Henle Latin Resources

I've been working with Henle's First year Latin for quite a few years now, and I've found some great resources to help students and teachers make the most of this material.

First of all, there is no way you need everything in the picture above.  My goal is to help steer you to what would be most beneficial so that you don't have to try them all out like I did!

Henle Latin Basics

Let's start with the basics:

If you have a limited budget, this is all you need to begin.

  1. Henle First Year Latin (Purple Book)
  2. Latin Grammar (Blue)
  3. Henle First Year Answer Key (White)

To make my books more user-friendly, I had them spiraled at the office supply store, and I tabbed the lessons for easy reference. See how I set up my Latin resources here!

Next you might want to amend your answer key.  

The white Henle answer key leaves out some answers to seemingly obvious lessons. While it may make sense to someone who has been previously introduced to Latin, I needed something more. Here are your options:

My personal favorite is the Memoria Press Teacher Manual. They have simple helps for each of the lessons as well as a well-formatted answer key in the back. The only downside is that there are three study guides that cover Henle's First Year Latin text. Here's a sample of the answer key section of the book:

Henle Latin Study Guide Inside

You'll want a good dictionary:

Cassell's is a wonderful choice.  The 501 Latin Verb reference is also a valuable tool when you encounter verbs. My dust jacket on the Cassell's dictionary is no longer with us, so it's a green cloth-covered book now, but it's so very helpful!

Henle Latin extras

Finally, you'll be looking for resources to support you as a teacher.

The Henle teacher's manual is great for classroom settings, but may not be as helpful for the home schooling mom. Thankfully, there is another resource that I have discovered makes the Henle material approachable for the average mom who's never studied Latin before (that's me).

Henle Latin Teachers Manual

Jennifer Jones has created companion guides for Henle's First and Second-year texts, as well as audio files for the Classical pronunciation of the vocabulary (again helpful for those of us who speak Texan-Latin).

Henle Latin Companion

Another great resource she has developed for free is printable worksheets of the Henle lessons so that if you have a student who struggles with tracking in the text, you can print off the worksheets.  We have found these very valuable in cutting down the time it takes to complete the exercises.

Here's a good way to get started:

If the idea of jumping into the Henle textbook intimidates you, a great way to dip your toes into the Latin language is to try out Andy's Latin Code Breakers series. He loves to share fun and easy ways for students to learn the foundational concepts of the language, so that you and your student can enter into the Henle world with confidence. And if you watch to the end of the videos, you might just find a hilarious surprise.

The best part of this resource is that all of the videos are FREE to watch on YouTube, or you can find them all organized here!

If you'd like to follow along with his videos, check out these free video companion guides. They're great for taking notes!

Free Code Breakers Companion Guides

I’ll send you the handy note-taking guides to follow along with Andy's Latin Code Breaker Series.

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    If that is still not enough...

    Henle Latin resources

    Try Latin with Andy

    My son and I collaborated on a Latin resources site of our own to help our friends learn Latin with us! There are videos, printables, additional reading exercises, and much more. You can watch the first lesson for free or, here's a sample from the first-year videos:

    The video series covers concepts practiced in every exercise of Henle's First and Second-year text. Here's a sample of the second-year videos:

    While the exercises are not directly from the Henle book, Andy helps students learn the concept before they have to go practice it. He also has a Facebook group for members to join and ask him questions. It's his favorite thing! Find out how to join this Latin learning community here!

    I hope you find your journey into Latin as much of a blessing as I have.

    Believe it or not . . . that's not all!!

    There are so many other great Latin resources for you to explore! Here are some more Latin tools you might find helpful! Happy translating!

    28 Comments

    1. Meredith Henning on February 8, 2016 at 3:27 pm

      I did not know about the youtube video’s thanks for linking them 🙂 We have been pretty successful so far with the Memoria guide and the three texts, will think about the dictionaries and a nice addition to our current set up!

      • Betsy on February 8, 2016 at 3:28 pm

        The Memoria press guides are great aren’t they?!

    2. Ruth Ann on May 18, 2016 at 1:44 am

      You said there are 3 guides in the Memoria Press. I only see 2 in your picture. When I stopped at their booth at convention they only told me about 2. What is the third one I am missing and o you need it for Challenge A?

      • Betsy on May 18, 2016 at 7:53 am

        I don’t think I had the third one when I took the picture! Maybe I should update that. The third study guide covers Units VI – XIV, which starts at Lesson 22. You wouldn’t need it in Challenge A, but you do in Challenge B.

    3. Dawn on July 26, 2016 at 12:48 am

      Could you explain the tabs you put in your latin books? I love using tabs and wondered how you used them to make the Henle books more user friendly.

      • Betsy on July 26, 2016 at 7:59 am

        I tab the sides by lesson. This is especially helpful as you start learning the book. Lesson 1 is 1st declension, lesson 2 is 2nd, 3 is 3rd, etc. This makes it easier to quickly reference the lesson that has the information that you need. I also tab the “Unit Vocabulary Review” sections for easy vocab reference, as well as the “Latin to English” and “English to Latin” sections in the back. I’ve really loved having it tabbed, and thankful to the kind director who showed me her tabs that I copied!

