IF YOU WISH TO LEARN LATIN ON YOUR OWN, THERE ARE AT LEAST TWO SERIES OF LATIN TEXTS THAT USE A TRANSLATION, (ALMOST ONLY), APPROACH THAT GETS THE READER USED TO WORD ORDER AND VOCABULARY. GRADUALLY MORE CASES ARE ADDED ALONG WITH VERB FORMS, PRONOUNS, ADJECTIVES, ETC. ONCE YOU READ ONE OR MORE OF THESE TEXTS, AND THEY ARE A FAIRLY FAST READ, YOU CAN MOVE INTO A MORE TRADITIONAL TEXT FOR THE GRAMMAR. ONCE YOU'VE ACQUIRED A BASIC READING KNOWLEDGE, AND ARE FAMILIAR WITH CASE AND TENSE, YOU CAN IMPROVE BY TRANSLATING SENTENCES FROM ENGLISH TO LATIN.
What is a good way to learn to read and write Latin?
2 Answers By Expert Tutors

John G. answered 04/09/19
Grad Student with 8+ Years of Latin Experience
If you're starting from scratch, I recommend finding either a Latin class at a local university or to contact a tutor to help you; learning a language on your own is extremely difficult, as there are a lot of idiosyncrasies that are difficult to grasp without assistance.
That said, if you're looking to start on your own, you should find either a textbook (I highly recommend Wheelock's Latin) or a free video class (I don't know any of them, but you should be able to find one online). From there, you'll learn the many verb and noun forms and the most common grammatical constructions, before moving onto reading real Latin texts.
Translating Latin is what you probably are going to want to do with Latin, at least at the start. Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars is usually considered a good introductory text, as is any of the biographies by Cornelius Nepos, but you should read what you want to read; otherwise, you won't be motivated to actually do the work, and your motivation is the only thing keeping you honest when you are studying on your own.
As for writing...composing Latin is hard. Just like reading, what you need to do is practice it. Find something you want to translate into Latin, then translate it into Latin. And repeat this a lot, because as I said, Latin composition is hard; I have studied Latin for almost ten years now, and it takes me a lot of time to compose even one line.
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