have knowledge to refresh.
Well, I’ve produced another info dump. Sorry 'bout that. Read any good SF, lately?
Google won’t let me access that book.
Dang! Well, It’s an adventure novel from the 1880s (or so) about the Phoenicians, translated into Latin. Like this, by the same translator: Arcadius Avellanus: Insula Thesauraria - Exemplar digitale . (If you’re brought to the beginning of the book, skip the 60 page intro and go to page 3, using the INDEX at bottom right.)
Well, I haven’t studied Greek before, so I can’t really comment except by repeating what I have heard, which is that Homeric Greek is deemed by many to be the best for beginners, so that’s why I’d go with Pharr’s (that and the fact that it’s in the public domain).
I personally love Assimil, but don’t care for Teach Yourself, so I’d go with A instead of TY if I had these as choices.
SF: I’m reading Alexei Panshin’s “Rite of Passage” (which I bet you must have already read, since it came out a few decades ago) and I’m listening to Mary Shelley’s “The Last Man” in audiobook format. Both are great. I don’t read much new SF, at least I haven’t lately.
Homeric Greek is deemed by many to be the best for beginners . . .
Sure, by those who are big fans of Homeric Greek or who have written a primer of Homeric Greek. 
I’m more interested in Attic, but starting w/ Homer, which interests my brother more, maybe, would work for me; I could “re-tool” my Greek once I was quite comfortable w/ Homeric Greek.
In fact, I just read through Pharr’s description of the differences between Homeric and Attic last night, and things don’t sound too bad . . . except of course that Pharr must have grown weary towards the end of the chapter, as he increasingly suggested the reader “see any good Greek grammar ,” and did not describe the particulars of the point in question. The last paragraph of that chapter was especially irksome: "[489-500] These sections, which are omitted from this book for the sake of brevity, refer to the standard Greek grammars. . . . "!!! So, did he have more points to mention, in re grammar, or were those paragraphs a discussion of various Greek grammars from the 1910s? I am not sure. I’ve got a nice long explanation of the diffs. in one of my Russian Greek grammars (and a shorter explanation in another); I’ll give those a shot, although it’ll prob. be slow going, as many Rus. grammatical terms are not on the tip of my tongue, although Latin ones, which are also used, are not so bad–they make so much sense, through familiarity.
If language learning is new/difficult for a person, it seems to me that Koiné would be the way to start, as it is sort of a stripo version of Attic. FWIW.
SF: I’m reading Alexei Panshin’s “Rite of Passage” (which I bet you must have already read, since it came out a few decades ago) . . .
ROFL. Well, actually you’re right. I read it when it came out, in the late '60s. Alexei Panshin graduated from my alma mater (= the University I graduated from); I think we were there concurrently for a year or two, although we never met. IIRC, he wrote an interesting book about Robert Heinlein–my favorite SF author, if one considers only the first 20 years of his output. The M. Shelley I’ve never read. I haven’t read much new SF lately, either. Almost none at all in English (although I want to read Paolo Bacigalupi’s new book), and what I listen to in Rus. is Jules Verne, or Jack London, or Andre Norton, mostly. Very up to date.
Oh, and . . .
I personally love Assimil, but don’t care for Teach Yourself, so I’d go with A instead of TY if I had these as choices.
The new TY books are generally not too great–so says Prof. A., and so say I! (to paraphrase William Blake)–but this one is written like an old fashioned grammar-translation method, except that it has no English->Greek. I learned my French from an older TY book, which were grammar-translation sorts and quite good. Prof. A. has a good video clip about TY books, too.
And as you like Assimil, don’t forget about Schola Latina in a month or two. It’s steady but not arduous, and they use the older Assimil Latin method–not the new one. It is out of print, but I have a copy (two of the book) and we could probably work something out if you were interested but could not find the materials. The recordings are awful, as the r’s are glottal rather than trilled, but the method is good, and the class materials are great, if they are still using the class notes I saw 5-6 years ago. You must have the recordings to sign up for the class, BTW.
Well, I suppose there are as many proponents of Homeric Greek as a starting point for Greek studies as there are for the other variants. I would indeed like to learn Koiné too, and I hope going from one to the other won’t be much of an issue, no matter where one starts.
The new TY books are a letdown, in my opinion. I wouldn’t want to start a new language using one of those as my main textbook. In fact I wouldn’t use them at all. I have no experience with older TY series, but I what I hear confirms your testimony that they were definitely more usable in the old days.
So I have to have Assimil Latin to sign up for Schola Latina? I wasn’t even worrying about getting any recordings for my studies, as I have pronunciation pretty much down pat.
It’s very cool that you went to the same university as Panshin. I’m enjoying his book very much. I’m not a big fan of Heinlein, though, but I haven’t read any of his juvenilia, which I hear is great. I’ve actually only read “Stranger in a Strange Land”, which I was a bit disappointed with, given the legendary status it has received over the years.
Mary Shelley’s book is very very good, you should give it a try. There’s a nice recording of it on librivox.
Well, I suppose there are as many proponents of Homeric Greek as a starting point for Greek studies as there are for the other variants.
No, Attic Greek is overwhelmingly favored, at least academically, outside seminaries. There are 2 or 3 textbooks for Homeric Greek, dozens for Attic Greek, and quite a few (maybe more?) for Koiné.
The new TY books, almost all that I have seen, don’t offer much. The old ones were grammar-translation and presented enough material to get one well started, excluding the fact that there were no recordings.
