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Wheelock's Latin, 6e

Wheelock's Latin, 6e

List Price: $20.95
Your Price: $13.93
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wheelock for the adult returning to rediscover Latin
Review: I had four years of Latin in high school. As a muture adult, I wanted to revisit that experience with an adult perspective. I am interested in the beautiful literature in the language, as well as the Roman culture and history. Most importantly, I wanted to discern what the best minds in the Roman Empire might teach us in our terrorist (barbarian) infested age. Wheelock is perfect from my perspective. It is actually enjoyable to read and experience. I highly recommend it to any adult wanting a great cultural experience. And oh yes, you can learn the language.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Book, But Needs A Companion
Review: WHEELOCK'S LATIN is clear, well-organized, and brief. There's only a few pictures and not much talk about Roman history, but for those of us who are serious about wanting to learn Ancient Latin, their absence is not sorely missed.

Since the chapters are short (about 5-7 pages in most cases) the book is ideal for self-study. I would add, however, that whether studying in school or on your own, but especially this latter, the addition of a companion guide will prove to be invaluable.

For this, I recommend Grote's COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO WHEELOCK'S LATIN -- a book that offers a little more repetition, fuller grammatical explanations, and is written in a calm, reassuring style. (Another plus is that it, unlike others, has its answer key printed in the back of the book -- so you don't have to wait a few months for your answer sheet if you get one at all.)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Latin on your own?
Review: With a very basic understanding of latin, this book is a useful tool for building skill. It helps to understand fully the grammar of latin or at least grammar in general. I would not give this book to someone with only a marginal understanding of grammar and expect them to teach themself latin.

This is however a great book as latin texts go. I recommend its use by anyone who wants to hone their language skills.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great reference book
Review: While I wouldn't suggest that one try to teach oneself Latin from this text, it provides a great reference to Latin grammar that is better organized than many other textbooks currently in use. Easy to understand, lots of examples... I love it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Gold Standard for Latin Texts
Review: This book has withstood the test of time and, unlike Latin itself, has not died. Along with the Workbook for Wheelock's Latin, it is just what any paying student or self taught needs to learn Latin. Well worth the money. And if you need help along the way there are many web sites with supplemental text to go along with Wheelock. Something you may not find for other texts.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Best that I know of
Review: Wheelock's language is a bit elevated, but he is the best Latin author that I know. I highly suggest this textbook for any college level introduction Latin course.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Save me from Wheelock and his infernal book
Review: Wheelock has made me a bitter, spiteful person.

So I took Latin and high-school, and I did well but retained nothing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not jumping pews to progess the gospel that I was a good student then and that it wasn't my fault. But when your teacher is a year or two from retirement, she tends to do as much slacking off in a week as any 17 year old kid would in the same amount of time, something I was greatful for then but resentful of now that I need what I forgot. Seriously, Kathy, how much good did playing Scrabble for an hour everyday IN ENGLISH really do us then in Latin 101? And how is it supposed to help me now, two years later, lost in beginning Latin, a sophomore in college??

I was forced into taking a language, I didn't expect to enjoy it, and most importantly, I didn't expect to remember anything from previuos experience - so I opted to start from the beginning in order to fill my requirements. But i truly didn't expect to have such a hard time. I suspected it might be a little vague, but I had no idea what I was in for. And I am still paying for it.

And to the root of it - the problem is Wheelock - our class bible. The process of learning Latin is in no way benefited by this shabbily laid out, and completely underthought textbook. Each chapter presents a new concept - fine, I can deal with that, that makes perfect holy sense. But its the way that the glossary is compacted, the charts so shrunken and smashed together as if they are only footnotes. Visually, it seems as if most of the text is insignificant, but trust me, its not - every single sentence and abbreviated word is chock full of importance, and most often chock full of opportunity to get completely and utterly lost again. It rarely makes sense, or provides the standard opporitunity to catch up when feeling lost. You can spend hours just looking for one rare declension of "id" or another word for "therefore, however, or moreover" that wasn't in the glossary, which one would think the most obvious place to find things of that nature. But guess again, it seems as if Mr. Wheelock was trying to make his glossary as short and useless as possible. Great plan, friend.

