Getting Started with Russian / Latin / Spanish (Linney)

The Getting Started With series is William E. Linney's family of self-teaching beginner language primers, sold cheaply in paperback, paired with free streaming audio, and designed so a parent who does not speak the target language can hand the book to a student who will emerge at a functional grammar foundation.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Self-teaching primer; short daily lessons with immediate exercises and answer key
Worldview	Secular
Grades	6-12 (many titles used independently by motivated students as young as grade 4)
Formats	Paperback print; free streaming audio via publisher website
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	2
ESA-common	Varies
Accredited	No
Established	2007 (Getting Started with Latin first published); subsequent titles across Spanish, Russian, French, Greek, German through 2023
Website	gettingstartedwith.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	3	Solid introduction; not a complete high school sequence
Ease of teaching	5	True self-teaching design; parent involvement is minimal
Content quality	4	Clear prose, well-sequenced, teacher-tested across a decade
Flexibility	5	Pace as fast or as slow as the student warrants
Value for money	5	$20-25 paperback with free audio, among the cheapest options available
Worldview scope	5	Secular; usable in every household
Visual/design	2	Bare-bones black-and-white; no illustrations to speak of
Support resources	3	Streaming audio is the main resource; no video, no app

Who the publisher is

William E. Linney is a musician-turned-language-textbook author who self-publishes through his own imprint, Armfield Academic Press. Getting Started with Latin was his first title, released in 2007 and distinguished, at that time, by the then-unusual combination of a genuinely self-teaching text and free streaming audio of every exercise, a feature Linney kept after he expanded the catalog. Subsequent volumes followed a roughly biennial cadence: Getting Started with Spanish, Getting Started with French, Getting Started with Greek, Getting Started with Russian, and Getting Started with German, each following the same architecture. A continuation volume, Keep Going With Latin, picks up where the first Latin book leaves off. The series catalog is visible at the publisher's unified storefront at gettingstartedwith.com.

The publisher is small, one-author, and family-run. There is no marketing infrastructure, no convention booth, no homeschool conference presence to speak of. The books have spread by word of mouth, through Cathy Duffy Reviews, through classical-homeschool forums, and through Rainbow Resource Center catalog placement. This is not a publisher that advertises; it is a publisher that appears in curriculum threads when a family asks "what's a cheap and actually-works introduction to Latin."

Editorially, the Getting Started With series is secular. Linney does not embed Christian, classical, or any other worldview framing into the lesson prose. Sentences translate ordinary topics, family members walking to the farm, sailors returning home, a boy giving a book to his sister, and the reading passages are culturally neutral. Catholic families use the Latin volume alongside liturgical resources; secular classical families use it as a stepping stone to Wheelock or Memoria Press' sequence; Russian and German families use the respective volumes as a homeschooler's first structured entry into a language most American curriculum shelves do not stock.

The core pedagogy

The Getting Started With books teach by short, relentless, cumulative lesson. A typical lesson is two to three pages: a new grammar point (say, the perfect tense; or the accusative case; or the vocabulary of seasons), a worked example or two, and then a block of exercises, twenty or thirty sentences to translate, a fill-in-the-blank set, or an alternation between translation into and out of the target language. The student works the exercises in a notebook, then flips to the back of the book for the answer key and corrects their own work. A parent is not required to verify anything. The audio, free at the publisher's website, reads the vocabulary lists and, in later lessons, the example sentences, so that a student working alone hears correct pronunciation without a teacher.

Three signature mechanics define the series. First, the self-teaching contract: every exercise has an answer in the back of the book; every explanation is written so a twelve-year-old can read and understand it without mediation. A parent who knows no Latin can hand the book to a seventh-grader and expect the student to make progress independently. Second, the short lesson: forty minutes is a generous daily commitment; many lessons take twenty. The cumulative effect is that students finish the book in four to seven months without feeling overworked. Third, the audio-only supplement: Linney does not produce videos, slideshows, or software. The only supplemental resource is the free streaming audio, which he records himself and hosts at the publisher's site.

What the Getting Started With books are not, and do not claim to be, is a complete high school language program. Getting Started with Latin ends around the equivalent of a first-year high school Latin midpoint; Keep Going With Latin extends the trajectory but still does not reach AP readiness. Getting Started with Spanish covers first-semester college Spanish basics. The other titles are similarly calibrated. A student finishing one of these volumes has a foundation; they do not have a completed high school credit on a single book.

A day in the life

A seventh-grader using Getting Started with Latin as a daily lesson sits down with the paperback and a notebook at, say, 2:00 PM. They read the day's new material (two or three pages, roughly seven minutes), copy the new vocabulary into the notebook (five minutes), work the day's exercises (twenty to thirty sentences, maybe twenty-five minutes), and check answers against the back of the book (five minutes). Total: forty minutes. On vocabulary-drill days, the student loads the free audio from the publisher's website, reads along as Linney pronounces each word, and repeats aloud. Parent involvement is essentially zero after the first week.

