Review: English Grammar for Students of Latin

Studying Latin on your own, and wish you had a professor you could ask questions? Studying with a class, but the grammar still seems murky and you are too intimidated to ask questions? This book is for you. I wish I had written this book! (I guess I just need to be glad no one needs to wait for me to get it done, since it’s already here!)

English Grammar for Students of Latin: The Study Guide for Those Learning Latin by Norma Goldman and Ladislas Szymanski

The chapters are each about a couple of pages long, covering 49 topics about parts of speech, grammar terms, and sentence types. Each topic is explained simply, clearly, and as briefly as possible: each chapter introduces and defines the topic, proceeds to examine examples of how we handle the item in the English language, and then compares that to how it is done in Latin. The Latin examples are always translated, unlike the really old books!

The longer chapters often have a summary to condense what was presented over the pages. Nearly every chapter, even the very short ones, has a “Review” which means a few questions to test your understanding of what you have read. (Answers for these in a key at the back.)

The book features lots of sentence analyses, with braces and brackets, but few charts. Interestingly, the few noun and pronoun charts there are sometimes organized vertically, sometimes horizontally. That is quite unusual!

Every Latin student should have this book. It is very cheap used in the USA at Biblio for example. If you have enjoyed using this book, it would be great to hear your opinion below!