Hopefully you're reading this after having figured out why you want to study Latin. If not, go read this.
In some ways, your why answer will answer the next question. In other ways, it won't. Here's the question:
Whole-to-part
This is my preferred method. Essentially, you're going to get Latin from the very beginning. In this method, you get explanations as they are needed. Or, even better, you figure out the explanations as you go. You start out in the dark and slowly feel your way around until you've found the light switch. So to speak.
Any textbook that generally comes from this direction will have plenty of connected reading from the very beginning. Another big tip off is seeing the reading first in any bit of the book. Or, in more extreme cases, total immersion in Latin.
Part-to-whole
I'll be honest, this one isn't for me, but I've got great news about this general tactic: most materials approach Latin from this direction. The general tactic here is to teach you a paradigm—one word showing all possible forms for any given feature, say, tense—and drill it home until you know it exactly. Only then do you get to read any Latin.
This method is more like plotting a route on a mapping website. You set your beginning point and end point. The computer, the textbook in this analogy, sets out a course. You study the route turn by turn until you have memorized it. Then you go and drive the route.
A big tip off here is that there are no readings until the end of a chapter. They are generally not even connected sentences.
Is it really so polar?
Of course not. I present these two tactics as two ends of a continuum. Each set of learning materials is somewhere between these two poles. The old Jenny's Latin that I learned from was mostly part-to-whole, though the readings at the end of each chapter would slip in a few forms that belonged to the next chapter. Cambridge Latin, which is very much whole-to-part, has paradigms included in its lessons. It's virtually impossible to find a book that is only one or the other.
So your work this time is this: which direction do I generally favor?
In some ways, your why answer will answer the next question. In other ways, it won't. Here's the question:
How do I learn?This seems trivial, but it isn't. I've got two answers in mind, and they work from completely opposite directions.
Whole-to-part
This is my preferred method. Essentially, you're going to get Latin from the very beginning. In this method, you get explanations as they are needed. Or, even better, you figure out the explanations as you go. You start out in the dark and slowly feel your way around until you've found the light switch. So to speak.
Any textbook that generally comes from this direction will have plenty of connected reading from the very beginning. Another big tip off is seeing the reading first in any bit of the book. Or, in more extreme cases, total immersion in Latin.
Part-to-whole
I'll be honest, this one isn't for me, but I've got great news about this general tactic: most materials approach Latin from this direction. The general tactic here is to teach you a paradigm—one word showing all possible forms for any given feature, say, tense—and drill it home until you know it exactly. Only then do you get to read any Latin.
This method is more like plotting a route on a mapping website. You set your beginning point and end point. The computer, the textbook in this analogy, sets out a course. You study the route turn by turn until you have memorized it. Then you go and drive the route.
A big tip off here is that there are no readings until the end of a chapter. They are generally not even connected sentences.
Is it really so polar?
Of course not. I present these two tactics as two ends of a continuum. Each set of learning materials is somewhere between these two poles. The old Jenny's Latin that I learned from was mostly part-to-whole, though the readings at the end of each chapter would slip in a few forms that belonged to the next chapter. Cambridge Latin, which is very much whole-to-part, has paradigms included in its lessons. It's virtually impossible to find a book that is only one or the other.
So your work this time is this: which direction do I generally favor?
