Lacks coordination between content and grammar/exercises

books:


	• Oxford Latin Course Part I (Oxford Latin Course) Maurice Balme, James Morwood Oxford Univ Pr (Txt), 1996 - 158 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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Great Latin book

At first I thought this book was for children with only like 100pages thin. Couldn;t believe this was a college textbook for a quarter. (UCD is in quarter system.) But this childish looking book can be challenging if you don;t keep up the pace.

Anyway, about this book... This book separates the reading passages from grammar sections that can be found at the back of the book. Stories are interesting and it does give you rich vocabularies in each chapter. The grammar sections are clear and are easy to understand.

What is bad about this book? I agree with previous reviewers that the cartoon that (probably author's wife or sister or someone) drew pictures horribly. Couldn't tell which was a girl or guy and also the expressions of people in the cartoons were very weird or may not go along with the context.

Another problem of this book is that the latin vocabulary in the index does not have all the words from each chapter. So you might want to buy Latin dictionary for some words.

And finally, I wished that odd answers were found at the back but there aren't any. So this means that you will have hard time to self-study. You need a professor for this book to correct your homework and give you some feedback.

These are only minor issues that makes the book not perfect.
Other than that, I think this book okay overall. Book teaches you less boring way, I think, because my Latin professor told us in class that they learned pretty boring and hard traditional way that she did not like Latin at first. That probably implies the reason why almost everyone hated Latin a few decades ago.

So if you got a prof, everything should be fine. My last advice: Just don't procrastinate memorizing vocabs Latin, or you will find yourself pretty miserable in class.
My actual rating for this book: 4.3~4.5

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self-taught latin student

I can understand why most professors who teach latin in a formal school setting find this course (Three books and a reader, ISBN #s 0195212037, 0195212053,019521207x,0195212096, there are teacher's books available with all four) inadequate. This course is for students looking for a text that presents latin in a progressive and understandable format, which focuses on immersion in reading latin rather than consumption of immense volumes of grammatical information. The grammar is introduced slowly as it is needed (The grammar excercises in the second half of the book need to be done concurrantly with the chapter). The editors obviously are attempting to make learning latin easier by building vocabulary functionally and simply. This is essential for anyone that doesn't have the time to spend memorizing endless charts, or who struggles to understand grammar when it is abstracted from practical use in reading the language. It is much more useful to gain a working knowledge of vocabulary and grammar and then to memorize all the principle parts, conjugations, declensions, etc. I recommend using the oxford course first then moving to wheelock's for mastery of latin grammar.

In the end, this course is excellent for students because it is presented in a way that allows for a simple, progressive, and functional introduction to Latin. They lack answers ( though I haven't seen the teacher's text) but taking the time to check your work using the vocabulary lists and glossary is good review. The comics are terribly drawn and somewhat annoying, but are trivial. If the editors forgot some principles, any student that will miss them will study more advanced courses anyway. These books are the answer for anyone like me who found it impossible to learn the language from endless and voluminous sections on grammar, and I was one of the top students in my college course (I didn't have the time to take anything beyond the introduction and have had to teach my self since).

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This is an old, outdated edition

FYI, this is an older edition. I accidentally bought it because the date seemed very recent. I believe it's 1995 and the second edition is 1996. The newer edition has a lot of improvements so this edition is probably not worth buying, especially if you're using it for a college class because they will almost certainly be using the 2nd ed.

Lacks coordination between content and grammar/exercises

I used the first edition for a Latin course I taught 8+ years ago. I found and purchased this at a local State University (ASU) book store and could not believe this was intended for a college level course. I used it for HS level.

I recently purchased the 2nd edition to teach Latin to my 12 and 9 year old sons. We've made it through 7 Lessons and although they are challenged to keep it all straight (declensions, conjugations, case, gender, number, agreement, ...) , they are succeeding. If they were older I'd probably use Wheelock where you get real Latin jewels in the "sententiae antinquae".

I'm a little disappointed in the 2nd Edition format. The grammar/exercises have been removed from the mainline content (reading passages, historical highlights) and placed in the back of the book. And there is no indication which execises should be given prior to content. So, if you are doing this on your own, you may want to first read the "cartoon" at the start of each chapter/lesson and then do all the grammar/exercises followed by the mainline content. I'm tyring to interleave the exercises with content to make it more fun.

Lastly, the Latin profanity in Lesson 6 is completely inappropriate.

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Oxford Course Good for First-Year Students

Having read some very critical reviews of this series, I wanted to say I have found it engaging and pretty well done. For my students, perhaps an overwhelming reason to choose it was the price, which compares very favorably with the $60 to $80 many conventional Latin texts cost.

I agree with some critics it would be better if there were more supplementary materials and, for many teachers who were educated more traditionally, not introducing all the principal parts of verbs at once is an adjustment. However, I do feel there are many things to commend this series, including the heavy emphasis on reading for comprehension instead of just rote learning. It certainly introduces a lot of vocabulary in a short time and gives a context for it.

All in all, my home school students have done well with this text.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

The acclaimed Oxford Latin Course has been completely revised and restructured in the light of a national survey of Classics teachers. The course is in three parts, each with an accompanying Teacher's Book. Parts I-III are built around a narrative detailing the life of Horace, based closely on historical sources which develops an understanding of the times of Cicero and Augustus.