Reading Greek

The first thing that you should know is that this book is co-ordinated with three other books which together combine to give the student an excellent opportunity to learn classical greek. The other books are: 1. Reading Greek Text-the study texts 2. An independent Study Guide to Reading greek-Answers to exercises 3. The World of Athens- Background study for the texts 4. Reading Greek-Grammar, vocabulary, and exercises to study with the text These together give you an exellent opportunity to self-study greek. The co-ordination of the texts is a little awkward, but once you learn the routine, the books cover greek inflections in a very detailed way, but one that lends itself to the ambitious student uniquely without the need for a greek expert to help. It is all there!!

Before you buy into this book series, go clear off your desk. You're going to need a lot of space to spread out your Reading Greek library. At a minimum, you will need two books: the "Text," which includes Greek readings with brief English introductions, and "Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises," (GVE) which includes the actual pedagogical materials to guide you through the Text's readings. You'll need both books open at the same time to do your work. Two books might not be enough if you're studying on your own. You will also want to pick up "An independent study guide to Reading Greek." This book gives slightly more in-depth discussion of the vocabulary and grammatical points covered in GVE, translations of the Text, and answers to the GVE exercises. And if you're teaching yourself, you can pick up "The teachers' notes to Reading Greek." This book gives tips on how to manage the materials in the two basic books. If you know a little Greek before you start, this book helps you figure out what strategy the authors are pursuing. But you're not done. There's a thin "Greek vocabulary" that goes with the series. It provides all the vocabulary for the Text in one place. And there is a nice history of ancient Greece that complements the text, "The world of Athens." This book provides background on Greek culture, politics, and arts. The independent study guide cross-references sections in "The world" to chapters in the "Reading Greek" books. Very helpful when you come across a cultural reference and wonder what it means. But wait--that's not all. If you can make it through all these books, there are two readers to continue your studies. One is an anthology of classic Greek texts, the other an introduction to the later, New Testament Greek. I hope someday to be in a position to make use of them. One last thing. If you're like me and need to hear a language to learn it, you should listen to the audio tape that accompanies the series. Be warned that the audio quality is not so good. The recordings are rather noisy, making it hard to hear exactly how the speakers are pronouncing things. But since no one really knows how Attic Greek sounded, maybe you don't need to listen that closely. Finally, concerning the value of the texts themselves: I find this series difficult to use, but worthwhile. In lesson one, the authors teach you the Greek alphabet and then drop you right into a seven page Greek story. (Perhaps the authors were inspired by that girl in Nabokov's Pnin who thought that, "once you learn the Cyrillic alphabet, you can read 'Anna Karamazov' in the original!") The vocabulary for the first lesson alone must number over 150 words. This approach makes for tough going at first. I can imagine many people give up half way through lesson one. I know I did. Then I spent a few months with a good Koine Greek program, one with better scaffolding for the beginner (William Mounce's,) before coming back to Reading Greek. Bottom line:

As a self-study student, I found this a great way to learn Greek. I already know Latin and German and had some exposure to the language. It has graded materials and soon you are reading the "real" stuff. The selections are several pages long and taken from authentic texts.Note that this book does not stand-alone. You must purchase the other volumes in conjunction with this book. It has a special reference specifically for self-study.After a year I found myself reading Euripides and Plato. I highly recommend it.

After a gap of twenty years and wanting a change from physics and maths, I decided to ... reaquaint myself with the rudiments of Classical Greek. 'Reading Greek' kicks off with very simple adapted Greek but introduces a wide vocabulary from the start. As I could remember some Greek from school I found that I rapidly coasted through the first sections but an absolute beginner would also make rapid and enjoyable progress in the initial stages.Gradually the degree of adaptation is reduced . The text is broken into small attemptable sections and draws on a wide variety of authors and styles Eg : Plato , Herodotus , Aristophanes Euripides and , towards the end , Homer.There is immense enjoyment to be gained from this course if you have (as I do ) only about 1/2 hour per day free for this kind of thing. By the end of the text the Reader is attempting wholly unadapted passages. I found quite a big jump in difficulty about 2/3 of the way through, where a huge amount of grammar is introduced and sentence structure becomes very complex.More than 1hr per day and much revision is required to master the latter parts of this.Obviously the reader also needs the two companion volumes as the 'text' does not include either vocabulary or grammar but for very modest outlay hours of fun are almost guaranteed with the 'Reading Greek' course.

Although I've only been studying the "Reading Greek" course for two and half months, I didn't want to put off recommending it to the motivated self-learner. The books are elegantly and logically laid out, allowing the beginner to gradually accumulate a vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. I hasten to add that by "books" I mean that there are three vital, interconnected components of this course:1) "Reading Greek" ( Text )2) "Reading Greek" ( Grammar,Vocabulary & Exercises ) 3) "Reading Greek" ( Independent Study Guide )The first two mentioned should be understood as naturally complementary, but the third is just as important- it contains translations, answers to tests and many valuable ( and often subtle ) points about the language.Two additional texts are also offered for students who have finished those outlined above:1) "A World of Heroes" ( featuring excerpts from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles )2) "The Intellectual Revolution" ( featuring excerpts from Plato, Euripides and Thucydides ).As a beginner, I can't vouch for the two volumes just mentioned, however, based on the three books I am familiar with, they should prove to be excellent.I've worked only a half hour on average per day with this course and feel that I've made significant progress ( I'm sure those who have more time to devote will make phenomonal advances ).For those who wish to explore the richness of Greek literature, I wholeheartedly recommend this course.