Latin

This is a dream come true for teachers, like myself, struggling to keep up with a group of teenagers studying Latin. Quite simply the book devotes one page to each of 501 verbs. Each verb has all of its endings written out completely and includes the four principle parts. Some notes at the bottom of each page offer "compound and related words", "alternate forms", "usage notes", and a model Latin sentence using the word. (These are written by famous authors of old!) The format is very user-friendly and easy to read. The verbs are arranged alphabetically in Latin. The introduction gives a key chart to help figure out the English translation within each of the tenses. The appendices include an Index of verbs arranged alphabetically by the English translation, a verb form locator, a Latin verb index.

This book is a wonderful help for novice Latin teachers struggling to get all the details right. It will also be a very helpful supplement for creating crossword puzzles, doing oral quizzes and simply studying the endings. It may be useful to high school Latin students for similar reasons (those studying elementary school programs like Latina Christiana or Latin is Fun probably won't need this yet.)

I've been teaching Henle I for the past year. When comparing this with the Henle I first conjugation verbs, I found that this covered about 95% of the verbs (although it doesn't include the verbs with a prefix and so, instead of looking up oppugno, you would want to look at pugno.

Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency (Third edition) is a beefy, but easy-to-use supplement for Latin teachers and older Latin students.. Each of the twenty-five chapters tackles a particular subject matter; providing Latin and English conversations on three different difficulty levels and an extensive list of topical vocabulary and related phrases (some chapters also include suggested classroom activities and additional notes).

The chapters are designed so that they need not be done in a particular order so that readers can jump to a topic of particular interest and gain some depth in their Latin studies by practicing pronunciation, memorizing conversational phrases, creating Latin-language skits or just "messing around" with the language a bit. The book includes plenty of ancient terms as well as words for modern ideas and inventions, so you won't have any trouble discussing everything from weather to the Internet during Latin class.

There are some really neat extras as well. The "Days, Weeks, Months and Years" segment gives some fascinating details on the calendar and time-telling used by the Romans. The "Grammar" chapter, which is particularly extensive, gives plenty of content for teachers wishing to conduct their entire Latin classes in Latin. There are also conversational pieces which would be great for memory work (with a question and answer format), for example: "What is a verb?" and "Give examples of a relative pronoun." (This segment, even if studied only in English, makes excellent review work as well.)

The topics covered are as follows: "Greetings:, "Family", "House and Furniture", "Daily Activities", "Sports and Other Leisure Activities", "The Human Body" (like a normal dictionary, proper names for body parts are included) , "Health and Physical Fitness", "Food and Drink", "Days, Weeks, Months, Years", "Expressions of Time", "Useful Colloquial Expressions", "Clothing and Jewelry", "School", "Buying and Selling", "The Weather", "Animals", "Emotions and Qualities", "Trades and Professions", "The City and Public Buildings", "Government", "War and Peace", "Law and Criminal Justice", "Geography and Topography", "Transportation" and "Grammar". Appendices include "Yes and No in Latin", "Colors", "Numbers", "Proverbs and Sayings", "Computer Terms" and a 137 page General Vocabulary arranged English to Latin.

This will make a fun supplement to students in upper grade school or high school who have already studied Latin for a year or two. The words are fairly simple (requiring both English to Latin and Latin to English translations). One feature that makes it quite accessible is a list of words from which to choose the correct word. There are 50 crosswords in all, plus a complete answer key, and a brief introduction to Roman numerals, some common Latin abbreviations in use today and a list of the Latin mottoes of 19 states and the District of Columbia. A nice product at a very reasonable price!

Henle's First Year Latin is the book I studied as a homeschooled high schooler under the care of a great old Jesuit priest who left his position as a Latin and Greek professor at the all-boys Jesuit high school for a few hours each week to teach Latin to a small group of homeschoolers.

This is a very straightforward, but reasonably engaging text that focuses on a vocabulary list that will allow students to begin to read the works of Caesar in the Second Year. The real strength of this text is that it teaches the grammar in a way that provides students with the thinking and learning skills that are the hallmark of the study of Latin. (This is, of course, useful, even if the students don't go on to Henle II.) As a student, I complained a bit about the numerous stories involving soldiers and dead bodies, but I really enjoyed the course and was grateful for the jump-start in Latin before the more intense Latin studied at Thomas Aquinas College.

I like the way the text is broken up into two books - a Grammar book which lays out all the noun and verb endings, grammar rules and other basic stuff that will be useful through all four years of Latin; and the text itself which is much less intimidating when broken up in this fashion.

Overall, compared to other Latin texts I've used, this program seems particularly balanced in not being too overwhelming, but also not holding back on giving you enough of the big picture to make things clear. Also, the vocabulary is presented in an organized and logical fashion. To explain more fully, I quote from the preface: "It is rather common practice in Latin textbooks to set down a limited vocabulary for mastery, but to employ many more words in the reading material. First Year Latin limits its vocabulary for use largely to its vocabulary for mastery, and this vocabulary, incidentally, is drawn largely from the Caesar readings that will be taken in second year." I think this makes for a more useful, user-friendly text, particularly for families who are new to Latin.

Despite the emphasis on Caesar, this is a Catholic text and offers quite a bit of exercises and vocabulary relating to the faith. It would still be beneficial, however, to supplement the text with Latin hymns (from sources such as Lingua Angelica and The Adoremus Hymnal) and prayers.

Laura Berquist has written a syllabus/study guide for the Henle Latin which can be purchased from Emmanuel Books. Seton Home Study offers a Henle Latin course which includes lesson plans and telephone assistance from a Latin teacher. There is also a support-group e-mail list for those studying Henle Latin.