[svat]

Yes indeed a structured environment and teacher would be best… another reason is that self-guided learning also tends to run out of steam/motivation more easily. But it's not as if there's an abundance of classes (online or otherwise) for Latin.

Apart from what others have said about their experience learning Latin from LLPSI, a couple of other points:

• Using the book does not necessarily preclude looking up other resources now and then, it's probably ok.

• Consider your example of getting the wrong understanding of some items of vocabulary, like "behind" and "far behind" instead of "near" and "far". While this is not ideal, at the same time, in a well-designed course (which yours may not have been), you're at least getting a feel for how these terms are used in sentences. The understanding of words can get corrected/refined over time, based on seeing new contexts. What you're avoiding meanwhile is mapping the terms into your native language, in which you have a very clear understanding of words and their fine distinctions. This is a trade-off when one considers what this method aims for: eventually being able to think and compose naturally in the language, without always "decoding"/translating into/from another language. See this post shared by someone elsewhere in this discussion: https://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignor... — it describes the problem very well (and incidentally ends with a recommendation of Ørberg's LLPSI in its final paragraph).