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

by William E. Linney

What's preventing you from teaching Latin in your homeschool or learning it on your own? If you're intimidated because you've never studied Latin, bewildered by traditional Latin books that move too fast, or just don't know where to begin, then Getting Started with Latin is for you! Specifically designed to overcome these types of obstacles, Getting Started with Latin is divided into simple lessons that explain the fundamentals of Latin grammar in a way that anyone can grasp. Instead of burying you in mountains of information to memorize, new words and concepts are introduced in a gradual and systematic way. You can immediately apply what you've learned by translating the fun exercises at the end of each lesson. Quickly check your work by turning to the included answer key. To hear the words pronounced, simply download the free recordings from www.GettingStartedWithLatin.com. For additional help and instruction, the author has provided extensive audio commentary recordings that teach through every lesson and exercise in the book. With everything you need here in one book, why aren't you Getting Started with Latin?

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Reference, Education, Linguistics, Classics, School

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Roy Lotz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently made my way through the first volume of Susskind’s Theoretical Minimum series, and it now occurs to me that, what Susskind did with classical physics, so did Linney with Latin. By that I mean that Linney is not attempting to write a textbook, but is, instead, trying to give the student the fundamentals of the subject. Thus, this book is anything but exhaustive; rather, it is meant as a sort of primer for a more serious textbook.

In this, Linney succeeds admirably. He manages to make learning Latin quite effortless; indeed, my only complaint is that he made the subject perhaps too easy. His method is simple, but effective. He quite literally teaches Latin one word at a time; after each word is defined, he gives the student ten sentences to translate. Therefore, the ratio of practice to material is quite high; the reader is constantly building her translation skills, and with surprising ease. The grammar is just as gradually introduced, adding case upon case, gender upon gender, until, by the end, some respectable sentences are being translated.

Speaking for myself, this book was exactly what I wanted: a painless taste of the Latin language. Being totally ignorant of a language which was formerly so central to Western education bothered me; I wanted to sample at least the flavor of this ancient tongue. It is, indeed, from what I can tell, an interesting language; Latin grammar puts even German case agreement to shame for subtlety. Also interesting was learning many words that, through the involutions of linguistic borrowing, have made their way to my own language. Even so, I’m yet unsure whether I’ll continue pursuing this language. I’m not fond enough of Latin literature to make it seem worthwhile; what’s more, I wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere and speak it with natives.

So, if you, like me, want to get a taste for Latin without working too hard, this book is perfect. Also, if you wish to teach your children Latin, I can’t think of a better book with which to start: the lessons are short enough to sustain interest, and the constant translation exercises keep you engaged. To be sure, this book is only a beginning for the aspiring Latin reader; but it is a very pleasant beginning.

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

My goal at some point is to master Latin, Greek, and possibly, Hebrew. While I already have some acquaintance with the latter two, digging into Latin is a new endeavor. I certainly haven't mastered Greek yet, even though I've accumulated some knowledge of it over the years. I can read the language, but my grammatical and lexical knowledge is still very limited. While a big part of me really wanted to concentrate on mastering Greek, I have decided to forgo that for Latin. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) mastering Latin will open up new and vast avenues of Western knowledge for me - while Greek can also do this, Latin might have an edge because of the amount of countries that used this language in the West for centuries. 2) English has a considerable amount of Latin already in it, ultimately making Latin more accessible. Also, I already have a handful of books in my library that are exclusively in Latin and I would really like to be able read those.

With all of the above as a preamble, I decided to purchase some books to get me started with Latin. I started with this one simply because it looked appropriate. I have absolutely no complaints about it at all. If me going with 4 stars instead of 5 is a sign of anything, it is only that I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to weigh all of the defects or merits of the book. I could even change my rating after some time being engaged in these studies. I can only say that the book is very readable and allows the knowledge it offers to be retained fairly effortlessly. At no point is it overwhelming; if anything, some might complain that it is underwhelming. It focuses more on learning some basic grammar and vocabulary. Having no expectations, except that I wanted to get started with Latin in a suitable way, the book seems to have been as good a place as any to do that, and it really didn't disappoint. I think that the preceding could be used as a recommendation.

[Rick Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Great book for beginners, I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in Latin.
As I was trying to translate, I felt as if I am solving a puzzle trying to connect the words.

