Cambridge Latin Course, Unit 3B: Language Information, North American Edition

by North American Cambridge Classics Project, North American Cambridge Classics Project Staff

The Cambridge Latin Course is a well-established introductory program in four units, originally developed by the Cambridge School Classics Project. Under the sponsorship of the North American Cambridge Classics Project. This proven approach includes a stimulating, continuous storyline, grammatical development and cultural information carefully woven throughout the text, a complete Language Information section-now bound into the student's volume- and, for the first time, color photographs that illustrate the Roman world. Also available are a thorough Teacher's Manual, a workbook, and cassette tapes.

Genres: Textbooks, Language, Nonfiction, Reference

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Seri · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5
Done! Done with this book! Looking forward to the one for next year. Sed ubi sunt Quintus et Metella? I miss their stories. Tamen hic liber est ridiculus et fabulae sunt difficiles mihi credere.

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just reading - the story becomes disjointed & takes another set of characters in this text vs the prior texts.

[Wayfarer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cæcilius is dead.

[Baelor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book seamlessly continues the instruction that ended in the second Cambridge volume. I was happy to see that many of the characters, e.g. Salvius, reappeared. The new characters (especially the pantomime Paris and dwarf pipe-player Myropnous) were colorful additions.

Stories have one or two typos (always involving macrons) throughout but are written in good Latin that mercifully gets more challenging over the course of the book. The subjunctive, ablative absolutes, all tenses and both voices are introduced by the end. Some syntactical concepts (e.g. concessive/causal cum clauses) are left for the fourth volume, so this is not a terminus of the program: the students really must read through the fourth volume to encounter all of Latin grammar.

Grammar explanations, as in the first volume, are woefully inadequate. It seems that in an effort to make reading fluency occur naturally, the authors have fallen into the trap that simply knowing the grammar prevents reading fluency. This is obviously nonsense. Moreover, English translations are provided for new vocabulary and translation of whole passages is explicitly encouraged. The onus falls yet again on the teacher to discuss why the ablative absolute is "absolute," to explain how the different tenses relate to each other, to systematize the sequence of tenses, etc.

Cultural passages are interesting, especially the military segments and the discussion of freedmen. The story is also generally interesting and ends on a cliffhanger (DUMDUMDUM).

[William Herbst · Rating 3 out of 5]

I basically spend a good portion of my day twaching high school Latin from this text. It is well written but the order of presentation of grammar does not agree well with the usual presentation in the USA so competitions and such are tough when my students have learned the subjunctive but not the future tense!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quidlibet. Delectat me alii libri plus. Domitia stultissima est.

[Nathalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I Learned: How to Translate Latin!!!

[Kristen Fort · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best one of the Cambridge series.