Getting Started with Latin: Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age

The author of this book has invested a considerable amount of his own time in providing a set of free resources to help people learn Latin. The free course looks quite good, but it is not exactly beginner material. So, as the author suggests, I went back to his book with the intention of returning to the free materials later. I started using the sample Kindle edition of this book and absolutely flew through the lessons in no time, without any frustration. I bought the Kindle edition and I'm still flying through the lessons. In fact, they are so easy that I decided to squeeze out every drop of information by writing all my answers in Latin and in English, and by reading aloud all of the questions and answers. About 30 years ago, I taught myself Italian from the book "La Lingua Italiana Per Stranieri" (The Italian Language for Foreigners). The teaching style is very similar to that used in "Getting Started with Latin". I was speaking Italian comfortably after about three months, and I now speak Italian fluently. I don't expect to become fluent in Latin, but the knowledge I gain from this book will definitely improve my understanding of other languages. I'm also looking forward to reading classics in Latin. Highly Recommended!

I changed school when 14 and was due to start Latin but that was too late in my second school. In my 40s I thought I'd give it a go, as I always regretted not learning Latin. I got the Oxford book but the first lesson in that just had far too many words in it and was totally daunting. This one introduces a word at a time and explains it in great detail so you feel you are progressing rapidly. You get a good grounding in one case before moving on to another and the book is excellent at exlaining why you use a particular case, and if a noun has the same ending in different cases how you choose which one it is. The website for the books has all the lessons explained and the examples are worked through. The downloadable classical and ecclesiastical pronunciation guides are excellent, although you do learn latin with an American accent. Now halfway through the book I'm starting to work through the Oxford book as well, but this book helped the Oxford book make sense.

This is one of the better Latin Primers that I have come across, as it is aimed at helping the learner to think in Latin and handle fairly complex sentences quite early on. This a great deal different from the way I was taught a grammar school. Latin, of course is not entirely a 'dead' language, and I found that some of the hints for pronunciation were not congenial to me. For example to pronounce 'non' like 'known' seems to be quite affected. That is why I have stopped short of giving the book five stars. I should be glad to know if Mr. Linney has produced any more advanced courses.

Like several of the other reviewers, I had decided it was time to re-visit my limited knowledge of Latin but I was undecided what book was right for someone without a teacher and was relevant for all ages of student. I was interested to find a book that had so many glowing reviews and thought it could not, surely, be quite that effective....but it is just as good as others have said.It is so good that I have convinced a friend to buy it so we can learn together. I like the slow pace, which makes me feel that I am not being overwhelmed by information, and, like hdd, I have to ration myself to a couple of lessons as day as it is so enjoyable. I can also recommend the accompanying website, especially for the pronunciation. Having been only familiar with the ecclesiastical pronunciation I wanted to learn the classical version and now have a CD of it for reference. This was the first audio download I had ever done and it was very user friendly to do. I just wish I had discovered the book and website earlier and my Latin knowledge would be that much greater!

I thought learning Latin was supposed to be difficult. Whenever I had googled it before, I was met with long tables of nouns with their different endings depending on how they're used in sentences and screeds on these things called 'declensions' all of which immediately been put off the idea of delving any further. Then I came across a recommendation for Linney's book Getting Started with Latin and I looked at the reviews here on Amazon. I saw how effusive with praise they were and harboured some doubts about whether they could be genuine, given how overwhelmingly positive each review seemed to be. Well, now that I have had a chance to use this book, I can genuinely say, hand on heart, that the reviews are correct. I feel as though I have learned so much already and I'm only just about half way through. Best of all, you don't feel as though you're having to 'learn'. There are no long paragraphs, technical explanations or detailed grammar rules to learn. Each new word or topic is introduced with the utmost brevity and immediately you are set some simple exercises in which you can try out the new subject matter to get a feel for it. Linney's on to something with his teaching method and I cannot recommend this book enough if you are seriously considering learning Latin!

Simple as a structure, yet, very efficient book. I was completely new to this otherwise fascinating looking language but the book manages to provide a very good way of teaching fundamentals such as the noun cases, verb forms or the sentence structure. A very good feature is that part of the exercises after each lesson are sort of random and would be from previous one. This virtually eliminates the issue I personally tend to have,especially with language books, that going deeper into them,I start doubting if my knowledge from the previous chapters is not starting to fade because I am not encountering it anymore and that I should go back to refresh my memory. In terms of building up a vocabulary base, this is not the kind of book but the words that do get introduced are mostly useful as a basis, regardless of what language a person attempts to start learning. In a related note, people should consider using this together with the audio that can be downloaded from the net in mp3 format for free. If nothing else, this will dispel any doubts of how to pronounce certain words. My only dilemma, having just completed this book, is how to find anything remotely similar but a level higher.

I cannot rate this book high enough. Latin is a very complex and challenging language. This book will give you such a good grounding of the language, you will be sorry to leave it when you finish. You learn the language as we are taught every language - a word at a time. Now, this may be too simple for some people but it definitely worked for me. As you learn a new word, it is introduced into a sentence in as many ways as possible. Before you know it, you are reading longer sentences. All the sentences have only the words you have been introduced to previously. (Sounds obvious but wait until you move onto other books.) If you are a bit rusty on your verbs (i.e. nominitive, accusative, ablative etc.) or nouns, pronouns etc. it is explained in english first then latin. If you want a good introduction to the languange AND YOU HAVE NEVER STUDIED LATIN BEFORE, then this is the book for you. As the book says, it is a "Getting Started with Latin...", if you have studied latin before and need a refresher, I suggest a different book. For the verbal reading of latin, Mr Linney has an excellent website, which has all the exercises for you to download and listen to. He also has verbal lessons for you to download - and they are FREE.

This may just be a personal preference, and I guess that is what these reviews are all about, but I am finding it a bit slow and ponderous. You find yourself on page 21, Lesson 19 before you get to the third person plural 'they are' of the verb 'to be'. Each 'Lesson' introduces only one new word - be it verb, or noun, or whatever - and so it plods on rather ponderously. Latin is a complex language and this route feels as though it will take forever to get anywhere with it because the steps are so small. I can see how the writer believes that he is simplifying things but for me this is too slow. I hope it works better for other readers.