      • Annemarie on August 14, 2022 at 12:19 pm

        Thank you so much for these resources! I was downloading all of the printables from Scribd. Unfortunately, lessons 33 & 34 were missing. I’m so glad I found them and the rest on your site. Downloaded a set of flash cards too!

    4. Carie on August 31, 2016 at 11:27 am

      Thank you for this information! I am looking for help with diagramming. Many of the exercises in Henle First Year Latin ask you to diagram the sentences given. Do you know which (if any) of the resources you mention contain the answers for diagramming?

      • Betsy on September 2, 2016 at 6:49 pm

        I don’t know of anything that has official diagramming answers. The purpose of diagramming is to clearly delineate the parts of speech. If you’ve done diagramming in English, you can just use the same principles.

    5. Faith on February 24, 2017 at 12:12 pm

      We are finishing our first year in Ch. A pretty soon. I am beginning to think about our summer review. How d0 you handle summer break? I do not want her to forget what she’s learned, but I also do not want to burden her with too much school. She works hard, and is looking forward to her summer.

      • Betsy on February 24, 2017 at 3:01 pm

        The good thing about Ch B is that you start back over from the beginning and refresh everything before you add new information. I’d think she’d be fine with some vocabulary review and occasional refreshing of the noun and/or verb endings. Enjoy the summer!

    6. Gina on March 7, 2017 at 8:19 pm

      Thank you! A million times THANK YOU! I have been searching for answers to some very simple questions about Henle Latin and resources for Henle Latin that I just could not seem to find until I ran across this blog post and you provided just what I was looking for:)

      • Betsy on March 7, 2017 at 9:31 pm

        Wonderful! So glad to help!

    7. Rebekah on March 11, 2017 at 1:05 am

      What do you mean by “Texas Latin”? Does that mean the audio has a “twang” to the pronunciation? I may find that confusing, so its good to know.
      Thanks so much for this real-world advice for the curriculum. If we go with Henle, I wil definitely be doing this.

      • Betsy on March 11, 2017 at 9:48 am

        Ha! No, I’m the one with the problem of my Texan accent seeping in to my Latin pronunciation. The audio is helpful for me to amend my accent! It’s a great help.

    8. Anne Hill on April 4, 2017 at 5:53 pm

      Do the Memoria Press Guides include all the answers to the exercises, or do I still need the Henle Answer Key to go with it?

      • Betsy on April 4, 2017 at 6:11 pm

        If you get the Memoria Press Guides, you’ll have everything that’s in the Henle key. They still don’t have 100% of the answers, but it’s just a much better resource in my opinion.

    9. Meredith on June 27, 2017 at 5:39 pm

      Where can we get the Teacher’s Manual for 1st and 2nd year Latin? There is no link. Thank you! Your resources look great!

    10. Elizabeth on August 5, 2017 at 9:41 am

      What did you do for Latin grammar rules? I’m trying to come up with something different than index cards. I feel like we will have a ton of flash cards by the end of Challenge A.

      • Betsy on August 5, 2017 at 10:40 am

        We haven’t made flashcards for these…we do them more orally as we work through the exercises. It has worked for us, but I agree, that makes a lot of cards at the end!

    11. Carrie Krusemark on August 25, 2017 at 7:16 pm

      Do you use the Jennifer Jones teachers guide and the Memoria Press one? How do they differ?
      Thanks!
      Carrie

    12. Sydney on November 5, 2018 at 6:15 pm

      At which chain of “office supply store[s]” did you get your textbooks spiral-bound?

      Thank you,

      Sydney

      • Betsy on November 8, 2018 at 9:23 am

        Office Depot is where I got my books spiraled. I have also gone to Staples, but I know friends who have gone to FedEx/Kinkos.

    13. Theresa Chen on July 1, 2019 at 6:00 pm

      Hi Betsey! Thank you for all the great suggestions – so helpful for Henle 1. Do you have resources for Henle 2 that you would recommend?

    14. Mikki Bates on January 8, 2020 at 11:46 pm

      We found Magistra Sheppard’s complete answer key and resources to be quite helpful as well. https://www.latinandclassics.com/shop I printed some things off, but we just downloaded the answer key’s to our laptops in order to have them with us.

    15. Lacy Matthiesen on June 16, 2020 at 6:13 pm

      Question! Has anyone put together a weekly lesson plan that incorporates Latin with Andy instruction and the Henle textbook? I did this some with my daughter in the spring, but it would sure be nice if someone has already consolidated this together. For example – Watch Vocab and Latin with Andy lesson 1 on Monday, do exercise 1 Henle Tuesday…etc..something like this? Andy has been our sole instructor 🙂

      • Betsy on June 30, 2020 at 12:54 pm

        Lacy, thanks for the question! If you haven’t already, you can also ask this on the Facebook group!

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