I've decided it's time for me to learn Latin.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

It's Umberto Eco's fault.

 

Anyway, what is the best way to self teach Latin? I'm a workbook person or I at least need lots of practice for retention. But I don't want something dumbed down, and I want to be able to work quickly. I need lots of clear explanations, not a book that will assume I know something that it hasn't taught.

 

I did Latina Christiana 1 and 2 with my oldest son, but none of it stuck in my head. I do have a background with Spanish and Italian, so I'm assuming that will be somewhat helpful.

 

Any recommendations? Thanks!

[MamaT]

I'm about to do the same thing myself. My two older boys passed me pretty quickly, but were self motivators and went through the end of Wheelock's Latin by themselves.

 

My third son is not so self-motivated, so I know I'm going to have to stay ahead of him. I'm going to start in Wheelock's the first of June, he'll start the first of August. So, my plan is stay that far ahead of him so that I can help him.

[forty-two]

I'm working on learning Latin - my goal is to be able to read original texts and to be able to use a lot of spoken Latin to teach my dds (I have a long way to go :tongue_smilie:). I'm not a workbook person, so I've been primarily using reading methods, but I do need lots of repetition. However, I also need variety - I can only read the same story so many times (and I hate flashcards) - so I've compensated by using several books.

 

At the moment I'm using Lingua Latina, the Cambridge Latin Course, and Latin for Reading as my main texts. LfR is for explicit grammar, LL is "hard" reading, and CLC is "easy" reading (much slower introduction of grammar than LL). I've also got Ecce Romani and some oop books for extra reading, plus Wheelock's just in case (from dh's college days). Not to mention the many, many texts and readers downloaded from Google books. I try to do some Latin every day, using whichever book interests me at the time. Yeah, it's overkill :tongue_smilie:- any one of the courses would stand alone - but it allows me to get in the necessary practice while keeping things interesting.