Cambridge Latin Course Unit 3 Student Text North American Edition

The book is in great condition, I received it in a short amount of time and it was a fair price. Excellent service!

Before ordering this book, I'd worked my way through the Cambridge Latin Course books 1 and 2 (or, I should say, books I and II) and had enjoyed them tremendously. I'd tried to learn through Fredrick Wheelock's classic text and the various popular self-study books from different publishers, but the reading-based approach of the Cambridge series really made a difference. (I think the only way Wheelock works is in a classroom with a very experienced teacher.) Also good for people who actually want to read Latin is "Lingua Latina," which is a reading-based approach. The university where I work, Eastern Kentucky University, currently uses the Cambridge Latin Series for Latin 101 and Latin 102. I've already ordered Book IV in the series, and I hope to get to that later this summer.

I wholeheartedly endorse the Cambridge Latin series, especially for adult students of Latin who can't spend years studying it in school. I began my Latin study with the Wheelock's textbooks, which are miserable, and didn't begin to make quick progress until I discovered this course (I know Arabic, so it isn't that I can't do languages). The hard thing about Latin is the case system, of course, and whereas some texts throw all forms of a certain type at you at once - for example, you have to learn all conjugations of the first or second declension at once - this system teaches you piecemeal, with a focus on texts which get progressively more difficult with each chapter. Right now I'm in the midst of the third book, and learning as I have time. Each chapter has four types of subsections. Each begins with a kind of simple narrative with pictures; I think this was to make it more interesting for younger students. Second, each chapter has a series of texts, either four or five, with the new vocabulary for each given immediately afterward. Third, there are a couple of grammar sections, and the grammar is explained very well. Fourth, there is a cultural section in English discussing an aspect a life in the Roman world related to the narrative. The second and third subsections, however, are really the core of the system. The first and fourth subsections make the text more child-friendly. Five stars.

(...) As for the format of the book, I found it to be an easy read. Almost every stage begins with line drawings ("cartoons"), which introduces grammar, characters and sets the "stage" for what is to follow. Then there are a number of stories in each stage; proved for fun group quiz games (EUGE!). At the end of each story new vocabulary is included. Also there are vocabulary checklists, which you should know, at the end of the stage. Sometimes, the vocabulary at the end of the stories appears in the checklists further along in book. If this becomes a problem, my suggestion would be to make flashcards for each of the stages (proven study aid). I do think that an improvement to later editions would be to include an English-Latin dictionary of the words used within the book, as well as pronunciation. Yet, nothing that an external English-Latin = Latin-English dictionary could not handle. Valete!

As a student of Latin for the past 8 years (starting with Cambridge) I highly recommend this series. It provides the fundamental basics of Latin in an easy-to-understand format. The stories are interesting and historical; the vocabulary provides a solid foundation for future study and the grammar is thorough but not boring. Students are involved with reading the language immediately and are thus able to see how the different components of each sentence interact. Not only do these books provide instruction in Latin but also in the culture and history of Rome. Students of all ages can appreciate and learn from these books!