Latin: An Intensive Course

Rating:
Summary: Latin? Quickly? You can't beat this . . .
Review: I have now completed my fourth reading of this very excellent work by Moreland and Fleischer. While it may be true as one reviewer states that many of the sentences in this book do not resemble "real" Latin by "real" authors, readers should remember that these sentences are exercises -- not passages. Their purpose is to present puzzles whose solutions will leave a strong impression upon those students who continue to the end of the book where "real Latin" does indeed occur: Caesar, Petronius, Cicero, Martial, and others are represented in brief passages.

But forget about the passages. This book shines in its ability to communicate grammatical principles clearly, in a logical order, with little wasted space. Having completed its eighteen units, students will be able to jump easily into Livy or Pliny and thence into the wider corpus.

I learned Latin from this book. I now use it as a teaching text for my independent study kids (high school). The book can be completed in about three semesters, exposing students to the entire grammar (and some reading experience) early enough to have them reading Ovid and Vergil while their peers are still struggling with semi-deponent verbs and the ablative absolute.

Forget Wheelock and buy this book. By the time the binding falls apart (and it will) you'll be well on your way to great grammatical skills. These rapidly developed skills will come at the expense of the wider vocabulary encountered in other texts, but the memorization of vocabulary is relatively cheap and easy work.

Rating:
Summary: Moreland & Fleischer: intensive but dodgy Latin
Review: I have used this book with my students (accelerated beginners course, undergraduates/postgraduates) over a period of several years, simply because it is THE intensive course available, there is nothing else on the market that moves quickly enough for my needs. However, I have strong reservations about it. Most seriously, some of the Latin is dodgy, the grammar simply is not correct. Also, the exercises often sound very un-Roman; you get the impression that the authors are making their sentences up from the handbook but haven't read enough of the real stuff. This is not the tongue that Caesar spake! Furthermore, the exercises are full of strange people doing strange things- so the poor student can never be sure that he has got the translation right. The English is almost as stilted as the Latin. My favourite sentence is the one about the man who would easily have overcome the soldiers "if his rather heavy arms had not fallen from his very strong hands" (extra marks if you can visualise!). To complicate matters further, Moreland & Fleischer are experts at explaining a grammatical concept three chapters after they have asked the student to translate it.
I deal with these difficulties by giving my students strict instructions as to what exercises they are supposed to do; but it is not a suitable book for teaching yourself. For my part, it is a book I am stuck with, not one I recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Nice book with absolutely wonderful apendices!
Review: I learned Latin using this book in an introductory class at Carleton college, with the result that in two trimesters (approx. 20 weeks) we were reading Cicero. However, as had been noted, this book is *very* intensive, especially in terms of verbs. You learn the passive periphrastic conjunction before you learn the third declension! This can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. On the one hand it provides you with almost the entire book to get used to the basic verb forms, while on the other they are given at such a pace at first that many students never truly learn them.

Also, this book's wonderful appendices make it an amazing reference for beginning students of Latin. Whenever I found myself needing to brush up on the uses of the ablative, I turned to my nice copy of Floyd and Rita where they listed all the basic uses of each case and all the basic uses of subjunctive (I use basic here not imply that it only lists a few uses, but to differentiate it from a true reference grammar, such as Allen and Greenough's).

The downside of this book is that the explanations in the main section of the book are often quite poorly worded. So poorly worded, in fact, that my professors had "patches" that printed out and had us glue to the page over the offending material.

However, I believe that anyone wishing to truly learn Latin quickly should purchase this book. If you have any questions either the appendices or Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar (which you can either purchase if you plan to be continuing in the field, or find on line at the wonderful site of perseus.tufts.edu)should be able to clear up your problems.

Rating:
Summary: So it wasn't just my book that fell to pieces....
Review: I used this as a way to cram Latin down myself before taking the M.A. program at the Warburg. Learning Latin from this is the equivalent of getting a drink of water from a fire hose. The subjunctive in the second chapter..?! You have GOT to be kidding....but they do, and it works.

The most frustrating part is the inability to check one's translations of the exercises against anything, and yes, quite a few of the sentences are extremely contorted to the point of generating different interpretations from different Latin profs.
After I finished this I found I still needed much more practice for those long Latin sentences with N dependent clauses (figuring out what pronoun referred to what.)

Still, this will pound Latin grammer into you the way that you will never forget. Highly recommended....except yes, the binding is horrid and my copy is now nothing more than a pile of ordered pages.

Rating:
Summary: So it wasn't just my book that fell to pieces....
Review: I used this as a way to cram Latin down myself before taking the M.A. program at the Warburg. Learning Latin from this is the equivalent of getting a drink of water from a fire hose. The subjunctive in the second chapter..?! You have GOT to be kidding....but they do, and it works.

The most frustrating part is the inability to check one's translations of the exercises against anything, and yes, quite a few of the sentences are extremely contorted to the point of generating different interpretations from different Latin profs.
After I finished this I found I still needed much more practice for those long Latin sentences with N dependent clauses (figuring out what pronoun referred to what.)

