The 35 chapters form a sequence of events in the life of a Roman family in the 2nd century ad. Part I, Familia Romana, covers the essentials of Latin grammar and a basic vocabulary of some 1500 words.
The reading of this Latin novel also serves as an introduction to the life and culture of ancient Rome. To meet these demands the chapters of Part I form an eventful and entertaining narrative, which captivates students so that they look forward to reading the continuation of the story. This demands a carefully graded text, but to promote learning the content must stimulate interest and make it easy for the reader to visualize the scenes described. In this text every sentence is intelligible per se because the meaning or function of all new words and forms is made clear by the context or by illustrations or marginal notes.
Lingua Latina per se Illustrata provides a Latin text that students can read and understand immediately without any need for translation. Reading in this way, they move on step by step towards the ultimate object of Latin teaching: the reading of Latin literature in Latin with real understanding and appreciation. Such direct understanding gives the students self-confidence and develops their faculties of observation and reasoning, faculties that will be greatly needed as the sentences grow more complex.
An important factor is the satisfaction experienced by students when they discover that they can actually read and understand Latin immediately without parsing each sentence. This Ørberg's method, based on understanding from the context, has proved efficient both for self-tuition and class teaching. Professor Ørberg with Carlos Martínez Aguirre (Almuñecar 2005)
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