Getting Started with Latin: Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age

I have almost eight years of formal Latin study, and of all the textbooks I've encountered, I can say with confidence that this is the best for young beginner Latin students. I know because this has proven to be the case with my 9-year-old, who started on this book about a year ago and is about to finish it up. Let me preface this by saying that as an 8-year-old (in third grade), her English reading skills were not stellar. But when I felt she was old enough to sound out the Latin words (we use ecclesiastical pronunciation), we started on this book and I've been continuously astounded at how well my daughter retains the lessons learned here. The book is structured very prudently. It doesn't slam you with tough grammar lessons one-after-another, as is common with many first year Latin books. It builds slowly and incrementally, giving 10 sentences to translate at the end of every lesson in order to strengthen the lesson just learned and to review past lessons. How quickly you want to go through the lessons will obviously depend on the student. My daughter is a bit of a slow learner, so we typically do two to three lessons per week. We'll start by quickly reviewing the last five lessons or so (which takes less than five minutes), and maybe do a quick review of conjugations/declensions. Then we move on to the new lesson, read over the new concept or vocabulary, and then translate the sentences. Sometimes we translate all 10, but if I feel that she's being overwhelmed or is just mentally fatigued, we'll do five sentences and then the rest later. To translate, I have her first read the Latin sentence aloud, and I'll ask her to try to think about the meaning of each word as she reads. The book recommends that the student first identify the main verb of the sentence before attempting to do anything with the nouns, and I agree with this translation strategy. My daughter has gotten to the point where she will read the sentence in Latin and then translate it in her head before giving me her translation. Everything we do is oral. We hardly ever do written work. The beauty of this book is that it builds up the confidence of the student, because the ten review sentences every lesson are not very difficult, yet they still give the student enough of a challenge that they feel a real sense of accomplishment when they get it right. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to teach Latin to a child of elementary school age. While we started my daughter at age 8, I think this could be started much younger as long as the student has strong reading skills. UPDATE: The author has made several updates to his website, which can be used both as a supplement to this book as well as a continuation, as he has a follow-up course that takes on more advanced elements of Latin. http://www.linneyslatinclass.com/index.php

I’m not quite a “beginner” with Latin since I took it for three years during high school. That set me up for great success in being able to excel at medical and scientific terminology in college and my subsequent careers. How this book came to be in my life…learning is a hobby for me and I realized Latin was something I’ve always loved, but had dropped the ball on over the course of my life. I remembered the “old school” Wheelock’s textbooks and wasn’t quite ready for that level of learning again and came across this lovely book. I figured it would be a great refresher for me and it was! For adults: It’s easy to follow along with and you really don’t need outside clarification (like, you’re not going to have to google what words mean, etc.) It’s time efficient—no endless hours spent translating various declensions of the same word. I personally aim for one lesson a day, sometimes I’ll do two. I finished this book in about 3 months. I’m now moving on to the second book by this author before I pick up Wheelock’s again. If you’re a complete beginner…start with this book! It will save you loads of frustration. Once you get through this book and the second, you’ll be well set up for moving on to the harder textbooks. For kids: As a mom, I was analyzing this book for my own kids if they showed an interest in it. I think it would be a great introductory book for them (aged 16, 11, and 5.) The older two could definitely do these exercises and understand the concepts on their own. The younger one would need help for sure, but I think even she could learn the basic vocabulary with assistance. The author has utilized a well thought out learning format that builds upon itself. It’s easy to figure out “what went wrong” if someone is struggling with a particular translation. Overall, excellent book! Looking back on my high school years, I wish this book had been available then and utilized in our first year. I’ve started the second book and I suspect I’ll love it too. If these books had been available in our first year, I think Latin would’ve held more interest for most students. It would’ve been a fantastic way to “ease” into Latin as teenager instead of just doing rote memorization. No regrets on buying this. You won’t regret it either!

This book was made primarily for homeschoolers and for self-study. Linney does a great job at keeping things simple and proceeds logically and methodically throughout the book. He also provides free sound files online to help guide pronunciation, thus helping self-studiers gain an ear for the language. If you have never tried to learn an language before, and if you have no idea what the nominative, accusative, dative, or genitive cases are, then this is the right book for you. If you've already had some Latin, then this book will probably be too simple unless you really suck at grammar.

Like any new language skills it is important to get the basics right. Also to get pronunciation guides through access to the audio lessons and other guides I found very helpful. I would recommend this book as a good place to start exploring Latin as a language.

El método es fantástico, puedes hacer cada unidad en 5-10 min e irte con la sensación de haber avanzado sin tener en ningún momento la de haberte roto la cabeza. Yo hacía 2 ó 3 al día antes de dormirme (y otras días un pequeño repaso en su lugar), usando la función marcapáginas del Kindle con las cosas fundamentales para poder reencontrarlas fácilmente. ¡Y antes de darme cuenta habia llegado al final! Eso sí, las explicaciones y frases a traducir son en inglés, pero no son muy técnicas y los nombres de las declinaciones son casi iguales que en castellano, ¡ya que proceden todos del propio latín! Y las palabras introducidas son básicas (hombre, mujer, ciudad, orilla, tener, poder, dar...). Por cierto la que escribe esto es una persona de mediana edad, no una joven, con lo cual creo que este libro vale para todas las edades 😉

William E. Linney is a Genius with didactic he knows how to convert complex things into something easy to understand and makes the brain of the autodidact student operate like a computer relactiong not only the English with the Latin, but making the student have an understanding of the matter that is far superior to the understanding that app DUOLINGO can make, and I used both, so I can make this statement. It's hard to find a linguist and a teacher gifted like this author. I did not completed yet the book, I am with 59% completed, but I am anxious to complete and start the continuation in the other book. I have a real pleasure to learn with this author. My advice is to learn all languages he teaches, that are the Latin, Greek, French, German and Spanish. All I knew from syntax analysis were a misconception and William E, Linney clarified in a perfect and indelible way. I wish I could thanks personally the author, because he is the language teacher for autodidact students.

The author of this book has invested a considerable amount of his own time in providing a set of free resources to help people learn Latin. The free course looks quite good, but it is not exactly beginner material. So, as the author suggests, I went back to his book with the intention of returning to the free materials later. I started using the sample Kindle edition of this book and absolutely flew through the lessons in no time, without any frustration. I bought the Kindle edition and I'm still flying through the lessons. In fact, they are so easy that I decided to squeeze out every drop of information by writing all my answers in Latin and in English, and by reading aloud all of the questions and answers. About 30 years ago, I taught myself Italian from the book "La Lingua Italiana Per Stranieri" (The Italian Language for Foreigners). The teaching style is very similar to that used in "Getting Started with Latin". I was speaking Italian comfortably after about three months, and I now speak Italian fluently. I don't expect to become fluent in Latin, but the knowledge I gain from this book will definitely improve my understanding of other languages. I'm also looking forward to reading classics in Latin. Highly Recommended!