Rating: 
Summary: Usable for many young students
Review: As a student in college I could never understand the way they taught language. You don't learn conjugation, declensions, and such before you speak your native tongue. What's the point of teaching a language that way? The point of this book is to learn Latin words one word at a time. There are excellent word lists for many uses.
Yes, it is easy. Of course it is. It's supposed to be. What's the point in writing a book that's too hard to understand or may make the person of casual interest quit? No one speaks Latin in daily life today. Most of us don't study Latin to speak it in conversations. We study it to understand terms and phrases in medicine, pharmacy, science, law, and social sciences. What we're after is RECOGNITION. .... ONE word or ONE phrase at a time.
HOWEVER, the problem with books like these is there is NO AUDIO. NO one learns a language without HEARING it!!!!! I have Wheelock's. It sits on my desk and is never opened. I am not a Latin scholar, a linguist, or a language teacher. I want to recognize the terms in the history and humanities books, and I want to be able to PRONOUNCE them. NO book can teach you that!!! Watch out for the programs that do not offer audio. You are NOT going to learn Latin very fast. You have to HEAR it!!!!
After my disgust with Wheelock's I bought the Transparent Language Latin Now! program. I was speaking terms and recognizing words and root words, etc. in the time it would take to do one chapter in Wheelock's and not know whether I was pronouncing it correctly or not. Get it and quit wasting time. Unless, of course, you plan to become a Latin teacher......
Rating:
Summary: Usable for many young students
Review: As a student in college I could never understand the way they taught language. You don't learn conjugation, declensions, and such before you speak your native tongue. What's the point of teaching a language that way? The point of this book is to learn Latin words one word at a time. There are excellent word lists for many uses.
Yes, it is easy. Of course it is. It's supposed to be. What's the point in writing a book that's too hard to understand or may make the person of casual interest quit? No one speaks Latin in daily life today. Most of us don't study Latin to speak it in conversations. We study it to understand terms and phrases in medicine, pharmacy, science, law, and social sciences. What we're after is RECOGNITION. .... ONE word or ONE phrase at a time.
HOWEVER, the problem with books like these is there is NO AUDIO. NO one learns a language without HEARING it!!!!! I have Wheelock's. It sits on my desk and is never opened. I am not a Latin scholar, a linguist, or a language teacher. I want to recognize the terms in the history and humanities books, and I want to be able to PRONOUNCE them. NO book can teach you that!!! Watch out for the programs that do not offer audio. You are NOT going to learn Latin very fast. You have to HEAR it!!!!
After my disgust with Wheelock's I bought the Transparent Language Latin Now! program. I was speaking terms and recognizing words and root words, etc. in the time it would take to do one chapter in Wheelock's and not know whether I was pronouncing it correctly or not. Get it and quit wasting time. Unless, of course, you plan to become a Latin teacher......
Rating:
Summary: A WINNER For The BEGINNER!
Review: As an adult with no previous background in Latin, I found Ms. Harwood's: "Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin", the most comprehensive out of all the previous beginners Latin books I've purchased so far.
I took on the challenge of teaching myself Latin so that I would be able to help my son with his High School Latin courses.
-- This book is the easiest to understand and follow, since the Author gradually leads the reader/student through the noun/adjective declensions. (In other words; she doesn't start off with a huge, complicated and intimimdating Declension Table)
Declensions are introduced gradually and there are practice exercises at the end of each Introduction. -- Answer Key INCLUDED in the back of the Book! --
The GRAMMAR SUMMARY in Appendix B is a Fantastic reference!
--
It "provides ALL the grammar forms you will encounter in translating Latin.
The 'A Brief Summary of Syntax' section shows you how to use those forms to form sentences." - comment by Author.
-- This book comes up just shy of excellence for two very important reasons:
1) - This reviewer finds that more Examples are needed at the end of each Introduction, along with more detailed explanations. (A book geared toward beginners needs many more examples
than the ones provided in this book.) 2) - The book is also lacking in sufficient Practice Exercises.
(Which are very crucial for the beginner)
-- In the future, I would hope to see: "Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin - THE COMPANION", written by this Author as a Supplimental to the first book; as it would be most beneficial to the user/student.