I want to do the exercises again.

Deus Vult!
Deo Gloria!

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic introduction to beginning-Latin.

[Dawn Axelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So grateful for this book. I had stalled out on Latin for a very long time. This workbook gave me a foothold by slowing the pace and explaining things one little bit at a time. At the same time that I went through Getting Started With Latin, I went back through the lessons that were giving me fits, and I found them much more doable.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't really expecting to like this, especially after seeing the first couple of lessons. How can you "dumb down" Latin? But after looking through all the lessons, I've decided this is a fairly OK beginning. I was worried that the different declensions/conjugations weren't going to be mentioned, therefore leading to a student THINKING he knows Latin, only to discover that he has NO idea about, say, fifth-declension nouns or the delightful third-IO verbs. :-) But around lesson 100 the concepts of declensions and conjugations are introduced. This is a fairly slow start, and most students are DEFINITELY wanting to go farther than this. I have used Latin in the Christian Trivium plus various other books with my older sons for years, and my third son is just not yet ready. I can possibly use this as a gentler intro until he is ready to start Latin in the Christian Trivium.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Latin text for beginners. Excellent explanations of the grammar. I use this book with my children in 1st and 2nd grade, but it can really be used by anyone learning Latin.

[Mary K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my latest effort to effortlessly learn Latin with our homeschooler. On the list of things to do, he's choosing it after history but before math.

[Michael Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good book. It gives 99 words, spaced out well enough, and structured in such a way that learning about declensions and word order, and conjunctions, comes out quite naturally. The title, though, is perfect for it - this is a great way to get started, and learn some of these grammar rules in a way that can very easily appeal to almost anyone. And also, there are little breaks just to tell you cool little facts and interesting little bits of information showing how much latin we still use today.

It would be very hard, I think, to criticize this book, given both the ease of use and the quality of the grammar explanations (you can very easily learn a respectable amount of English grammar from this book too) and the level this book is aimed at. Again, the intended audience is in the title, it's for basically anyone of any age to pick up and get started. Although, I think it would be wise for any older person teaching themselves from this book, it will also be extremely wise and helpful to have google nearby or a copy of 'Rediscover Grammar' by David Crystal nearby - because any young child whose parent is using this book to teach grammar at him to them will presumably be very comfortable with what direct objects, subjects, possessives, conjunctions, articles, and so on are - imagine someone in their late 60s trying to learn latin from this book coming across such words for the first time in a long time will have to do a little bit of extra work on top of the work this book gives. The usual argument here is, of course, that if such a person were learning Latin they would be prepared to do that extra work, but a little extra explanation, a few more more English grammar lessons, or a short glossary of the grammar terms used in the book certainly would not hurt.

That is the only thing that might be suggested to improve this book, honestly it is excellent. As said before, the grammar and explanations are excellent, and are so very easy to understand. That is, except the use of the ablative case - but I've since come to understand that this case is difficult to understand without a lot of experience with the latin language, and on the whole quite difficult to explain anyway.

Considering this book is aimed at such a wide range of people - from children to adults wanting to learn Latin by themselves, this book is also remarkably pleasant-toned. At no point, as an adult reading this book, did I fell condescended to in any way, and nor did at any point I come across a page that I thought might be too complicated for a clever child. Every journey through this book will be different. Someone who is used to pushing themselves with learning a new language could potentially go through this book in a single day, although I think to feel completely comfortable with their new knowledge, they would have to have an amazingly good memory. Going through this book a lesson per day - or two lessons per day might, for most people, be recommended.

How I personally went through this was to write down how I translated each sentence exercise into a notebook, check to see if I was right at the back, and then write the Latin sentence while saying it aloud so I could remember it better. I also had this weird habit of imagining this peaceful, agrarian society where the people who lived there could only use the Latin I knew. Doing this might sound strange to many, but I honestly found it quite helpful to do.

