I'm looking to learn Latin and I can't decide whether to get Latin Via Ovid, with the workbook or Wheelock's Latin. I hear that Wheelock's is good for learning grammar and syntax, but I hear Wheelock's approach is more like solving a puzzle.
Anyways, any suggestions?
I'm curious: can you learn Latin in an American highschool?
>>8246642
Never heard of the Ovid text, heard exactly what you did about Wheelock and didn't like the sound of it.
I started Latin about a month ago, so I can't speak from any expertise, but can share my experience so far. I've been using Lingua Latina alongside Collar's "Beginner's Latin Book" (published 1891, free pdf online) and have found the process to be pretty rewarding.
Lingua is entirely in Latin and sort of forces you to "think" in Latin, and if you reread chapters (I do each one three times), grammar and vocab really start sticking, especially if you do some occasional note-taking on the side to nail down declensions and the like.
Collar's text is basically the opposite of Lingua: Very old school, introducing one grammar rule at a time and then throwing a ton of exercises at you. For example, one of the earliest chapters is the first noun declension, followed by ~150 exercises using what you just learned, to really beat it into you.
Frankly I think both styles are valuable, and considering the overlap in content, as they're both intro books, I often find material in one book that I've already been heavily exposed to in the other, but both texts still teach and challenge me daily; Lingua is more creative with sentences and is more fluid and conversational, while Collar throws more complex grammar at you from the beginning and doesn't let up.
As another example, Lingua's first verb conjugation chapter introduces you to only the present indicative forms of all regular verb stems. Collar's first conjugation chapter introduces you to all the forms of a single verb stem (indicative present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect; imperative preset, future; infinitive, etc.).
I just checked out Latin via Ovid and it seems like a cool text similar to Lingua Latina, but I'm not sure exactly how they compare. Worth looking into both, I'd say.
Hope that helped!
>>8246642
Use both and lingua latina per se illustrata, also take a look at Ritchies "fabulas faciles" for easy, early reading practice.
>>8246688
I took Latin in high school for 2 years. I didn't retain much of it. After a certain point I was just lost, and used the glossary the whole time.
>>8246735
How commonly is Latin taken in america?
>>8246735
Well out of the 8 high schools in my district only 2 taught Latin. My local community college also teaches it, which is coincidentally taught by my high school latin teacher (who has since retired from there). If I had to take a guess I would say about 30% of public schools here offer it. Although I can't imagine the classes being too big (speaking from experience).
