A Companion to Roma Aeterna: Based on Hans Ørberg's Instructions, with Vocabulary and Grammar (Lingua Latina) (Latin Edition)

I wrote a critical review of Roma Aeterna, Hans Orberg's disastrous sequel to his brilliant Familia Romana. In short, where FR was a model of clarity and a remarkably well-done introduction to Latin though the inductive method, RA is an impenetrable brick wall that will quickly disappoint the student who soared to new heights with FR. The text is extremely challenging, the glosses are increasingly useless, the vocabulary is overwhelming, and the selections present the student with grammatical structures that cannot be understood by induction. Orberg's method works well with artificial prose, as in FR, but is a near-total failure with authors such as Livy and Sallust.If I haven't dissuaded you from trying RA, or you have to study it for a class, then Neumann's companion is essential. It offers detailed grammatical explanations, as well as a running commentary on each chapter. The commentary is basically what you find in any annotated student edition of a classical author, and is far more helpful than Orberg's marginal notes. (And it's in English!) In RA, Orberg's definitions of increasingly abstract words are often inadequate, and here Neumann's dictionary of all the words in both RA and FR is priceless.I give four stars for a couple reasons. First, for some reason Neumann chose to separate the grammar and commentary for each chapter. Thus, the first half of the book consists of grammatical notes per chapter, whereas the second half consists of commentary/vocabulary for each chapter. This is a hassle, since for each chapter you have to flip between both halves of the book.Second, I think she misses some obvious pain points in the Orberg text in her commentary. I know the author of any commentary has to be selective, but there were some places where I had to resort to English translations of the authors when both Orberg's and Neumann's commentaries failed. Again, I know she could not anticipate every student's challenges, but I thought there were some obvious passages she missed.That said, the criticisms are minor. If you have the audacia to attempt RA, best of luck to you. Buy this book and you won't regret it.

I was SO HAPPY to see that a companion book has just been published this year to accompany Roma Aeterna, the second book in Hans Orberg's wonderful Lingua Latina curriculum! We've read through Orberg's first book, Familia Romana, at least five times over the last seven years in our home schooling, but we never understood what was going on with the grammar until we started using Neumann's Companion to Familia Romana this last time through -- it has made a HUGE difference in how much we understand about Latin grammar.We tried reading a few chapters of Roma Aeterna a few years ago, but it was obvious that we needed to spend more time re-reading the first book again before moving on. The Companion to Familia Romana has been so incredibly helpful that I was hugely relieved to see a Companion to Roma Aeterna has been published, just in time for us to attempt moving on to Roma Aeterna once more. Thank you so much, Professor Neumann!HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for people using Lingua Latina on their own or in home schooling.

The first Companion was great. I believe this one will new also. We used ROMA AETERNA on its own but found it was not well laid out, needed Instructions and a readily available vocabulary list that matched the Chapters or Reading Sections. Now that Jeanne Neumann's Companion Text has addressed these items, we will be revisiting Roma Aeterna. Looks like she has done the hard work needed to proceed.

My professor wrote the book. So it's nice to have both the text and the real life person because Latin is hard.

Muy ilustrativo y completo, para comprender y practir el latín..

最初の方でラテン語を読むときの一般的心得 (語順とか構文を捉えてから単語の意味を調べることなど)が解説されている。次の章も文献ごとに現れそうな一般的構文を拾って解説。作者の作風までは詳しくないようである。最後の章で本文に即した注釈が出てくる。実際役立つ部分はここで文法と構文の説明は簡潔だが有用。語彙は自分で丹念に辞書を引いて読み進めるしかない。

I am very keen on these books having been working with ‘Pars I’ for about eight months. I’ve also invested in the ‘Exercitia’ and the ‘Companion’ to both I and II . I’m an autodidact and tend towards perfectionism. I treasure my books and take great care of them. I read a lot. Keeping the books pristine takes continuous attention to detail and concentration BUT I feel this is an intrinsic part of the learning process. After all I’m aiming for perfection in my Latin just because… aren’t I.I received three of the series today. They arrived in separate packages. All three were dog-eared. I probably won’t send them back, as I don’t want to wreck the environment, but I know that I shall be bothered by their condition for a long time. I would NOT have bought these copies from a, bricks and mortar, book shop. This reminds me that one of the other of the series also arrived in such a condition and I kept that. I’ve bought quite a lot of books and have usually preferred to order such that the product was dispatched, etc, byAmazon. I’m thinking of changing this as it looks very much like their standards are slipping. If I were to liken Amazon to an on-line grocery supplier I’d say that it’s worth noting that they are sending bruised fruit more and more often. A bit shoddy really IMHO.If your learning Latin I highly recommend these series. Not dry or stuffy. Engaging.