Expertidicimus: User-Reactions to Reading Latin By P. V. Jones and K. C. Sidwell

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The demands on a modern Latin course are formidable indeed: it must present all the requisite grammatical and syntactical material intelligibly and palatably to learners unfamiliar with the structure of even their native language, whet their appetite for the riches of Latin literature in the original, and allow them to graduate to it as quickly and painlessly as possible. University students, reared on nonlinguistic courses in ‘Classical Civilization’ (uel sim.), bulk large among today's consumers, and as one who has often in recent years had to teach them the Latin language, I wholeheartedly welcomed the appearance in 1986 of Reading Latin (hereafter RL), which expressly sets out to meet the aforementioned needs. Some brief reviews appeared shortly after its publication, but as the authors envisage the course ideally being spread over two academic years (Text p. v), now is perhaps the time for one who has so used it in a university department to appraise it again in the light of experience. Does it work? For some or for all? What are its strengths and weaknesses? How'could it be improved? In offering the following observations and suggestions, I am only too well aware of how easy it is to criticize such a project, and how hard to do better.