Tag Archives: Latin

Textkit

Textkit

Update: March 2025 — Unfortunately, the site won’t load.

When you hit the home page at Textkit.com it looks pretty sad. The site is obviously broken, the image and CSS files having been stored and linked from a rackspacecloud.com account which seems to have expired. The Facebook page is also pretty much dead. But if you go to the forums you’ll see that the community is still thriving. It also seems that the files themselves are still available.

A forum thread addresses the recent absence of the site’s founder, Jeff Tirey, and the need for additional moderators to manage the forums.

As of this writing, the domain registration expires in 2019, so the site may disappear into the InterWebs black hole after that. Though the Internet Archive Wayback Machine frequently saves the site, as usually happens, the downloads aren’t archived. So if you think you might need them in the future, you should probably snag them at your earliest opportunity.

It’s Alive! It’s Alive!

What a great week! First, I heard from Professor Grote. And today, Jim Tirey, the brains behind Textkit!!

You always hope when you find that things have not changed for the better that there’s a happy reason. What a relief to know that’s true in this case. Not only that, but Jim was able to find the time to update the site and it looks great!

Yay!

A Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock’s Latin by Dale A. Grote

A Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock’s Latin by Dale A. Grote

I have recently had the most wonderful email conversation with Professor Grote. He’s been so informative, friendly and approachable — which I guess you have to be if you’re going to be teaching Latin these days! He even answered my first email over the weekend! That’s impressive. 🙂

He told me some of the history of his Study Guide to Wheelock’s Latin which comes and goes in different places on the InterWebs. He reminded me that the notes were meant to accompany Wheelock’s 4th edition. Since Wheelock’s is now in its 7th edition, you can see how there would be huge differences, not the least of which being that the last chapters in the current Wheelock’s book aren’t included in the notes at all.

Fortunately, as a direct result of the original notes, A Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock’s Latin, designed to accompany the latest edition of Wheelock’s, was published by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc and is still available.

The trick to language study isn’t just memorizing the words — that part is relatively easy. The catch is the grammar, etc., and if you’re studying Latin for the first time, or again after many years, this resource will be invaluable.

How to Study Wheelock’s Latin

Wheelock's Latin, 7th EditionWhy study Latin — or any language for that matter? For one, I’m lately finding several things I would like to read but have not been translated into English. Further, I’m becoming more cynical about translations in general — you really are at the mercy of the translator when it comes to interpretation. And language study in general is brain training.

As for Latin specifically: If you have even a basic knowledge of Latin, you will most likely be able to decipher the meaning of almost any word in any language, with a few exceptions.

Want to study Latin, but don’t know where to start? One of THE Latin texts is Wheelock’s Latin, in its seventh edition as of this writing. Just reading the text and doing the exercises is not, as you will soon discover, sufficient. This list is compiled from several sources, including the Wheelock’s FAQ from the Latin Study list and the discussion there.

  1. Read the chapter in Wheelock’s Latin.
  2. If you need to brush up on some of the grammar, do the appropriate lessons in English Grammar for Students of Latin (EGSL) by Norma W. Goldman.
  3. Practice the vocabulary. If you want to use flashcards, you can make up your own or you can buy them (Vocabulary Cards and Grammatical Forms Summary for Wheelock’s Latin by Richard A. LaFleur).
  4. Practice the pronunciations.
  5. Read the chapter in A Comprehensive Guide to Wheelock’s Latin (CGWL) by Dale A. Grote and do the exercises.
  6. Do the Self-Tutorial exercises in the back of Wheelock’s Latin.
  7. Do the Exercitationes (EX) exercises in Wheelock’s Latin.
  8. Do the Sententiae Antiquae (SA) in Wheelock’s Latin.
  9. Do the translations (TR) in Wheelock’s Latin.
  10. Do the chapter in 38 Latin Stories by Anne H. Groton and James M. May (G&M) OR
  11. Do the chapter in Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes by Richard A. LaFleur (SSS).
  12. Do the exercises in the Workbook for Wheelock’s Latin.

Study Guide to Wheelock’s Latin by Dale A. Grote

Digging around for my old Latin resources, I was relieved to find that the Study Guide to Wheelock’s Latin by Dale A. Grote was still freely available online. As we all know, however, when it comes to the InterWebs, too often “One day you’re in and the next day you’re OUT!” Well, Professor Grote already thought of that:

“I call the guides ‘Study Guide to Wheelock,’ and have made them available for free use to anyone who’d like use them. […] So far as I’m concerned they can be copied and sent anywhere.”

Taking this literally, I downloaded the HTML files and have uploaded them here. I did do some editing to update the pages in the original .ZIP file: The URL for Professor Grote’s page at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte had changed, as well as his email address.

It’s always best to go to the original page. But just in case that ever disappears, we’ve got a backup.

Update 19 February 2017: I’ve found another page for Professor Grote’s notes on Wheelock which includes an update from him.