Wheelock's Latin, 7th Edition (The Wheelock's Latin Series)

I am a retired physician, and have been spending about 2-3 hours a day for the last 9 months on Latin. I am going into chapter 28 (of 40). Love it.1. I read the chapter in Wheelock.2 I do all the chapter exercises in the back of the book. The answer key is in the book.3. I do all the exercises in the chapter itself. The answer key is downloadable to a device (but cannot, I think, be printed)4. I do all the exercises in the Workbook. key--same as 3.5. I then read and do all the exercises in the appropriate chapter for Scribblers, Sculptors and Scribes. Somewhere along the way I read the story from 38 Latin Stories.I also started the Lingua Latina Familia Romana about 4 months ago, and am on Chapter 22 (of 35) The way my mind works, I would have been very frustrated to just use that--I want to KNOW things thoroughly. But I find LLPI superb as --raw reading material-- as in, reading it for an hour while walking on the treadmill. I read every chapter multiple times, getting something from them each time. The Companion to Lingua Latina is also useful The subtle difference in grammatical emphasis, to me, is enlightening.I have also benefited from having a Cassell dictionary, and punching searches into Wiktionary--the Wiktionary is great for looking up words in such a highly inflected language.In Wheelock's books, the Inscriptions, Poems (Martial is LOL good), Cicero, Virgil, and the Proverba and Dicta, Sententiae Antiquae, are my "candy"--the pay-off for the grunt work. Originally my goal was to eventually read Caesar's Conquest of Gaul in the original. But all the authors I am being exposed to have broadened my scope of interest--and it feels as though the keys to Western Civilization thought have been handed to me.Yes, like others, my volume is now shredded from use--I am ordering another copy right now. I don't think the kindle edition would work for me.(update, February 2019. I am on chapter 38. Still love it. Started LLPSI Pars II--Roma Aeterna, and, to me, the two work together well. Suggest also getting the companions for that series, and watching the chapter talks on the LLPSI web site. Because of the ornate sentence structure, I actually find the learning curve steeper with that set of books--but, again, that supplements Wheelck.)

If I can give this book 6 Stars, I would. It's obviously very well laid out, has a ton of great content, and I love the extra mile of giving historical background and the like. It's much more than I expected from a scholarly Latin text book. It's no wonder that it is so popular. I blew me away that I got this hardback textbook for like only $18. To me that was unbelievable. If you are interested in learning Latin, this is your book.The important terms are in bold, there are footnotes to give extra detail, and there are several appendices towards the end of the book. Do not skip the introduction, as it includes instructions on how to pronounce the vowels, diphthongs, and consonants and also gives interesting background in history on the development of book. I'm an adult learner, so I really appreciate the effort that was taken to explain some of the grammatical concepts, having been out of school for quite a while. There are many examples of key Concepts being presented in Table Fashion which I really like because I'm a visual learner. Don't get me wrong, you will still need to do your due diligence and do things like create index cards for vocabulary words so you can drill yourself. In other words, you are not going to learn Latin by osmosis. It's hard work, but well worth the effort.Well, flipping through the book while doing this review I just realized there's a self tutorial exercise section. I will definitely be using that. There are also supplementary reading and vocabulary lists after the last chapter. In fact, I just realized this book actually goes on for another 200 Pages after the last chapter which is chapter 40. Chapter 40 ends on page 350. Loci start on page 351 and ends on 411. Then there's a self tutorial section; a key to tutorial exercises; appendices; a vocabulary section, both from English to Latin and Latin to English; a section on abbreviations; a very detailed index; and more. If you're concerned about supporting materials, don't worry. I know this is just a review for the book, but there are available to you an associated workbook, reader, audio CDs, website, and more. I've also discovered that there's a fairly large community that uses Wheelock Latin materials and there are mobile apps and other websites regarding Wheelock Latin.I consider myself somewhat of a slow learner regarding language, but I am very pleased with the learning materials and have already started reading and comprehending small sentences after only two weeks. I'm also finding that this is helping me immensely in understanding Spanish which I am also in the process of learning. That is of course because Latin is the parent language for Spanish.I could go on and on about this book and the whole series of materials available, but I have other things I need to get done today. I should say, that I'm rarely this motivated to write a long review, but with this exceptional book I felt it merited an effort consummate with the effort they made in creating the book.

