Earlier this year, this was posted on my site. I couldn’t have said it better:
As a recovering Henle student, I also encourage the Lingua Latina book. My sons and I switched over to Lingua Latina after one year of tedious struggle with Henle.
Lingua Latina is not easy. It’s still a struggle and demands a lot of time, but I think it’s the closest thing to learning Latin by submersion without being dropped into a foreign country. (Of course, that isn’t even possible with Latin.)
I speak another language fluently enough that I used to write translations for the UN. I didn’t learn it by first memorizing charts and endings. It’s all about hearing patterns, learning vocabulary in context and then mimicking. Think of how a child learns to speak. “Jane eat. Mama eat. She eat.”
A child doesn’t begin speaking with correct conjugations. That comes literally years later when the ear tunes into the refinements of the patterns heard. I just wish there were Lingua Latina books for learning every language!
