Ecce Romani: Level 1a

The Ecce Romani series is particularly good for teaching Latin to 7th - 10th graders. The format is "kid-friendly" and provides enough interest to keep most kids motivated to move forward. The lessons are the story of a Roman family - Dad, Mom and son (Marcus) and daughter (Cornelia). The kids have various friends and we get to learn about the activities of their servants (and how the kids annoy them) and the various things the family does on its way to Rome. Each chapter is short - has a good number of new words - and many opportunities to translate. Lessons and activities are included for each chapter (declensions, cases, etc.) as well as interesting facts about Rome, the gods, way of life, etc. The back of the book contains a latin to english and english to latin vocabulary dictionary of words from the book. There is also a pretty decent pronunciation guide and an index indicating where particular grammar concepts can be found. The series moves at a good pace but older high school students (starting latin in 10th or 11th grade) might find the stories in the first book tedius. If the program is started in 7th or 8th grade, this series is one of the best!

This is a very well-written textbook series. I took Latin I and II using this series, but I had to switch to the Cambridge Latin series for Latin III when I changed schools. Ecce Romani is a much better series than Cambridge. It contains many assets (such as an English-Latin AND Latin-English dictionary, multiple challenging practice exercises in each chapter, enjoyable stories, well-organized vocabulary sections in each chapter, etc.) necessary for the enjoyable and productive study of Latin which the Cambridge books lack. The Ecce Romani books are well organized and more enjoyable to learn from. I highly recommend this well-written series to everyone.

This book tells the interesting story of a family living in ancient Rome one year after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The vocabulary is not too complicated to learn and the grammer starts very easy and gradually works its way into the hard stuff. I have used books one and two. Next year I will be working with book three. So far I have enjoyed the stories and learning the Latin language with this book series.

This is the first text book I used when I learned latin back in fifth grade (many a year ago!), and I still value the approach it took in awakening my interest and understanding of not just the language, but the culture, the history, the politics, the context of the Roman people and their language. The text is filled with short 'stories' written in latin that encourage students to interact with the language in a living context, rather than treating the language as a dead, unusable language, as most latin texts do. This text engaged my imagination, fascinated me, and inspired me as an an adult to visit Italy to see the ruins, the town of Pompeii, and other sites that I first learned about through its pages. I thank this text for allowing me to translate latin I encountered in European Cathedrals I visited, as well. There are few texts from my grammar school years that I can recall, let alone praise (hint, I'm nearing 30...), but Ecce Romani is one that still cherish for the impact it had on me as a student, and the lasting effects I've been able to trace in my life.

This series takes a unique approach to the study of Latin. Most Latin textbooks begin with the first declension and move systematically through each declension, conjugation, etc. Ecce Romani, however, encourages the student to use his or her own instinctive linguistic abilities to translate texts. Thus instead of the typical Latin one textbook which begins with the banal sentence "Roma est in Italia," Ecce Romani begins with a sentence such as "In pictura est puella, nomine Flavia, quae in villa habitat." With cognates and a limited vocabulary list the students are able to translate the sentence without going into the depth of ablative phrases, relative clauses, and verb conjugations. These topics are gradually introduced and explained as one goes through the series. The result of this is that the student gains an appreciation of the language without being burdened by its intricacies. I have found that this works wonderfully for middle school age students in the sixth through eighth grades. Once a student reaches ninth grade a more formulaic understanding of the language becomes necessary. Interesting stories accompanied by archaeological, mythological, and historical tidbits make this series a visually pleasing and academically challenging introduction to Latin for young students.