If you are interested in learning Latin but do not know where to start, this book is highly recommended. But it should be thought of as a primer - a way to learn about the basics before moving onto books that are more in depth and advanced. However, this book, would not then become useless. It's a very good book, one I think anyone interested in Latin should have, and keep within reaching distance.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

After using a couple different programs throughout the years to teach introductory Latin, with very little success or retention for both me and whichever child was going through it, I decided to give this book a go. I was happily surprised to find that this seemingly simple book not only taught us Latin vocabulary but had us translating simple sentences very early on. I liked that the lessons were short (very Charlottes Mason inspired), and I found the pace to be about right for us, though we did back up and review a few times. By the end, I was starting to get a better understanding of the declensions and conjugations taught and how it all fits together. Is it as thorough as some of the other programs - no - but in my homeschool I prefer the lessons well learned and retained over the more intensive that is soon forgotten!

[Xia Rongxin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and easy to start with. Friendly book for beginners.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great introduction for those who want to learn the Latin Language for the FIRST TIME. What I don't like about the book is that the questions are repetitive. All the exercises provided are so tedious that you only have to translate from Latin to English and not vice versa. This is not obviously not a great book on learning Latin. You learn a lot of vocabulary and sentence cases but only very little. I'd recommend Lingua Latina or Wheelock's for those of you who are serious on learning Latin.

[Tarek Shehata · Rating 5 out of 5]

افضل من Wheelock's Latin بكتير لو حد لسة بيبدأ مع اللغة.

طريقة التدرج في عرض اساسيات اللغة محترفة جدا.

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has really helped us in our study of Latin.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 3 out of 5]

While largely good from a grammatical-translation perspective, and containing well-explained and accessible grammatical principles, and even with its delightful "Latin Expressions" sections appended to many of the lessons, there are some rather deep flaws present in this book as a learning tool.

1) All translation is out of Latin into English. There is nothing that actually requires one to think in Latin, in the sense of language production.
2) The conjugation and declension charts, which could have easily been placed at the bottom of every page (there is a lot of empty space floating around beneath the exercises), are instead every few pages, which can be a bit bothersome at times.
3) There are too many repetitious exercises recycled from previous lessons; there are many more permutations of words that could have been used to challenge the learner further.
4) There are no texts to be read, which, in conjunction with the lack of translation into Latin, makes the book rather one-sided and ineffectual in terms of what one can actually do in Latin, even at the end of the book. One can perhaps read, but only in short fragmentary sentences with rather uninspired relationships between subjects, direct/indirect objects, and adjectival descriptors.
5) The book does not list infinitive verbs.

Perhaps I am being a bit unfair to the book, but its subtitle does declare that it is appropriate for self-taught students of any age; and while I did get a good feeling of the oceanic depths to which I could sink in learning Latin, I don't feel as though the amount of time I spent on this book was the most efficacious use of time for a beginner in Latin. In short, then, it was slightly positive on the whole, but not without some serious drawbacks.

Per aspera ad astra.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was using this as a refresher; I have studied Latin before, but found this book much less intimidating - and easier to get on with - than conventional Latin textbooks that throw a long page of vocabulary at you all at once. This book literally goes word by word, giving you plenty of time and practice with the new word before moving on to the next one. Grammatical concepts are introduced by checking that you understand that concept in English first, e.g. that you know the difference between a direct and indirect object, before moving on to the Latin version.

This gradual approach means that the tables of noun declensions and verb forms are filled in bit by bit and are not so scary. You also only deal with first and second declension nouns in this book, and first and second conjugation verbs, so there's nothing too complex introduced. By the time you get to the adjective tables in the final lessons, the tables are not so scary - and are actually easy if you've been practicing the noun forms and learning the endings.

You get plenty of opportunity to practice words and concepts with the exercises - and answers are provided at the back. There is also a vocabulary list and tips on pronunciation that cater for both those who want to try and sound like an ancient Roman, as well as those learning Latin for use in a religious setting.

I've been doing 3 lessons per day, working through it steadily and have really enjoyed this book. I also now feel confident enough to move on to something a little more advanced. I believe there is a follow-up book by the same author, so I'm going to try and find myself a copy of that.

[Kathleen Garber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking to learn Latin? If you are looking for an easy way to learn Latin this book, and it’s sequel Keep Going with Latin are a great place to start. It’s simple layout will have you building on itself, word by word and sentence by sentence.

The book starts off with tips on using the book including how the book is laid out, how to get help with pronunciation, how to make test and quizzers and how long to study each day.

