Latin for Americans: An Inviting Intro

For Americans?

Latin for Americans is an interesting choice for a title. It seems to discourage a rather large part of the English speaking world from considering the book, does it not? There is actually not much that is distinctly or exclusively American in the presentation of the essentials of the language. As it happens, it’s a quite adequate introduction to the language of ancient Rome, even for students who don’t reside in the United States.

Exceeded Expectations

I’ll get to more of the particulars below, but first some background. I used Latin for Americans as my regular classroom textbook for two years. This was several years ago, when I found myself teaching in a new school in a new state. The outgoing Latin teacher had taken up the position after a long career in a field other than education. Among the other challenges of taking up teaching at that stage of life, he was dissatisfied with his inherited textbook. “They were using Latin for Americans,” he told me with evident distaste. He soon switched to Cambridge Latin, which he found worked much better for him.

My experience was rather different. In fact, quite the opposite. Since the students were already using Cambridge and I wasn’t familiar with LFA, I decided to continue with the same text. I quickly concluded that I needed something different. Cambridge definitely didn’t work for me. I dusted off the LFA texts in the storage closet and made he switch. I was not sorry. In fact, the new textbook exceeded my expectations. Now, it has its limitations (see below). But it also has its charms.

Neither This Nor That

Latin for Americans occupies an interesting middle ground. It is not quite a traditional grammar-based textbook. Nor is it a modern reading-based text. It does emphasize the reading selection by putting it at the beginning of each chapter, but thesed are quite a bit briefer than those in reading-based offerings such as Cambridge or Oxford Latin. Each chapter has exercises that are similar in format to those in Jenney’s First Year Latin, but shorter and less rigorous.

It might be starting to sound like Latin for Americans is a little like any other introductory text you can name . . . but not too much. I suppose that’s so. It’s also not a very helpful description. A closer look at the particulars will help us draw some firmer conclusions.

A Relatively Light Touch

Let’s start with the Latin readings. As I noted in my review of Jenney’s First Year Latin, most high school students today simply don’t know as much about ancient history and culture as they would have a couple generations ago. LFA uses its readings not only to provide students with practice using the language, but also as a vehicle to familiarize them with some of that missing background. The selection of reading topics is designed to provide a fairly extensive (if necessarily shallow) overview of the ancient Roman context in which literary Latin developed. The 74 chapters of the First Book fall into 11 units of 4-6 chapters each. The varying number of chapters per unit, by the way, should please those who criticize textbooks such as Wheelock for being too regular.

In any case, the first few units provide a broad overview. Unit I is “The Roman World,” Unit II is “Rome and Her Empire,” Unit III “The Romans’ World.” Later chapters deal with mythology, literature, and history. Unit VI, for example, focuses on the Roman founding seen through the lens of Vergil’s Aeneid. Ulysses (that is, Odysseus) is the star of Unit VIII. LFA generally handles these topics with a relatively light touch, particularly in the early chapters. The title for Lesson III, for example, is “Anna et Rāna.” True to the title, the reading tells the story of a girl named Anna and a frog. Later chapters take a more serious tone to go with the more advanced language. Even here, the readings aren’t especially demanding. Overall they seem to target an audience of middle-to-upper-mid-range high school students. The content is difficult enough to keep them interested and advancing, but not hard enough to discourage the fainter of heart.

An Easy-Going Manner

We see a similarly easy-going manner in regard to grammar. LFA does take a fairly traditional approach in regard to the when and how topics are introduced. The first chapter introduces the first declension, for example. We learn about the accusative case and adjectives in Lesson II, the present tense in Lesson III, and the second declension in Lesson III. Unlike some reading-based texts such as Ecce Romani, LFA presents the forms of all five major cases, even those cases that students will not learn to use for some time. One interesting quirk is the late introduction of the imperfect tense. The imperfect is usually the next tense that students meet after starting with the present. Here students first meet the future tense in Lesson X and the Perfect in Lesson XII. They don’t encounter the imperfect tense until Lesson XXII.

The exercises look fairly traditional, and, like the readings, tend not to be too onerous. There are three-four sets per chapter. These tend to have 4-7 short sentences or questions. There is also a brief “Practice” before the regular exercise. Students are intended to complete this orally. When I say “brief” I mean, well, brief. There are typically two questions. The Practice in Lesson V, for example asks students to do two things. First translate three English phrases (in the forest, on the island, in the water) into Latin. Next, translate two Latin phrases (in Britanniā, in viā) into English.

Simple and Direct

The grammatical explanations tend to be simple and direct. They avoid unnecessary jargon and often take an almost conversational tone. For instance: “Let’s look at a few examples of first declension nouns that have been borrowed by English.” You can almost picture a kindly but firm teacher discussing Latin grammar with his adolescent students.

