<p>I second the suggestion to use Wheelock. It'll serve you well throughout your studies. You might also want to get the companion-- it's a little green book and explains the more ambiguous points.</p>
<p>By the way: I take Latin and French, and as someone said, French takes longer to get a hold of. You can study as aggressively as you want, but you just need a lot of exposure to really be able to hear and speak. One year of French might not be worth it-- you could always wait until college-- but if you really want to, go for it.</p>
<p>A second by the way: I found Latin for Dummies really repulsive. It (obviously) tries to dumb down the language and isn't strong in grammar at all. Stick with Wheelock. :)
Best of luck!</p>
<p>Well known book is Familia romana (Lingva latina per Illvstrata), which also has a workbook. The book is like any students book for the modern languages, like french, english etc.
There is the link for web version: LINGVA</a> LATINA</p>
<p>Of course french. You can speak it round Europe, althought thats true that most europeans speak english. Depends what you study. If you think you are going to be philosohp or historian, latin will be neccesar for you.</p>
<p>I think Latin is an easier language to master because you'd have no expectation to speak it fluently nowadays. The AP or SAT II tests have no listening or speaking portion. Basically, you have time to think and use your logic to parse the language (and Latin's a very logical language).</p>
<p>I don't think I could've gotten 5s on AP Spanish or French, but that's maybe just my preferences.</p>