For those that weren’t aware I’m the Latin and Science teacher for our daughter. This was our first year of Latin and I used Prima Latina to introduce our daughter to Latin pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. The set of books and cds allow us to use visual, aural and read/write mechanisms to acquire the language.

How did we do? If measurement is simply the volume of information retained by the student I think we did great. My daughter has memorized vocabulary, short prayers, verb conjugations, 1st declension nouns and other bits. I also know that we don’t (or shouldn’t measure) success in this one way. However, this text seems to teach to that end exclusively. I’m a fan of memorization where it works and in language acquisition it is a necessary feature when we are not learning directly. Yet, I still feel as though the text should have or could have made things a little more interesting. We all know that when children are interested in a topic they learn more effectively, perform better and acquire a greater body of information. When they are not, well, we know what happens there.

This is I think the failing of the text; It provides no real opportunities to cultivate interest, fun or anything else. It is simply a brute-force technique. I say this because my daughter, although she has learned all of the material (read: memorized) bemoans latin quite frequently. It is not because it takes tons of time, but because it is just tedious. Again, tedium is an unfortunate part of how we experience things, but when tedium can be avoided it should. In this case it wasn’t.

Prima Latina teaches ecclesiastical latin. I’m not a purist (or maybe I am), but this form of latin seems rather odd to teach unless you’ll be participating in some sort of liturgy. I would have liked to have seen the text teach latin in its classical forms. I had to rewrite the pronunciation rules provided in the text, avoid certain audio section and perform other minor surgeries on the material in order to align it more closely with its classical heritage. In summary, Prima Latina was useful for the arrangement of very introductory material, vocabulary lists, derivatives and tests. Those expecting stories, pictures, translation opportunities (short sentences) that make for a more well-rounded approach or those that would like to teach classical latin would do well to look elsewhere.