Wheelock's Latin: The Classic Introductory Latin Course, Based on Ancient Authors

When Professor Frederic M. Wheelock's Latin first appeared in 1956, the reviews extolled its thoroughness, organization, and conciseness; at least on reviewer predicted that the book "might well become the standard text" for introducing students to elementary Latin. Now, more than four decades later, that prediction has certainly proved accurate.

The sixth edition of Wheelock's Latin has all the features that have made it the bestselling single-volume beginning Latin textbook, many of them revised and expanded:

Since the chapters are short (about 5-7 pages in most cases) the book is ideal for self-study. I would add, however, that whether studying in school or on your own, but especially this latter, the addition of a companion guide will prove to be invaluable.

For this, I recommend Grote's COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO WHEELOCK'S LATIN -- a book that offers a little more repetition, fuller grammatical explanations, and is written in a calm, reassuring style. (Another plus is that it, unlike others, has its answer key printed in the back of the book -- so you don't have to wait a few months for your answer sheet if you get one at all.)


The best   November 30, 2003
Richard A. Weaver (lawrenceville, GA United States)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful

Wheelock's Latin has been around for over 40 years, and for good reason. It is the best introductory grammar of Latin that I've come across.

People bring to the study of a foreign language different expectations, different levels of linguistic sophistication, and different learning styles. So it's no surprise that there are a wide variety of reactions to Wheelock's text. I think it's the best for the following reasons:

1. It doesn't assume you know a lot of grammar - they don't just drop 'demonstrative pronoun' and 'subjunctive' on you; the concepts are explained clearly.

2. Lessons contain one or two grammatical points, with many examples of their proper use.

3. Practice exercises (and answers!) are given in the rear of the book. You could also buy the companion exercise book if you want, but caveat emptor! - the answers are not included. (I wrote to Harper Collins, and they sent me the URL and password for the website that contains the answers.)

For my money, it's the best and gentlest introduction to Latin available, and it's suitable for all ages, from high school on up. With Wheelock under your belt, you'll be ready to take on annotated readings, and hit some of the more advanced grammars.


Excellent Book!   October 25, 2002
26 out of 28 found this review helpful

I've tried picking up Latin on my own but it never worked and when I finally was able to take Latin in college the textbook the professor used was Wheelock and I was amazed. For the first time all those endings made sense and why the endings changed made sense also. Learning grammar may be old fashioned but I prefer to know it. For me, it makes things easier. Instead of looking at a Latin sentence and being completely lost, I could easily look up the gender of a noun (if I didn't remember it) and figure out what function it served based on its ending, what adjective went with what noun because of agreement, what tense the sentence was in because of the verb and anything else I needed to know about the sentence so I could translate it. Wheelock takes quite a bit of studying and I have had to buy several extra books because my command of English grammar is laughable but Wheelock is the only Latin book that I've ever been able to understand.
And Wheelock doesn't really bombard you with too much information at once either. At least not for our class since we do a chapter a week. Each chapter has the new information first, a list of vocabulary next, and sentences to translate along with a paragraph at the end. That's pretty much all I pay attention to and while Wheelock doesn't provide answers for the chapter exercises, they can be found on the internet (most of them), and the exercises in the back of the book have answers to them.
Labor me vocat!
Labor- 3rd declension masculine noun and because of the form it is in, it is either the nomitive (subject of the sentence) or the vocative (direct address). Labor means work, toil, etc. Me- pronoun meaning me. Vocat- the t tells you it is third person singular (he/she/it) and since this is a first conjugation verb (vocare- to call), it is in the present indicative active (basically he/she/it calls, is calling, does call). And the it refers to labor since labor's form indicates that it can be a subject. Work calls me. Work is calling me. Work does call me.
I just gave you a long tedious explanation but I can assure you, I feel much better translating a sentence and being able to tell exactly why it is translated that way instead of being lost. I quit taking Spanish, and still loathe the subject, because I was lost. I made good grades, could write it, read it, but I had no clue what I was doing. Just stuck stuff together because I had memorized what sorts of things went with what sorts of things. Being able to pick apart a Latin sentence and be able to tell what the subject is, direct object is, indirect object is, the tense the sentence is in, and everything else is a wonderful feeling. If you want to skip the grammar, go ahead, but I prefer to be able to understand what I'm doing and Wheelock is the only book that seems to understand that.


