So You Really Want to Learn Latin Book 1: A Textbook for Common Entrance and GCSE

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My older children were in the room one day while we were playing the chapter 1 song, and they were groaning, saying how silly it was (you know, teenagers). The variety of books now available to support and supplement the learning of Latin is quite remarkable, but very few of them are suitable for independent learners; many of the text books available are designed for use in schools, which makes them somewhat challenging for an independent learner to follow. The reader looks at both his life and the important historical events that happened throughout his lifetime in Rome. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy.

Moving on from the destruction of Pompeii, Book 2 captures the daily lives of the inhabitants of two provinces at opposite ends of the Roman Empire, Britain and Egypt. Note, the book still requires a com­plete under­stand­ing of Latin mor­phol­o­gy, as the book focus­es on teach­ing syn­tax and vocab­u­lary.

I think it’s interesting for readers who are only interested in modern literature and art and culture—let’s say 20th century stuff. Classical culture invented so many of the great eternal stories: the myths, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid. It’s also the one time—I don’t know about you, but when I was a small boy, I did things dutifully—when if you’re asked to learn 100 pages of vocab, you go and do it. Barbillus later dies of a wound during a hunting trip, and tells Quintus to find his son Rufus, who lives in Britain, thus explaining the reason for Quintus' visit. Read­ing (or lis­ten­ing) to this book over and over again will give you a vast vocab­u­lary and a good grasp of more advanced gram­mar.

These will be available via subscription in due course but not immediately, as we are prioritising the free materials to make sure that everyone using the CLC has a good foundation on which to build. It’s extremely funny in English and actually the English version has some very, very good Latin jokes in it. Harry Mount is the Editor of the Oldie, and an author and journalist who regularly contributes to a range of national newspapers, including the Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Guardian and the Spectator. If you're at this level of Latin knowledge, you will get endless joy out of practicing your Latin because you will not be reading the same book twice based on your choices. You’re not constantly looking back to a dead subject or dead language of 2000 years ago, you’re looking at a tradition that’s changed and morphed right up until 50 years ago.Aside from the fact that the books decline in their ability to hold students’ interest, the Cambridge Latin Course also falls down on the grammar, as pretty much everyone who isn’t invested in the publications will now admit.