Yes, you must have the recordings for Schola Latina. They insist. It’s Assimil, and the course is the “first wave,” “second wave” setup, especially 1st wave. And they have a couple tests (and maybe some quizzes?). The recordings are for your pronunciation work, and just as much to pump lots of Latin through your brain, over and over, for assimilation.
As I said, Heinlein is about my favorite SF writer. Don’t bother reading anything by him written after (or maybe including) Starship Troopers, about 1959, except The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and the first half of Stranger in a Strange Land (which I’ve heard was written years before the second half). Most of his juveniles are his best (except the one from the 1960s), and there are 4 or 5 other books from the '40s and '50s that are also very good, including lots of good short stories. If you’re looking to read something by him and care to hear, I’ll tell you which I think are good.
The Mary Shelley story sounds good. Thanks. I’ll look it up, but I’m not reading much in English, nowadays. Actually, I’ve rather fallen out of love w/ fiction in general.
No, Attic Greek is overwhelmingly favored, at least academically, outside seminaries. There are 2 or 3 textbooks for Homeric Greek, dozens for Attic Greek, and quite a few (maybe more?) for Koiné.
See, I have no idea what I’m talking about. I did a little reading on the dialects, and it now seems to me that if you intend to read Koiné, Attic and Epic, the best starting point would be Koiné, as you would gain a basic understanding of the language in a simpler more straightforward variety.
Re: Heinlein, I should indeed read something else by him, although I have SO many books in my to-read shelf that I don’t know when I will have time to include something new. I had a plan to read all the Nebula winners, but I still haven’t gone through half of them, and at 39 I still haven’t read neither Proust’s La Recherche (although I would be able to right now) nor most of the Russian classics (which I’m holding up on until I can read them in the original).
@lmyirtseshem
I’m going through the Latin textbook very slowly just to keep my curiosity at bay. Russian’s still my main focus, with French and German trailing far behind.
Elric, As you’re studying Russian:
http://lingvo.asu.ru/ look under Латинский язык and there are two entries under Публикации. His examples are in Latin and Russian. I’ve only looked briefly, but the grammar seems good, as do the особенности.
http://lingualatina.ru/ advertisements are mixed in w/ his text, which can be confusing.
http://linguaeterna.com/ lots of interesting things to browse through, including this Lingua Latina sine Molestia | Lingua Latina Aeterna , speaking of Schola Latina.
http://www.latinitatis.com/latinitas/
Imyirtseshem, I don’t agree; IMHO starting from Koiné, including Biblical Greek, would be a good way to study, as K is pretty much a subset of Attic Greek. There’s even a textbook that teaches that way–first Koiné (starting w/ the Gospel of John) and then Xenophon’s Anabasis. Paine, Stephen W., Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach. Classical Studies - Oxford University Press . (I have a used copy, should you want any particulars.)
[I thought I’d posted similar info this a.m.; I hope this somehow doesn’t end up being a dup.]
Imyirtseshem, I agree w/ you, BTW, about preferring to start w/ Attic. (Even though I learned Koiné first, years ago. That was just an “accident of history.”) I’m just saying that it’s reasonable to start w/ Koiné because of the relationship of the two forms of the language, especially if you want to, sort of, ease into it.
In the “twice” thread? Dang! I am senile. Guess I’d better delete it. Thanks for alerting me. I’d never have found it there.
Ernie, thank you for the links. The Assimil book looks excellent as it is usually the case with the older editions. I may have to start looking for an old edition of Latin Sans Peine, or wait a bit longer so I can follow the Russian one without too much hassle.
Elric, You’re welcome. Be aware that the Russian version on that site isn’t complete, and there’s no complete Russian or English translation. (His transcription is very “Russian,” and not just because it is in Cyrillic characters; the original French recordings are very “French” sounding, too, as I mentioned.) Schola Latina has some help for English speakers.
Ernie, this is a wonderful thread, thank you for all the work posting resources and things. But now I’m wondering: have you started ancient Greek yet? I’m about half-way through two textbooks (chapter 10 of Hansen and Quinn and Part two Section Seven of the JACT Reading Greek course) and I’ve also been using the new Assimil Greek course with audio. In any case, as I might have mentioned elsewhere, I’ve found the use of these three texts to be rather wonderful, especially as they tend to complement one another, filling in for the inadequacies of the others.
I started H&Q and worked through the first 6 chapters or so (a lot of memorization and slogging through exercises, but ultimately manageable), before starting JACT. I found that after doing the hard lifting with H&Q, JACT was really a breeze, and it was great to have material to read (something H&Q lacks). Now, after a hundred pages or so of JACT (and continuing H&Q), I can pick up the New Testament, for example, and pick my way through a lot of the gospels and acts (Paul’s Epistles are much more difficult however). I still haven’t really jumped into Xenophon’s Anabasis yet, but it’s on my desk and tantalizing me while I’m going through my third declension paradigms. Finally, somewhere in the middle of the process I picked up the Assimil course with the audio, which added another very useful aspect to my learning process.
If I were only using one text book, I think I would be frustrated: H&Q doesn’t have much to read, JACT doesn’t appear to do the grammar particularly well (too scattershot, as you wrote), and the Assimil is rather difficult for an absolute beginner and doesn’t adequately explain grammatical concepts as I would like them to.
But taken together, they work really well. Plus, using lingq to process the JACT course has been a godsend. Most of the text of the readings can be found here (though there are a fair amount of typos, caveat lector): JACT GreekStudy schedule etc.