Ecce Romani, Vol. 1: A Latin Reading Program, 4th Edition (Latin Edition)

This textbook holds a special place in my heart since it was my step into learning Latin.

The entire binding was pretty chappy on my purchase. The front cover was not held in place or glued to the spine of the bound pages. There wasn't much writing on the pages. But the binding is really inconvenient. I have to be call careful putting the textbook in my backpack.

This book as well as the 9 others ordered with Amazon all arrived on time as promised and in secure packaging.The Latin text book Ecce Romani was in better shape than we expected, the hard cover was secure and pages were nice and clean. Thanks so very much.

Literally every page is written and doodled on, they didn't even bother to take the post it notes off the pages. Had to find a reputable source to buy a new book from that was almost the same price.Terrible just terrible.

Daughter says it is nice to have a physical book for her on-line Latin course.

good shipping and price

fast shipping. Item as described

This is a frustrating text. On the on hand, it is the best of the modern textbooks, with a nice balance between the inductive and grammar/translation approaches. This balance is a real advantage: students need to know grammar to learn the language. How else would they be able to talk ABOUT the language, including its grammar? They also need to recognize and interpret the forms. Not being native speakers, the easiest way for them to accomplish these goals is methodical study of accidence, syntax, and grammar. And the inductive approach helps them recognize that the language is not a series of unconnected sentences: students need to be aware from early on that they will be reading passages, not snippets. So, I like this book's adherence to a golden mean between the two standard approaches.On the other hand, however, the book is simply too busy. First, there is too much vocabulary. Much of it is there simply to serve the story. It should be halved, even if this means the story is less involved. Second, there are too many passages, particularly near the end of the text, which, because they appear at at the very busy end of the year, must be jettisoned by the teacher. Third, the book attempts too much grammar. For instance, there is no reason to introduce so many uses of the dative case. Finally, the later passages are too long. A paragraph is sufficient to introduce the (reduced) vocabulary and new syntax.There is so much good about this text that I don't like to disparage it, but future revisions should really focus on reducing the content introduced at the end of the text, reducing vocabulary throughout the text and the number of passages in each chapter (no chapter should have more than one passage, of one paragraph in length), and ensuring that all cases of the noun are introduced before chapter 17.Edit (3/15/2019: The Ides!): My comments stand. In concept, this is potentially the best text out there, but in execution it has serious flaws. I have been using ECCE ROMANI (ER) for fifteen years in my classrooms, but I am considering moving to a different text next year. All of ER's excesses are easily fixed. Here is what needs to change:1) Shorter chapter passages: these should not be longer than a single eight-to-twelve-line paragraph. Make the story less eventful if necessary, or jettison the story altogether and have stand alone passages. The chapter 26 passage, to take an example at random, is 34 lines--way too long!2) Less vocabulary introduced in each chapter. For ECCE 1, there should be no more than fifteen new vocabulary items per chapter. There should also be less variation in the amount of bold vocabulary introduced per chapter.3) Less grammar: jettison the ablative of cause (or at least don't talk about it); get rid of all dative usages save the indirect object and (perhaps) the dative with intranstive verbs (eg. faveo and noceo); ditch the genitive of the whole (or at least don't formally treat it)4) Introduce all tenses of the present system in the first seventeen chapters (reserving, perhaps, they third/fourth conjugation futures for chapters 18-27)5) Introduce all cases and a basic use for each in the first seventeen chapters.6) Each chapter should have one, and no more than one, extended passage; more extended reading work can be put in the activity book.7) Formally introduce the the first and second personal pronouns and the third person non-reflexive pronoun earlier, somewhere around chapter 18.8) Introduce all perfect tenses of first conjugation verbs earlier, perhaps somewhere in the first seventeen chapters, and then introduce the perfect systems of the other conjugations separately, one conjugation to a chapter, later on.9) Adhere to standard word order for all sentences in the first 20 chapters. There is currently too much variation from the standard in the early chapters: it is confusing to students.10) By cutting away unnecessary readings, syntax, grammar, and vocabulary items and by increasing the number of chapters to 30, each single lesson will become more manageable.Again, I believe the combination of induction with grammar-translation to be the best approach for high school and college students. I just wish someone on the massive committee responsible for ER had exercised a bit of restraint.