The lessons start out really simple and your child (or you!) can start out doing more than one lesson per day. For example lesson one is how to say sailor. Lesson two is a grammar note. Lesson three is how to say I am. Lesson four is how to put the first few lessons together. Starting Lesson three the book includes exercises. These start out very simple. For example lesson five you’ve now learned how to say sailor, I am and I as well as proper word order. So lesson five’s exercises include: translating the Latin to English for small sentences such as I am, I am a Sailor, and it’s many variations.

Later lessons are longer and you may want to do one lesson at a time. There are 134 lessons in this book. There are of course more in the sequel as mentioned above.

In this book common Latin expressions are also included such as Carpe Diem, Summa Cum Laude and Ex Libris.

We are really excited to learn Latin here. I will probably do the lessons as well as my teenage daughter so we can practice together.

I received a copy of this in exchange for an honest review

[Kacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted a quick and accessible broad overview of how basic Latin functions, and this helped meet that end. The book consists of 134 lessons with some interludes mixed in explaining some Latin expressions in use today. Each lesson has a vocab word or grammatical point and contains 10 exercises for translation.

I did the translation work for the first oh, 10% of lessons, then decided I wanted to just read through it first because again, I wanted that big-picture overview. You'd need to make your own flashcards or means of review to be able to do the translation work.

You'll learn about present tense forms of verbs, five cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative), infinitives, direct and indirect objects, noun declensions, and a few adjectives.

This book only scratches the surface, however I do think it can provide a reasonable entry foundation before digging in with a more intensive Latin course.

I would recommend this book for older students or adults who are already familiar with basic English grammar, as I think it would make the book more accessible.

[Roderic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well-paced and interesting, loved it

This was my first book on Latin after never having taken it as a class before. I started Duolingo on the same day to provide a different teaching method and vocabulary. I did a little bit daily, completing this book and keeping my Duolingo streak alive for a month. I’m going to keep it going and now go to Wheelock’s Latin. I’m just doing this for fun and I love to learn and always loved Latin. This book did such a good job in the time and space allotted for an inquisitive person to get a good look at beginning to learn Latin. I’m so glad I read this book.

[Tim R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've tried to get into studying Latin several times, and I've had just as many false starts. This book is clear and easy to use. It doesn't introduce too many concepts at once, and this has worked well for me. I think this book is perfect if you're a self-paced learner who's interested in studying an ancient language that's had a huge impact on western thought. I've already purchased the followup book by this author, and look forward to getting into it. Best of luck to everyone trying to learn something new.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

For its purpose, a basic introduction to Latin, I found this to be a very helpful volume. If you actually want to read Latin you'll definitely need to go beyond this book, because it doesn't take you very far. I'll be using John Collins' Ecclesiastical Latin textbook next, but I think this gave me a good start. This would also make a great homeschool text.

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good start.

This book is exactly what it claims to be, a beginner’s guide to studying Latin. The layout is straightforward and easy to follow. The lessons build on each other, and the audio files (included with the kindle version) are a big help. My one big complaint is the author recommends no specific resources on how one should continue to study Latin.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is a great choice for a parent to learn alongside child learning Latin. It builds slowly but both my children retain what they learn in this book, even if we set it aside during long breaks. It seems to have been an excellent preparation for my daughter to now do Linney's Latin Class on her own.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slow, approachable method to learn Latin. I would recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn Latin but has never studied a foreign language or English grammar in depth. The only drawback is that the book does not cover all of Latin grammar. But I understand why. If it did, while using the method this book uses, the book would be huge.

[Donna Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

People who study language acquisition say that you have to read about 10 thousand sentences in the target language (even short simple sentences) in order to become proficient. This book got me 1,340 sentences along on the journey.

[reader11]

I studied Latin in highschool and have decided to pick it up in my free time once again, I find it way better and comprehensible than the one we studied from even though English isn't my first language

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kids have really learned a lot (and reviewed a lot) of Latin grammar using this book - almost every lesson introduces just one new vocabulary word and grammar is introduced from there. Highly recommended as a way to "ease" into Latin!

[Miss Dinosaur · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantastic

is easy to understand and teaches the basics of the latin language in an non-intimidating way. a book i will recommend to others.

[Scott Guillory · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to the language.

[Andy]

DNF. Stopped book learning Latin sometime in Jan 2020.