Learn Latin to read Caesar in eighteen months
Eighteen months at 30 minutes a day gets a patient adult from no Latin to reading classical authors with a dictionary. Roughly 270 hours total. No tutor required, no app required, no Duolingo required. Two books and a willingness to read slowly.
18 months · ~270 hours · read Caesar's Bellum Gallicum with a dictionary
1.Lingua Latina per se Illustrata — Familia Romana
Hans Ørberg's textbook, written entirely in Latin, that teaches the language inductively through the story of a Roman family. Thirty-five chapters. By chapter 10 you're reading paragraphs without translating; by chapter 25 you're reading pages. There is no English in the book and you do not need any — every new word is glossed in the margins with pictures and Latin synonyms. This is the consensus self-study book for Latin and has been for fifty years.
~$30 paperback (Hackett Publishing)
Hackett — LLPSI series →2.Latine Disco + A Companion to Familia Romana
Two short companion books for when Familia Romana stops being self-explanatory — typically around chapter 15, when the subjunctive arrives. Latine Disco is Ørberg's own student guide in English; Neumann's Companion is the more thorough modern alternative. Use either as needed, not as primary text. The discipline is to keep reading the Latin and only consult the English when you've genuinely stuck.
~$15 each, paperback
Hackett — companion volumes →3.Roma Aeterna + a real author
Pars II of Ørberg's series — Roma Aeterna — bridges the gap between graded reading and unmodified classical Latin, working through Livy and the Aeneid in increasing difficulty. Pair it with a starter classical text: Caesar's Bellum Gallicum Book 1 or selections from Cicero's letters. By the end you'll read Caesar with a dictionary, slowly. That's the realistic eighteen-month outcome — not "fluent in Latin," but the door to two thousand years of literature is open.
~$30 paperback; classical texts free at The Latin Library
The Latin Library →If this doesn't fit you
If you want a traditional grammar-translation approach with English explanations and exercises from chapter one, use Wheelock's Latin (~$25). It moves faster through grammar tables, slower through real reading, and pairs well with the free Dickinson College Commentaries for classical texts. Many North American university courses use it. Better for academic exam-takers; worse for the long enjoyment of reading.
Why this path
Latin is the rare language where the books are still the best tool — there are no native speakers to talk to, no dialects to choose between, and the goal is reading. Familia Romana has been the consensus self-study text since 1955 because the inductive method works: you absorb grammar by reading sentences you understand, not by memorizing tables. Skip the apps. Read the book. The hours you would have spent swiping in Duolingo, spend reading another chapter of Roma Aeterna with a coffee.