A high-schooler using Getting Started with Russian, a less common homeschool elective, with fewer competing options, typically works the same pattern but longer. A daily sitting might run sixty minutes, with the student moving faster through chapters because the cumulative demand of Russian case endings rewards sustained immersion. Some families run the Russian volume as a summer intensive, finishing the book across ten weeks of daily work, then continuing with a different publisher's intermediate materials in the fall.

What they do exceptionally well

The self-teaching architecture. Few homeschool-language textbooks actually work as self-teaching texts; most require a teacher or a video companion. Linney's volumes are written for the student, with answers in the back, audio on the web, and lesson explanations that assume no prior language-study experience. A motivated middle-schooler who would otherwise wait for a co-op class or a parent's free weekend can begin a real language sequence tomorrow.

Price and accessibility. The paperback lists at approximately $25 per volume at Rainbow Resource as of April 2026, with comparable pricing on Amazon. The audio is free. There is no answer-book upcharge (the answers are inside the student book), no DVD, no required second purchase. A family spending thirty dollars walks out with an actual semester of language instruction.

The less-common languages. Getting Started with Russian and Getting Started with Greek fill gaps few American homeschool publishers address. Russian, in particular, has essentially no competition at the homeschool level; a family that wants their seventh-grader to start learning Russian has limited options that are not either college textbooks priced at $100+ or informal app-based programs. Linney's Russian volume is rigorous enough to give a student a real grammatical foundation.

What they do poorly

Visual design. The books are black-and-white paperbacks in the most literal sense. There are no illustrations, no photographs, no margin notes, no design features to speak of. A reluctant learner who thrives on color, page variety, or interactive design will find the books austere to the point of discouragement. This is a deliberate editorial choice. Linney prefers prose, but it is a real trade.

Not a full credit on one book. Families who expect to complete Getting Started with Latin and receive a high school Latin I credit will be disappointed; the book covers roughly a first-year-Latin foundation but is not aligned to a completed AP or SAT II scope. A family intending a high school transcript should plan to pair Linney's volume with a second-level text, Keep Going With Latin, or a transition to Wheelock or Memoria Press' First Form sequence.

No teacher-facing infrastructure. There are no lesson plans, no pacing guides, no quiz banks beyond the exercises, no ESA-specific ordering portal, no customer service call center. A parent who has a question about how to sequence two Linney books or how to count credit hours is largely on their own or in homeschool forums. This matches the budget price point but constrains the support envelope.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Getting Started With if: you want the cheapest legitimate foundation in a target language; you have a motivated student capable of self-directed daily work; you don't speak the target language yourself and want material that doesn't require you to teach it; you want a secular primer that works in any household; you're interested in a less-common language (Russian, Greek, German) where Linney is often the best option at the homeschool level.

• Skip Getting Started With if: you need video instruction or a cohort of classmates; your student benefits from visually rich textbook design; you want a full high school credit on a single book; you need ESA-specific ordering infrastructure; you want a classical-Christian overlay on the Latin sequence rather than a secular primer.

Cost honest assessment

The paperback for each Getting Started With title lists at approximately $20-$28 at Rainbow Resource and Amazon as of April 2026, with new copies clustering near $23-$25 and used copies as low as $12. The continuation volume Keep Going With Latin lists in a similar range. Audio is free at gettingstartedwith.com. No required second purchase exists.

Compared at the same subject tier: Memoria Press's First Form Latin runs roughly $85-$100 for the full student-teacher-DVD bundle; Classical Academic Press's Song School Latin runs roughly $40-$60 per level without video; Duolingo is free but non-systematic. Linney's series sits at the lower end of the legitimate structured-curriculum tier, meaningfully cheaper than Memoria Press's DVD-inclusive packages, more rigorous than Duolingo.

A realistic family budget: $25-$60 per student per year, depending on whether the student finishes one book or two in twelve months.

ESA eligibility notes

Linney's titles appear on several ESA marketplaces where individual textbook purchases are reimbursable, typically via Rainbow Resource or another ESA-listed curriculum retailer rather than through Armfield Academic Press directly. Because the publisher is small and direct-purchase vendors are not always ESA-registered, the typical path for an ESA family is to order through an approved retailer that stocks the titles. Families should confirm ESA eligibility within their specific state marketplace before ordering. The secular nature of the content means the books do not trigger the religious-materials restrictions some state programs apply.

Alternatives

• Memoria Press First Form Latin, a family would choose First Form over Getting Started with Latin because it includes DVDs, teacher guides, and a classical-Christian framing, and because it accumulates into a full high school sequence on a single publisher.
• Classical Academic Press Latin for Children, a family would choose Latin for Children over Getting Started with Latin for elementary-aged students because CAP's program is written for grade 3-6 and includes chants, songs, and DVDs.
• Wheelock's Latin, a family would choose Wheelock's over Getting Started with Latin for older high school students because it is the standard college-level introductory text and transitions directly into university coursework.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the publisher's storefront at gettingstartedwith.com, the individual book pages at gettingstartedwithlatin.com, and the streaming audio library hosted on the publisher's site. We cross-referenced Rainbow Resource Center pricing, the Amazon product listings, and a published review at Learn Church Latin. Prices and program details verified April 2026.