Best way is to enroll in University. If not, Wheelock or McKneown. No, I started without the knowledge of any romance language, but it certainly helps with vocabulary. I might argue that it interferes with learning some of the grammar rules.

>>8256664

Not to shit on the anon above, but avoid Wheelock like the plague. The way the grammar is introduced in a haphazard set of discrete lessons will ensure that you never get to 'read' Latin.

I'd recommend something like Moreland and Fleischer's 'Intensive' Latin. It requires considerably more effort than Wheelock, but it introduces you to more grammar and vocabulary per chapter - the downside as I say, is more effort and time has to be spent per unit, but the upside is you get a better idea of how syntax and accidence are interrelated and work as a system - far better than learning one, tiny category at a time as with Wheelock and many other courses.

I'd also recommend you read Orberg's Per Se Illustrata. You will see this recommended over and over again as a 'direct' reading method that immerses you and imparts the language as if you were a child learning it, or as if you were learning a modern spoken language.

Now the book is excellent for helping with your reading comprehension and in helping you to pick up speed - ultimately it helps you skip translation in your head for all but the most difficult sections. What people who recommend it don't often say is it MUST, MUST, MUST be a supplement to a regular coursebook (e.g. Moreland and Fleischer or Sidwell and Jones etc.). It cannot be your sole tool, because like it or not, as a highly inflected language, Latin requires lengthy, in depth grammatical explanation in the learner's own language.

t. 12 years a slave (to Latin).

I recommend starting with "teach yourself Latin". It's available on archive