The absolute most frustrating part about this textbook, the thing that drives me to the point in which I would waste time warning others of its danger, the straw that breaks my back EVERY SINGLE TIME I do homework, is the wretched practice sentences. Of course they are assigned as homework - I know that there is no way to learn a language other than practicepracticepractice, but these sentences do not offer practice, they offer torture. It seems to me virtually impossible to learn Latin when you don't even understand the sentences in English. Once translated, these sentences are more confusing than they were in a dead language. Horrible. I don't know who was in charge of putting together these concoctions of pain and suffering, but they need to seriuosly reconsider their present occupation. I hardly ever complete my homework beyond finding the English meaning of the words within the sentences - I find it almost impossible to complete an entire assignment by arranging all groups of said words into their respective comprehensible units. How am I to know that I am successful when I can't figure out what in the name of Caesar Augustus the short passage is supposed to mean? Even my professor looks at us with baffled face at least 5 to 6 times during a class, which makes for a bad ratio when you only did nine sentences for homework. These things are poorly, poorly constructed, and have totally inhibited my learning of this language, and consequently lowered my GPA. And for this I am bitter, and am driven to warn others of the difficult time I have had with it.

So, if you are beginning Latin and you have been assigned to buy this dreadful excuse for a learning tool, the only advice I can offer is to use the back of the book, where there are simple, easy to understand sentences for review, coupled with their translations - a novel idea for the bunch of thoughtless monkeys who put together the rest of this book. And, if you are a teacher, looking for a textbook to use, look elsewhere. Please.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Still using it!
Review: When my professor assigned us this book for first-year Latin I groaned -- no pictures! That was back in 1992, and I'm still using the darn thing. In my 8 years of study I have used many books, but this one has been my constant companion, and I feel that I passed a graduate test in Latin because of it. For self-study this book is invaluable. The lessons are thorough and you can grade yourself with the self-tutorial exercises and answer key -- a definite plus to this book is that it has an answer key so you can see how you are doing. There is also ample reading material, some of it altered for the beginner, some of it unaltered so you can test your wits.

In short, I must grudgingly admit that this is the best book I have used, all around. I gave it four stars because it lacks pictures, myths, cultural tidbits, etc. But there are other books that have these things; for grammar, syntax, etymology, all the mechanics of Latin, you can't beat it. I highly recommend it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Concise, Lucid, Masterful
Review: Having read the indictments made on this site by a graduate student bemoaning the fate this book dooms first year latin students to, I have only one argument: I am a first year Latin student, and this is the best language instruction book I've ever experienced. Wheelock's book does not coddle the weak or whimsical student of languages, but instead caters to those questions a serious linguist, or aspiring one with little time on her hands, needs answered quickly. It offers no conversational rhetoric one would find in an introduction to any modern language. It is a nuts and bolts looks at how the Latin tongue worked, and how one can apply it. If this approach were applied to all languages from the inception of their instruction, we would find the world filled with far fewer people cursed to speak what the old adage dubs "bad high school french". If you want to learn latin in a way that is concise and respectful, this is for you. If you have felt insulted by picking up language guides with the hopes of learning grammar and instead have been confronted with restaurant etiquette in swahili, this book is for you. If you want to learn how to describe your dog and order a hotel room, keep looking.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not for the uninitiated.
Review: As a graduate student teaching out of Wheelock, I have this to say about it:

It should not be used as an introductory text. Wheelock is great for people who know Latin and want to review; for first-year students, it's a nightmare. No continuous narrative, ridiculously complicated and high-handed sentences, poorly constructed lesson-plans, and numerous examples of the insertion of difficult grammar points into lessons when they do not appear in the text for several (sometimes as many as a dozen) chapters.

I recommend the Oxford Latin series for intro students--it may seem childish, but it's organized in a fashion considerably kinder to the student.

2 out of 5, since it may be used as a self-study review.


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