--
Overall, it's a great book that I would and HAVE readily recommended to others. ~~DMShae
Rating: 
Summary: This book makes learning Latin easy
Review: I have studied several languages, but when it came to Latin, I was really a complete idiot. However, this book helps explain the grammar a little, rather than expecting the student to memorize all the cases at once, as many of the old fashioned Latin books used to do. The book also gives interesting historical background which helps to put the language in its proper historical perspective, both in Roman times and later when Latin was used by the Church. There is also a section devoted to Latin in the modern world. All in all, I find this a very informative book.
Rating: 
Summary: Useless
Review: I purchased this years ago and tried to read it but found it hopeless. The style, mistakes and flat out omissions make this useless. Wheelock's Latin is far better and worth the money for textbook as well as the workbook.
Rating:
Summary: Useless
Review: I purchased this years ago and tried to read it but found it hopeless. The style, mistakes and flat out omissions make this useless. Wheelock's Latin is far better and worth the money for textbook as well as the workbook.
Rating: 
Summary: Could be better
Review: I was disappointed. I understand the lack of compelling need to pronounce a language that hasn't been spoken as a native language for centuries and that's fine. And I thought the tidbits on Roman culture were interesting, if not always relevant. I agree with other reviewers about "huge blocks of words are presented at a time." This book not only requires a lot of memorization in very large chunks, but the book is not well-organized. (For example, Practice #2 uses plural words in the exercise, yet those words aren't introduced until the following page.) I also found some of the labels for word classes (for a Complete Idiots book yet) were either explained in a confusing way or not explained at all - such as "declension" or "genitive case." If it's a "Complete Idiot's Guide," than there must be a better way of explaining these terms. "Latin for Dummies" was better by comparison but not by a significant amount.
Rating:
Summary: Can't recommend
Review: If you are looking for a magic alternative to learning your declensions and conjugations, then forget it- there is still no substitute for drill, drill, drill. As for syntax and inflection, well, that is the result of osmosis from years of reading well composed Latin. However, if you haven't cracked a text in several decades and are looking for a light review, this book is a pleasant and light memory jogger. Just don't expect to be able to translate the Enneads, or even Caesar's Commentaries afterwards.
Perhaps a better title would have been pidgin Latin, or Latin for barbarians....
Rating: 
Summary: Even complete idiots can find a better book
Review: If you're a beginner trying to learn Latin on your own, the Complete Idiot's Guide is not the best way to do it. It reminds me of a bad high school language class where you have to memorize lists of words, but never learn to put together an actual sentence. This book attempts to make Latin easy on you by presenting only the bare minimum of grammar, but as another reviewer pointed out, grammar is all-important in Latin for figuring out who does what to who in a sentence. This book earns the second star only because it's clearly written, funny, and includes interesting tidbits such as the differences between medieval and classical Latin. While it is (barely) possible to learn Latin from this book, there are much better textbooks out there.
Lots of people here have recommended Wheelock. With all due respect to them, I practically fell asleep reading it in the bookstore. It is obviously rigorous, but it's also dry as dust. I recommend instead "Latin via Ovid," which I bought after much research. Not only am I actually successfully teaching myself Latin, I get to read great mythology stories! Slightly easier are the books aimed at the high school level such as the Oxford and Cambridge textbooks and Ecce Romani. Try one of these books instead of the Complete Idiot's Guide.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Proofreading
Review: This book might be ok if you just wanted to brush up on your Latin, but for the beginner, there are two major flaws. First, not enough attention is given to noun declensions and verb conjugations. The author passes over a lot of this and says that it's not really important. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing more important in Latin than the noun declensions. Without a sound understanding of declensions, you will be left guessing who did what with what to whom. Second, words or topics often show up on the end of the chapter quizzes before they are covered. This is very frustrating when you are really trying to learn the material. One of the things this books does really well is to bombard you with new words. Learning vocabulary is often one of the most difficult things in learning a new language, and this one does a great job of presenting this vocabulary to you. However, because of the flaws in this text, I would recommend Wheelock's Latin instead of this text for the person wishing to gain a sound understanding of Latin.
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