I received this question:
My son is enrolled in Classical Conversations and heading into Challenge II this fall. He has done Henle I for the past 3 years and this past year, the second semester really got away on him… all those verb tenses.
He scheduled his hour of home work as follows: 15 m vocal review, 15 m grammar review, 30 m translation. But his translating is slow and laborious. He doesn’t write quickly and finds these books so tedious to use.
I tell you this to get your recommendation for him. If he were to take Lingua Latina instead, would be still be able to engage in conversation with the Henle students in his CC class? If he were to take your Henle classes, would it help? Would he still have to do all the exercises in the Henle book?
Help!?
Here is my reply:
Fortunately, on my site, you do not have to choose between Henle Latin and Lingua Latina. I only charge per family… not per student, and not per class. A subscription grants access to every live class I teach. It also grants access to all of the previous class on my site.
Your son’s translations are probably slow in part because the Henle series is so, so boring. Lingua Latina is a novel and is far more interesting.
That said, the grammar he has learned in First Year Latin will be very helpful as he reads Lingua Latina.
He would still be able to engage in class. It’s the same language, just a different approach. To use an analogy, Lingua Latina is like learning to drive a car. First Year Latin by Robert Henle is like going to auto-mechanic school. Students in Lingua Latina learn to use the language. Students in First Year Latin by Robert Henle learn about the language. Combining both courses is actually pretty powerful.
As for the exercises in the Henle books… would he have to do them all? That’s up to you, and up to him, I suppose. But, if it helps, I am going through each and every exercise in the book with my students. Eventually, I will have a class for every exercise. We are done with about 20% of the exercises at this point. We will continue on this September.
Let me know if you need more help!
Dwane Thomas