Still, this will pound Latin grammer into you the way that you will never forget. Highly recommended....except yes, the binding is horrid and my copy is now nothing more than a pile of ordered pages.

Rating:
Summary: If you're trying to learn Latin, look elsewhere
Review: If you wish to learn the Latin that was actually written and spoken by the Romans, look elsewhere. The authors of this book delight in inventing rules and misinforming the readers. Incorrectly placed long marks are just the beginning of their mistakes. The book tries to include too much information in each chapter, leaving the beginning Latin student overwhelmed and confused. On top of this, the sentences used as examples can be best described as poor Latin that no Roman would have ever used. The one good point of this book is a decent vocabulary, but if you are trying to learn Latin correctly, I recommend Wheelock or Bennett's New Latin Grammar. (On a side note, this book is notorious for its sexual innuendoes which seem a little out of place in a latin text book.)

Rating:
Summary: Not bad Floyd and Rita!
Review: My experience with the text comes from a 7 week course at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. This text covers the majority of Latin syntax in 18 intense chapters. The bulk of the syntax, however, is really covered by chapter 12, with the remaining chapters covering important but not difficult ideas such as "cum" and result clauses.

From the student's perspective, the main weaknesses are the horrible, awkward and unnatural Latin practice sentences in the "preliminary exercises". And, there are only answers to a few of the exercises, making it difficult to self-check. When time is of the essence, as it is in intensives, there is not time to go over all the exercises in class. "Floyd and Rita" really should fix this deficiency.
Additionally, sentences used to illustrate ideas such as the ablative absolute, are not taken from primary sources. Their examples sentences tend to be very simple, making it even harder to recognize concepts in a tediously long sentence from Seneca.
Further, Floyd and Rita's discussion of ideas such as the gerund/gerundive is very brief. They are accurate discussions, but brief. I highly recommend using Wheelock's Latin as a sidebar. His examples are better, and his explanations tend to "stick to your bones".

Latin primary sources are graduated. That is, early in the text the readings are horribly butchered for pedogogical reasons. Floyd and Rita have no choice here. But what they do well, is quickly reduce the adaptations so that by Ch 18, one is reading at an intermediate level.

The appendix is okay, but somehow not as easy to reference as Wheelock's. In short, this text gets the job done, but there is little room or time to bask in the excitement of reading Caesar. I compare it to drinking Milk of Magnesia. No fun here. But then, intensive Latin classes are hard pressed to be so. You will indeed learn from Floyd and Rita. (but get Wheelock too!)

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Summary: An Excellent Latin Grammar, But Not For the Faint of Heart
Review: Of the several Latin grammars I have used (or tried to use), Intensive Latin clearly ranks as my favorite. The book is very thorough but incredibly concise, so much that you might miss some of the details the first time through. As a consolation, however, the book has an excellent index system, such that even each vocabulary entry has an associated chapter number.The contents are arranged fairly logically, although this might not seem apparent to the newcomer. Each chapter (or "unit") succinctly presents several concepts, and ends with a vocabulary list and extensive drills, exercises, and readings. Interspersed among the units are multi-unit reviews that provide self-exercises and generally help the reader better assimilate the information contained in the previous units. The book concludes with an appendix summarizing all the grammar concepts, two vocabulary lists (Latin-English and English-Latin), and an index. Having used the book in a college course, I did not note any errors in the book's content. The book clearly focuses on "classical Latin", as indicated by the vocabulary lists and reading selections. However, one studying this book will be more than sufficiently prepared to tackle reading Medieval Latin sources. Corroborating the statements of a fellow reviewer, I found that the binding really is poor. Anyone using the book seriously will have to glue, tape, or otherwise rectify the situation to keep all the pages in one spot and in the proper order. This book is completely undeserving of such a substandard edifice! In sum, I highly recommend Intensive Latin to the serious student. Less eager individuals might find themselves swept away by the rapidity of presentation.

Rating:
Summary: Be sure to do your homework when reading reviews
Review: This is a fine Latin text for the mature or adult student who is able and willing to learn and to study Latin as more than a hobby. I must add for the consumer's sake that a previous review is very misleading. "Bennett's New Latin Grammar," suggested as an alternative, is not a textbook, but a reference grammar best suited for beginning to intermediate Latin students (more advanced grammars being "Allen & Greenough" and "Hale & Buck"). Wheelock is a fine alternative to "Latin: An Intensive Course," and is somewhat easier to follow, but either book will suit a mature individual. I highly recommend using in addition a good mid-level dictionary (Chambers-Murray being the best for size, scope, and price) as well as a good beginning reference grammar (Bennett being the most readily available, and probably the easiest to use--but you'll want to upgrade later).

Rating:
Summary: A very systematic and rigorous text
Review: This text is most often used in intensive summer immersion programs, and the pace is consequently more rigorous than Wheelock's. It's more thorough on grammar coverage and drills, though the examples can be a bit plonking. A more serious and deliberate approach, it covers a few uses of the subjunctive and some other tough cookies early on. Low on cultural context, high on systematic presentation of grammar.