Wheelock's Latin, 7th Edition: Comprehensive Latin Language Textbook (The Wheelock's Latin Series)

Si vales, bene est. Ego valeo.I am learning Latin purely for the enjoyment and as a hobby. I couldn't really decide how to go about learning Latin as a complete beginner. I first ordered Lingua Latina and was going through it, but I found that I just didn't really understand everything that was being taught. Not only did I not really understand the Latin vocabulary, but I didn't understand the grammatical concepts that were being taught. I didn't even know if I was pronouncing things properly when reading out loud.After digging around, I found Wheelock's Latin and I'm very glad I did. It starts with the proper pronunciation in the introduction and introduces you to extremely basic grammar at the beginning and builds from there. Do you know what the 1st/2nd/3rd persons are? Plural and singular? Adverb/adjective? Nominative/genitive/dative/accusative/ablative/vocative cases? Pluperfect subjunctive voice? If not, Wheelock's Latin will introduce what those are to you in English, and then help you understand how they work in Latin. Some of those are in-depth concepts that are tricky to understand - even in my native language English. But Wheelock's Latin helps you understand what it is and then teaches it in Latin.There are 40 chapters, each with their own vocabulary lists, ample practice sentences for translation practice, introductory samples of ancient Latin in historical writings, and even a fun Latin writing from an archeological find. It also does interject good humor into some of the examples to try to lighten things up.It's a textbook, though. You've really got to dedicate yourself to the study if you want to go through the entire thing. It took me a little over a year (though I was also doing the Wheelock's Workbook as well as the companion Scribblers, Scvlptors, and Scribes books) to get through. And the later chapters are not easy! Sometimes I found myself asking, "Quid?" as I went through it. But if you dedicate yourself and truly go through each chapter, I think you'll make it. Some chapters you'll understand more than others, but overall you'll get it.The textbook realizes the difficulty and will give you encouragement as you go through it. There is a pretty advanced section from Cicero where he is telling a joke in one of his writings. I understood the joke as I read it and laughed to myself, and the textbook took the time to stop after that section and give me a "pat-on-the-back" for understanding the joke. I really liked that.The two highlights for me are the amount of ancient writings from Latin authors, poets, generals, and normal citizens. It was so cool to realize they are people just like we are. The other highlight was the little end-of-chapter sections on recognizing etymology - how Latin evolved into the romance languages, but also how much Latin there is in English! My wife and kids now hate that I snobbishly comment on words they say come that from Latin.Can you learn Latin another way? Yes. But this is a fantastic book to help you learn from scratch, especially if you need a little help with grammar along the way. I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could.Valete, amici!

If I can give this book 6 Stars, I would. It's obviously very well laid out, has a ton of great content, and I love the extra mile of giving historical background and the like. It's much more than I expected from a scholarly Latin text book. It's no wonder that it is so popular. I blew me away that I got this hardback textbook for like only $18. To me that was unbelievable. If you are interested in learning Latin, this is your book.The important terms are in bold, there are footnotes to give extra detail, and there are several appendices towards the end of the book. Do not skip the introduction, as it includes instructions on how to pronounce the vowels, diphthongs, and consonants and also gives interesting background in history on the development of book. I'm an adult learner, so I really appreciate the effort that was taken to explain some of the grammatical concepts, having been out of school for quite a while. There are many examples of key Concepts being presented in Table Fashion which I really like because I'm a visual learner. Don't get me wrong, you will still need to do your due diligence and do things like create index cards for vocabulary words so you can drill yourself. In other words, you are not going to learn Latin by osmosis. It's hard work, but well worth the effort.Well, flipping through the book while doing this review I just realized there's a self tutorial exercise section. I will definitely be using that. There are also supplementary reading and vocabulary lists after the last chapter. In fact, I just realized this book actually goes on for another 200 Pages after the last chapter which is chapter 40. Chapter 40 ends on page 350. Loci start on page 351 and ends on 411. Then there's a self tutorial section; a key to tutorial exercises; appendices; a vocabulary section, both from English to Latin and Latin to English; a section on abbreviations; a very detailed index; and more. If you're concerned about supporting materials, don't worry. I know this is just a review for the book, but there are available to you an associated workbook, reader, audio CDs, website, and more. I've also discovered that there's a fairly large community that uses Wheelock Latin materials and there are mobile apps and other websites regarding Wheelock Latin.I consider myself somewhat of a slow learner regarding language, but I am very pleased with the learning materials and have already started reading and comprehending small sentences after only two weeks. I'm also finding that this is helping me immensely in understanding Spanish which I am also in the process of learning. That is of course because Latin is the parent language for Spanish.I could go on and on about this book and the whole series of materials available, but I have other things I need to get done today. I should say, that I'm rarely this motivated to write a long review, but with this exceptional book I felt it merited an effort consummate with the effort they made in creating the book.