This Canon Press set of Latin Primer 1, Student Text by, Martha Wilson comes complete with the Teacher’s Edition and the Latin Pronunciation Aid cassette tape for Primer 1. 

Over half of the English language is derived from Latin, amateur--amo, I love, Montana--mons, mountain, Patriot--patria, native land.

These and thousands of other words we use every day keep this "dead" language-a language of kings and poets, of scrolls and secrets-alive. And this means that when we study Latin, we're not just learning about Rome-we're learning about ourselves.

From the Introduction;

You are about to begin learning a language that most children your age do not learn. It is usually surprising to people when they hear that third-graders are learning Latin. Like most of the people you know, I didn’t learn Latin in third grade. I began studying it after I had graduated from college and was teaching school.

Let me tell you a little about what you can expect. One of the first things you will learn is a little saying that begins amō, amās, amat. When I was just beginning to teach Latin and told my grandmother what I was doing, she said “Oh—amō, amās, amat.” She had learned that when she was about fifteen, and this was almost eighty years later and she still remembered it! You will learn a lot of little sayings like that and if you learn them well they will help you greatly as you learn Latin. Maybe you’ll be able to tell them to your grandchildren!

One thing that may seem funny is that nobody grows up speaking Latin any more and there is no country in the world where the people speak Latin. If you want to hear English being spoken, you can go to the United States or England; if you want to hear Spanish being spoken, you can go to Spain or Mexico; if you want to hear French you can go to France. But there isn’t a country like that for Latin. The people that spoke Latin were the Romans, and the Roman Empire has been gone for a long time. You might wonder why you are learning Latin if that is so. There are a lot of reasons. I will tell you just a few.

I think that all of you have used these words: animal, library, elevator, commercial, and scribble. Your parents may have used these words: constellation, coronation, and impecunious. All those words and many, many more come from Latin words. In fact, over half of the words in English come from Latin. So, while you are learning Latin, you will also be learning English. Once you have studied Latin for a while, you will probably be better at learning and remembering hard English words like impecunious and constellation and coronation.

Someday you might want to learn Spanish or French or Italian. That will probably be easy for you because those languages are what became of Latin in different places after the Roman Empire fell apart. Sometimes I call those languages “New Latin” because that’s what they are, in a way.

Let me give you another reason. I think Latin will make you smarter! I had gone to school for many years when I began learning Latin, and I had never had to learn as carefully for a school subject. That is one of the reasons I wish that I had learned Latin at your age. I might have become smarter much faster!

Here is one last reason. You might find that Latin is fun. As you learn , it will take some hard work and you will enjoy it in different ways as you get better and better. But I like Latin, and I hope you will, too!

The covers of the books have a little wear from age and use. Flipping through the book I notice no writing on the inside pages. The Pronunciation tape was still working when it was last used several years ago but I was not able to test it before listing it here.

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