How students can use these pages.

This pages are designed to help students teach themselves some elementary Latin and to review Latin. They are  not designed for any particular textbooks or recent teaching philosophy. Indeed, in some respects the method here is quite old-fashioned, based heavily on paradigms (that is, forms to be memorized) and grammatical rules. These pages are designed for a particular kind of student, one that is able to see, understand  and use rules and patterns for understanding language.  Latin is regular enough and its grammatical principles clear enough that, based on rules alone, a student can learn to translate a considerable amount of Latin.

In the course of these pages, I introduce concepts in small bits and give drills to reinforce these concepts. Instead of making the students try to figure out paragraphs containing loads of new grammar, whose rules they are supposed to intuit, I simply build up the ability to read Latin one small step at a time. It may not be the most exciting type of instruction, but, for the sort of learner I am and was, structure and clarity were quite important, and this is what I try to offer here.

The student is advised to proceed through the pages in the order I present them.In addition to the grammar there will be a lot of drills that will immediately test you on material you have learned as well as drills that review you over old material. If you find that you have forgotten some material, you are encouraged to go back and redo some of the earlier drills. 

This is very much of a work in progress, and, as time goes one, these pages will offer more kinds of drills, more grammar, more cross-references, etc. If you have any questions or comments, you can mail me at alvares@mail.montclair.edu  or use the form below. If you use the form, you will need to include an address of some sort if you wish me to return your message. 

hits since 30 May 1999