The reference section in the back of the book takes a similar approach. It aims to present as much essential information – but only essential information – as simply as possible. The Grammatical Appendix starts, for instance, with a six-page summary of Basic Grammatical Terms. This leads off with parts of the sentence and parts of speech. It was not always necessary to explain these concepts to high school students, but many of them today have simply have never learned the difference between nouns, verbs, pronouns, and so on.

From there it moves on to more Latin-specific topics such as Inflection, Names and Uses of Cases and so on. A separate two-page section sets out specific uses of each case in more detail, along with Verb Syntax (Tense, Participles, Infinitive). You can also find, of course, the standard paradigms of forms, and both English-to-Latin and Latin-to-English glossaries.

An Extra Nugget

As we saw above, modern introductory Latin textbooks need to provide a lot of historical and cultural context. LFA does much of that through the readings. There are also some more explicit explanations. For instance, the introduction, “Our Roman Heritage,” gives us a very brief overview of the history of the Latin language, along with explanations of the alphabet and pronunciation. There is also a two-page article about Roman culture and history at the beginning of each of the eleven review chapters. These are similar to comparable features in other introductory books: “Roman Roads and Travel,” “Slavery,” “Dress and Appearance,” and so on.

Each chapter also has an extra little nugget of interesting information about the ancient world. These appear in a shaded box titled “Latin for American Students.” They always start with “Did you know . . .” Here is Lesson XIV’s entry:

Did you know that giving a slave his freedom could mean that he could become a Roman citizen? In other words, he was entitled to inherit part or all of his former master’s estate and his sons were even eligible for the senate, knighthood, or top ranks of the army. The manumission of slaves made upward social mobility possible within the rigid Roman hierarchical society.

When in Rome . . .

You’ll notice, by the way, that there’s nothing especially “American” about this passage. It will be just as meaningful and relevant to students in Australia, Britain, or wherever English is spoken. In fact, aside from a paragraph in the book’s introduction about the American founding fathers, I have not found much in Latin for Americans that is geared specifically to American students in distinction to those in other parts of the Anglosphere.

A more significant limitation is the almost exclusive focus on ancient Rome. A large part of why Latin is worth studying is the ongoing part it has played in Western literature and society over the past 2,000 years. One of the strengths of Latin for the New Millennium, for example, is that it focuses directly on that long, rich history. One can get the impression from LFA, however, that Latin died with the Romans and is of only antiquarian interest.* Of course, that is an issue with a majority of modern introductory Latin textbooks.

Random Yet Interesting

Aside from being a little too ancient Rome centered, Latin for Americans doesn’t have many outstanding flaws. It’s just that, for most everything it does, well, somebody else does it better. Jenney’s has the same clarity in its grammar presentation, but with more rigor and thoroughness. The reading-based texts provide more opportunities to build reading skills. Latin for the New Millennium provides a better overview of Latin literature and a much better historical perspective in its readings.

And yet, there’s still something I like about this textbook series. I like the systematic exploration of history and literature in the readings. There is also a rather wide swath of students in the middle of the learning spectrum that are interested and want to move forward, but are liable to feel overwhelmed if the language is too technical, the explanations too complicated, or the readings too expansive. Latin for Americans has enough to keep the ball rolling but not too much. The friendly tone, colorful pictures, and the inclusion of random yet interesting tidbits of information make this an inviting entry to the Latin language for average to upper average students. You may recall that point five of my review matrix says:

. . . the ideal introductory Latin textbook would be an inviting and lively invitation to the study of the Latin language. It would appeal to the sensibilities of adolescent students in particular, but without dumbing down.

This is perhaps the strongest point for Latin for Americans.

Latin for Americans: the Rating

Here’s my final word. Latin for Americans is a good choice for interested and capable students who aren’t quite prepared for one of the more hard-driving textbooks. And they don’t need to be Americans.

Rating based on the five points I outline in my earlier post, “Latin Textbook Reviews: How to Choose.”

My rating: ★★★★ for middle-to-upper-mid-range students; ★★★ 1/2 for more advanced students. Reviewers on Amazon.com give it 4.1 stars.

★	Includes a clear, rigorous presentation of Latin grammar. Yes, as explained above. Not too rigorous, but complete and systematic enough to earn a full star.
★	Provide students with ample opportunities for reading Latin prose (and occasional poetry) that is as authentic as possible for their stage in the learning process. Again, the readings are sufficient. The content is mostly pretty good. Subtract half a star if you’re looking for a more reading-intensive approach..
1/2★	Present the Latin Language as an ongoing, living literary medium over the past two thousand years. Latin for Americans does a good job with the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, but does little with the rest of the history of the language.
1/2★	Provide a reasonably comprehensive view of the literary and historical context that produced and continued to nourish the Latin language. Again, good within its ancient Roman focus area.
★	An inviting and lively invitation to the study of the Latin language. Yes, as explained above. This is the strongest category for Latin for Americans.