<p>So I just realized that I have a copy of Wheelock's Latin and thought I could make it my summer project to learn a little bit of Latin by myself. Any tips from those who did this/learned Latin in school (not an option for me)?</p>
<p>I tried learning it on my own since I’ve always liked those Latin phrases. It was interesting enough, but then my attention got caught on something else and I stopped.</p>
<p>Eh, I bought Wheelocks after my 3rd year of Latin, so that I could sometimes have a bit of translation fun on my own. </p>
<p>I have very little translation fun on my own.</p>
<p>Wheelock’s if we’re talking about the same book, is not exactly for beginners. But if we aren’t, and there exists some Wheelock’s for beginners, and you own it, I think Latin should be pretty easy to learn on one’s own. It’s more like math than language, to some extent, especially in the early stages.</p>
<p>I think it would be fine for you to learn the basics of Latin with a book. The early stages mainly just involve learning declension endings and the like, so it should be easy enough to do it with a book. </p>
<p>Once you get to a higher level of Latin I do think it would be helpful to have a Latin teacher. I agree with Millancad that it can be more like math than a language, in that it’s essentially a puzzle. </p>
<p>When translating/learning remember that word order can mean very little depending on who the author is, so all the grammar points are extremely important.</p>
<p>(I’m in my 6th year of Latin)</p>
<p>My version is simply called Wheelock’s Latin - it does have a few mentions of it being for beginners, though. </p>
<p>Thanks for the insight guys! I was also thinking about starting to self-study my foreign language on my own (French - won’t be taking it until Senior year), but figured that it’d be a waste since I’d be learning it in school.</p>
<p>If you are planning on studying latin for personal interest then I would say go for it, it takes a lot of discipline and you will end up a better person, or at least a better student. </p>
<p>But I wouldn’t recommend self studying for the AP Latin exam. The exam is insanely hard, and reading the Aeneid is not like regular latin, you are basically reading the latin equivalent of Shakespeare. Not to say it would be impossible, but unless you had an incredible talent for the language, I wouldn’t do it.</p>
<p>I didn’t even know there was an AP Latin exam, actually 
Just doing this for my own interests.</p>
<p>I used the Cambridge Latin textbook series. They’re different because they teach you in stories. It was interesting and at least made me semi-literate within a year. </p>
<p>If you want help conjugating and stuff then you can use conjuguemos.com. </p>
<p>Latin is hard to catch on to, but once you do, it’s easy. And it’s got a fraction of the words we have in English.</p>
<p>@Yousername: All of my friends who took Latin Virgil, especially those who took Latin Poetry AP before it was canceled and an compare the two, tell me that Latin Virgil is really easy. They go around reciting the first 10 lines and reading it without thinking, (which, to my shame, I can only halfway do nowadays with early 2nd year Latin).</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity: to those who have taken Latin in school, do you actually learn how to speak it?</p>
<p>No, you don’t learn to speak it. You learn to read it aloud, but since no one speaks it now we don’t learn to converse or anything.</p>
<p>^^ Never learned how to speak it but we to learn how to translate prose from English into Latin.</p>
<p>@Millancad, certain schools have a way of preparing their students for the Latin AP which mostly involves the students memorizing the English translation of the Aeneid, without much focus on the Latin. This allows many students to get 5’s when they are not at the “5 level”</p>
<p>Because of this they are changing the Latin AP in the next couple years… there will be a prose section as well as poetry, and more grammar questions</p>