I've always wanted to learn Latin, but it was no longer offered in my school system by the time I got to high school. I was a math/physics major in college and took French and German instead. That was many years ago, and now that I'm older and have some free time, I decided to learn Latin on my own (Only after doing so, did I find out that there apparently is a global movement of self studying Latin learners that has arisen in the last several years). I've looked at several introductory Latin books, and have even even bought a few of them. Wheelock is by far the most comprehensive. While this is the best choice for those who are serious independent Latin learners, it would not be a good first choice for those who haven't studied any Indo-European language other than English (I've studied five others, including three Romance languages) and/or have a knowledge of English vocabulary at a fairly advanced level. A college course in linguistics would also be helpful background, as well (I have not taken one, but wish I had). If you don't have an extensive language study history, and you are learning on your own, start off with a simpler book or books, and THEN go to Wheelock. Once you are done with this book, you'll know an amazing amount of Latin (and as a bonus, your understanding of English wil increase significantly too).

The map of the Roman Empire is wrong! Britannia is excluded, as if it has no right be there! The order of inflections is upset unnecessarily, the genitive out of place, merely to upstage British versions. It is as if the USA is the prime place, despite being six centuries behind Oxford. That is an appalling thing to do! Besides, many of the best texts refer to Britannia, Julius Caesar for one, Tacitus et al. The Americans depended on us to teach them Latin and now act as if they did it alone. It is a typical US move to steal the credit for things.That said, the book is very clear (pompous, self important, but clear). God Forbid that it ever became a factor in British schools and colleges.

Frankly, If you want to learn latin but dont have time (or the money) to visit some school or class and just want to do it wherever you choose. Get this book.Now first of all; this isnt an easy read. Its latin. A dead language from a people long since dead of over 1500 years ago. So if anyone expects to read it without writing anything down and come out the other side knowing latin then you are sadly mistaken. However, if you sit down, focus and crack your mind into this book you will learn latin words and not just latin words but the tenses (Tempus) and the Persons (Persona) and all sorts of things beyond the Vobavla (Im sure you can work out that one). Its a real deep read. Its a real rewarding read for those dedicated to learning latin. It even has a Dictionary at the back which works both ways: English to Latin and Latin to English. You learn latin from the words of the great roman poets and statesmen themselves in the form of deciphering their work.You will also learn the heritage of languages such as English and French and the direct child of latin itself, Italian. For instance, I had no idea there was a kind of Indo-European language which was the parent of Latin and other Ancient Languages around Europe and Asia. So Perhaps we all spoke one language once. Latin teaches you alot and broadens your mind so much.If you really really reallllly want to learn latin. Get. This. Book. I cannot recommend it enough. Why havent you bought it yet?

This old traditional style textbook is not to everyone's taste but is great for a brush-up for people who once studied Latin but have forgotten a lot of it. The jokes can be a little excruciating at times, but there is excellent philological information contained within, along with lots of interesting material of Roman history and culture. The book concludes with many passages from ancient authors, especially Cicero, Catullus and Martial, and the reproductions of wall graffiti from Pompeii are an added bonus.

Great book to learn Latin from.I found that the workload of the chapters is a little too inconsistent for my liking; for example you get a few chapters where you hardly learn anything new besides vocab, and then you get a really ugly, hard one like the subjunctive chapter, where you have to learn a billion tables (not literally). Besides this the book is fun, interactive and easy to even teach yourself from.

HIC LIBER PRAECLARUS ESTA brilliant grammar based approach to learning the ancient language. It is a well thought-out book, patience and hard work are required but are rewarded. I am an adult learner and enjoy this approach, but I am not sure if many children would enjoy learning in the manner that Wheelock takes. But for patient adults I would definitely recommend.