<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A good handbook for those brushing up on Latin
Review: An excellent Grammar handbook for those who have a little bit of Latin knowledge and want to brush up on their grammar skills. It is not a book for beginners since very little explanation is given. It is used primarily as a summary for what you learn in more extensive Latin learning books. A must-have for those who are using Henle's Latin 1 book.
Rating:
Summary: A good handbook for those brushing up on Latin
Review: An excellent Grammar handbook for those who have a little bit of Latin knowledge and want to brush up on their grammar skills. It is not a book for beginners since very little explanation is given. It is used primarily as a summary for what you learn in more extensive Latin learning books. A must-have for those who are using Henle's Latin 1 book.
Rating:
Summary: It's a companion book
Review: For those who are using either the First year Latin or this book by its self, you're a probably just a confused as I was. I had bought the First Year Latin book and was wondering where the declensions were and where the exercises for the units were. After I read more carefully, I realized that the First Year(etc) Latin book and this grammer book were supposed to be used together. For example the very first unit in the First Year Latin Book tells the reader to open to exercise 31 in the the grammer book! I wish that the editors or Amazon would have put a note with the book advertisment that these books went together. I had to go back and buy the grammer after I bought the First Year Latin book. I do like the First year Latin. It is a nice intermediate between Wheelock's Latin that makes me cringe whenever I open it and the Oxford Latin Series that isn't detailed enough.
Rating:
Summary: Good for learning, great for review
Review: I had Henle's text 'Latin Grammar' as a companion during my second year of Latin in college -- we'd used Wheelock's text for the first year, and the second year was a readings year, with Henle's text as a companion. Henle's book is set up in what I tend to call 'the old fashioned' format -- each paragraph is a numbered unit. There are 1025 numbered units here, each one addressing a point of grammar. The arrangement is logical, divided into two primary sections -- Forms and Syntax. Under Forms, Henle introduces nouns (all five declensions), adjectives, adverbs, numerals, pronouns, and finally, verbs (the four main conjugations, active and passive voice, and special cases). The majority of the book is taken up with Syntax -- here Henle discusses the issues of order of words (much more flexible in Latin than in English), types of clauses and statements, questions, and how the various noun declensions and verb conjugations work to make sense in the language. This is not a stand-alone book for learning Latin. The primary drawback to this application is the lack of a vocabulary section or progressive teaching of vocabulary for use in the constructions. Henle and others have outside books for that use. That makes this text more worthwhile to those who have had some preliminary Latin training. It is a great guide for looking up the rules, given the numbered-unit format and good index, but I would opt for other texts as a first book for Latin.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent supplement
Review: I wouldn't use this book as the base textbook for learning Latin; it's not organized into lessons with vocabulary and exercises. I would highly recommend it as a supplement to whatever text you do choose to use, whether Balme, or Wheelock, or Ruck, or whatever else. The first third of the book is a summary of forms: noun declensions, verb conjugations, etc. The real strength is the last two-thirds of the book, where the author gives excellent coverage of the syntax. It's well organized, with lots of examples and clear explanations. My copy was printed in 1958, and from the sample sentences you can see that this work was probably designed for Catholic high schools; many examples have a "Caesar in Gaul" flavor. But the presentation of the grammar and syntax is clear, understandable and comprehensive. A definite help for beginners, and a good review for intermediate and advanced students.
Rating: 
Summary: A Systematic Study of the Fundamentals
Review: This is an excellent essentials text. In other words, the Henle Latin Series from Loyola Press has put together a very comprehensive series and this is one of the better editions. This text covers the basics or fundamentals of the Latin language - i.e. the grammar. The text includes nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, pronouns, numerals, and how these are all ordered in certain sentence structure, etc. Moreover, detail on syntax is covered for each of the above things mentioned, as well as special cases or uses for each. All the clauses are covered, conjugations, declensions, rules for time, gender, etc. Prepositions are given special attention as well as methods of diagraming. Everything and anything anyone would need to know in order to gain a better understanding of the Latin language is within this books covers.
Thus, this text is great for the beginner as well as the more learned student of the language. It also helps you sharpen your Latin grammar skill, if perhaps you might be a little rusty. This is definitely a great reference and study text for everyone.
<< 1 >>
| 
