Ecce Romani: Meeting the Family/Rome at Last/Home and School Hardcover – Import, 1 February 1990

I have taught and tutored many, many students who have used the Ecce Romani series as their primary Latin text. These books do not enable the student to gain a solid command of Latin grammar. The books introduce phrases like "sub arbore" before they have introduced the idea of what a case is, let alone covered the forms and uses of the ablative (not to mention the third declension). There are stories (in which people are constantly yelling at lazy slaves--why on earth is this considered acceptable?) which use obscure, not-particularly-useful vocabulary and are full of forms and constructions that have nothing to do with the grammar that is actually covered in the chapter. I think these books give the illusion that they are "making Latin fun" when what they are actually doing is avoiding the difficult concepts and rules that govern the language in favor of feeding words and phrases to make it seem like the student is reading a story--and thereby not teaching Latin at all. The books present extended reading passages full of constructions the student has not yet been exposed to, and provide translations of entire Latin phrases and sentences, as if the language were a code you just need a key to decipher. Worse, they frequently feed the words in the sentences in English word order (especially in the beginning), further contributing to the student's desire to just translate teach word from left to right without looking to the endings to work out what is actually happening in the sentence. There is no systematic presentation of the rules of grammar and syntax, and that's what learning Latin is all about. It's all very well to become skilled at divining from context what a passage means, but accurate translation and a deep understanding of the nuances of a Latin text are entirely dependent on a technical understanding of how the language works. I always have to do remedial grammar work with students who learned Latin with the Ecce tests, and they usually think that studying grammar in this way is not the right way to learn Latin--but it is the only way, and Ecce does not provide it. Students who have learned with Cambridge or (my personal favorite) Wheelock invariably have a better grasp of gramar and are better, faster, more accurate translators.

This is the book that I learned from, starting in middle school. I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of it for quite a while, and was about to give up. I'm using it, now, to brush up on my own Latin, and also to teach my teenage sons the basics. Excellent book for anyone who has an interest in learning Latin.

I’m joining a classics department as a first and second year Latin teacher. This is so convenient!