MAGNVM OPVS LATINITATIS   September 15, 2002
Brandon Utley (Podunk, Egypt)
31 out of 36 found this review helpful

It would be hard for me not to give five stars to the single series of books (all the wheelock collection) which enabled me to attain fluency in this extremely difficult and complex language. I consider myself very qualified to write a review on the book in that I have very slowly and arduously digested all 40 chapters of the book over a period of five years and the concepts I learned from this grammar have been reenforced repeatedly through readings of original authors. While the grammar may not be as completely comprehendsive as other more advanced grammar books it is extremely practical, essential, and straight forward. The books main strengths are

1) Its very informal, non technical language and lucid explination. Some reviewers have expresed a feeling that the book pre-assumes knowlege of english grammar in order to explain latin grammar. This is to be expected and is perfectly rightly so. As a matter of fact, if you havent learned the grammar of the language you speak, how can you ever hope to understand an explination of the grammar to a language you dont speak? We would have to call nouns "those things that are names for things" and past participles "those words you use to refer to a verb that has been done already" You see many of the detracted stars this book has recieved are not due to faults in the book but in its readers. This book does a very good job of making the explination understandable without overloading you with technical grammatical terminology. I own 8 grammar books some of which date back to the early 1900s and by far this one is the most expressive.

2)It contains extra practice exercises and material that many other grammar books dont such as a large selection of original latin litterature in the back and a dictionary that is both latin english and english latin. Some people have moaned about the fact that the book dosent contain much cultural/historical info on ancient roam. This is beause the book is already about 1.5 by 7 inches of pure unadulterated linguistical and lexical magnificence intended for one purpose only, teaching you the fundamentals of the latin language. While it is good to learn of the culture you can do this elsewere in other books and if your learning a language you should never use only one text anyway.

3) it gives detailed etymological info and even a humorous bit called "latina est gaudium et utilis" in which the reader understands how latin developed into the romance tongues and how it has effected english. There are many cheesy jokes in the gaudium and utilis bits but these are a noble attempt to lighten the already onerous burden of bearing the weight of complex grammatical constructions. And if the reader consideres this material to be extraneous or superfluous he can always simply skip them with no detriment, I dont understand why some reviewers have actualy taken off stars for this. where else can i learn interesting things like "malo malo malo malo" (id rather be in an apple tree than a bad man in adversite) and that sic transit gloria mundi realy translates to (gloria gets sick at the train station on monday)

All potential readers can completely disregard the comments made by those who have given the book one star for teaching grammar the "old fasioned way." It almost sounds like someone would have us beleive that we as mature adults can learn a language only by hearing it spoken thereby bypassing the effort and work requried to internalise grammar. It is known that only infants can do this and the process is very difficult to reproduce in a classroom with adults. This is like trying to learn to play a musical instrument solely by listening to mustic, its valuable for learning how it should sound and does you great benefit, but how can you ever expect to be a motzart unless you play with a piano. Similarly if you never put forth the effort to learn, how can you say somethign like this: Quisquis vult sic latialiter loqui, hunc librum legat discatqve ut volubiliter ac libenter dicat. (whosoever wants to speak thusly latinly, let him read and learn this book that he might speak it fluently and freely)


Optime!   January 7, 2006
M. Nikolic
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

Years go by, tons of new books are published, yet the cliche is usually true: always go with a classic!

Before buying this, keep one thing in mind: Professor Wheelock doesn't sugarcoat things. Apart from a brief introduction to ancient Rome and the evolution of the Latin language, which I found very engaging, he wastes no time and dives right into the grammar. Some people find he goes by too fast, but I disagree. I've looked at several Latin programs (including Rosetta Stone and Teach Yourself Latin Complete Course), but none of them teaches you Latin nearly as well as Wheelock does.

The problem most people have is that in our modern society, grammar is no longer taught as intensively as in the past. Even those who speak almost perfect English often times don't know the grammatical rule for why a sentence is correct. This is what Wheelock wants you to be able to do in his course. If he gives you a Latin sentence, he wants you to be able to distuingish why he used the Accusative and not the Nominative case, and so on. And rightly so. How can you learn a language without knowing the reason behind the declensions and conjugations you make? If your command of English grammar is so poor, then you probably have more serious issues than trying to learn Latin!

To those who have purchased the book and are having trouble with the course, here's a few suggestions. First, make sure you go through the book SLOWLY. There is no reason to rush through it. Wheelock himself suggests this as well. Learn the rules, learn how to use them correctly, and only then should you move on to the next lesson. I've spent close to 2 weeks studying some of the chapters, and there's no shame in it. Remember, repetitio est mater memoriae!

Second, I STRONGLY urge you to buy Professor Dale A. Grote's "Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock's Latin". He goes through every chapter and irons out many of the kinks found in Wheelock's book. There are times when Wheelock doesn't explain something fully; when you read Grote's explanation, more often than not you'll say "Ohhhh, now I get it!"

I don't agree that you have to be a genius to be successful in this course. Though I consider myself an intelligent person, I'm by no means genetically predisposed to learning languages. Just like so many others who have learned Latin with Wheelock's course over the past few decades, I had to put in a lot of hard work and dedication, along with plenty of memorizing. There's simply no substitute for hard work. I wish you all good luck!