Carolus et Maria

by Marjorie J. Fay, Ruth Upham (illustrator)

102 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1933

Reviews

[C. A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ce livre est moins graduel que LLPSI. Il y a un lexique à la fin et il est nécessaire de le consulter presque à chaque page de lecture, car certains mots sont mal introduits.
De plus, l'histoire n'est pas claire : les protagonistes sont de petits écoliers américains du début du 20e siècle qui se passionnent des guerres antiques romaines. Ils en racontent des histoires puis imitent les soldats romains lorsqu'ils jouent ensemble. Je ne comprenais pas toujours si le récit concernait l'antiquité ou le présent imaginé des protagonistes.

[Gerrit G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an okayish first reader. What is a bit weird is that it sometimes felt "steep". You need to know perfect/imperfect tense, all declinations, and I believe to have sawn AcI constructs as well. The story is a bit boring, and because the author tries to "repeat" phrases, at times the repetition becomes odd and feels out of place.

You can find the first 20 chapters here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUn_u...

I prefer to work with "Lingua Latina per se Illustrata - Familia Romana", but sometimes read other texts, such as this one, to have some additional challenge/test/vocabulary.

[Eugenio Fouz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Practical, useful reading of extremely easy Latin short sentences in a graded reader for beginners. It reminded me the well-known assimil method to learn languages. This method, the assimil method, pointed out the principle of learning foreign languages by means of practice. The fluent tool is short messages introducing new words, conversion from one language to the other, a picture, notes on grammar and a bilingual glossary in every lesson. This is not a review of the assimil method but a review of a Latin easy reading. I can´t help thinking of the easy ways of the famous pocket book I found out years ago at home.
Reading short sentences in a foreign language (not so strange for a Spanish speaker) made things more comfortable thanks to the glossary at the end of the book. Now I´m talking about "Carolus et Maria" by Marjorie Fay. I got used to keep a bookmark in the last pages of the book to check the meanings of words. I always read taking notes, underlining expressions and jotting down meanings of words. For me the reading of the text in Latin had been hard or almost impossible without the help of the glossary of the book.
Words in context is the key to a successful learning of language.
If someone asked me how to learn a foreign language I would answer the best way to do that is by using words. Read and listen. Listen and read.
Words make the world go round. Just words.

[Kevin Sheth · Rating 4 out of 5]

It isn’t great but it’s definitely one of the better readers.