Hellas

Whoops, I think I am in the wrong place. I had seen an interesting conversation in the past day or two, which took place earlier this year, in June 2012, which was a thread on learning Ancient Greek. I decided to join this place, as the conversation seemed quite friendly and helpful.

So, tell me I am in the wrong spot, which I must be, as there is no choice for classical Greek in the languages.

That former thread had to do with a fellow seeking feedback on various Greek primers/introductions, from those oriented to Homer, to classical Greek. NT Greek grammars were not much present. His brother or brother in law wanted to learn, and this fellow, who likes languages, was going to help him.

I was interested in hearing folks thoughts about the various Greek introductions which are used, from the Homeric Greek books like Schoder and Horrigan, and Pharr(and Beetham), to the more numerous Attic Greek books like Hansen and Quinn, the newer Vernhes, and Mastronarde, Luschnig(I know one Latinist who uses her book for teaching Greek and likes it), and Wilding/Shelmerdine, Chase and Phillips, and the JACT course, Athenaze.

I had two quarters of NT Greek, which was a great joy, and yet I am rusty and have had to carry on my own self. In doing so I plow, or perhaps stumble may be a better word along in the NT and in the LXX, using lexicon and also I like Zerwick/Grosvenor, and so I find this to be good. However, I am in need of a review of grammar. And, I am at such a place that while I can derive good from ‘intermediate’ books, I really would be well, I think, to settle on a primer and go through it.

I enjoyed reading Dr. Harris’ thoughts, him at Middlebury, but I find that grammar study is needful, even though just plowing along in a text has much value. He was for starting with Homer, and I liked Pharr’s arguments in his book, although turning back and forth is quite a chore. Also, while using an old copy of Goodwin’s grammar that I found is informative, the lacking I have in a sound grasp of the multi variegated Greek verb, or the declensions and the participles, I mean the forms is a problem that needs repair, afore I am able to take more advantage of the standard grammars.

So if the tutor has some thoughts about this I would be interested to read them. I am pretty much decided to start with Homer, but I do want to hear folks’ thoughts about the Attic grammars, and how and why any one who is using them likes them or does not like them.

Hi, welcome to LingQ.

I don’t think I can help you with all your doubts, but I can tell you that Ancient Greek is not officially available here. However you can go to this Facebook poll: https://www.facebook.com/questions/10150249705278786/ and vote for it, then get 900 more people to vote for it, since the rule is that a language is added when 1,000 people have voted for it. By the way, if you (and everybody else) would like to help me learn all the European languages, you could vote for them. I’m actively campaigning for Romanian now.

Alternatively, you can do what other learners of unsupported languages do, i.e. import your Ancient Greek content to the section of a language you don’t want to learn. However, free members can only import 5 private lessons.

I hope it helps a bit,
Michele

Thanks for the reply. Hmm, I don’t know about doubts. I make slow progress, however, Greek is a pleasure, even with my moving at a slow pace.

I am not on facebook, so I am not able to vote. I will think about doing that, joining facebook, in which case I will vote.

Hi, NordicMan. This is the spot you were thinking of, but you’re right: Greek isn’t one of the languages offered here. There have been several threads discussing Greek. Do a search for “Greek” and you’ll find at least some of them. Some that I just found are, “Any language on LingQ?” (Open Forum), “Ancient Greek (and/or Latin?)” (Content Forum), “Latin Interlinear Texts” (Open Forum). The last one listed is probably the one you already saw.

You may be interested in joining this group: The GreekStudy List (which was mentioned in the “Latin Interlienar Texts” thread). It’s a listserv setup. Besides general discussion of ancient Greek, they offer study groups that do weekly “assignments” together–from primers, and from Greek authors. A beginners group just started up recently, actually, which is using a not difficult textbook, and you should not have trouble getting up with the group if you would like to.

Hello Ernie,

Thanks for the note and the link. I will search more here. I enjoyed that thread from earlier this year, and your contributions to it. So what book did you and your brother(or was it brother in law) wind up using? How did you like Stephen Paine’s book?

NordicMan, You’re welcome, of course; glad you enjoyed the thread. . . It’s my twin brother. We started out w/ Hansen and Quinn, which was too ambitious to do “together” at long distance. He is currently in that new group I mentioned on the GreekStudy list, and so far he’s enjoying it. If he keeps going, I’ll probably join in a few months. … . Stephen Paine’s book is quite nice, physically, and it’s a good idea to start w/ Koiné Greek and then move along to Attic. IMHO it does not have enough exercises at first, to reinforce the material that is introduced. With great patience one could work through the book and its exercises, assiduously checking one’s work against the text, but it would be very difficult to use on one’s own. There is no answer key that I know of, which would be helpful for someone studying on his own.

Hello Ernie,

My name already has someone employing it for their own screen name, and so I appear here this way. I have looked at Hansen and Quinn, and I like the thoroughness of it. Now like you say, an answer key is a real handy thing when you are wondering, and I have not learned of a key for Hansen and Quinn.

Yes, Paine’s book was nicely done by OUP. I like the reading approach, I like to take texts of Greek, including texts I have never read in English. That way, I feel like I am in an unfamiliar forest, where I don’t know my way. That tells you how needy I am in terms of learning Greek, after coming from Biblical Greek. I am thinking I will get and use one of the more traditional types of introductions to Greek.

There are too many sites to name, but here are links to some sites.

GREEK LITERATURE.

http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/
http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/Chronologia/g_chrono.html
http://www.foundalis.com/lan/c/index.html

The Little Sailing: Ancient Greek Texts (but I think these are free if you ask the author for a download)

READERS

Many of the sources from the above link are from the 19th century and well out of copyright. Currently I am using one of them called “A Tutorial Greek Reader” by Alexander Waugh Young. Some or most of them come from Google Books.

http://www.textkit.com/ (The old reliable TextKit)

You may well find yourself spending several days finding, downloading and evaluating Greek reading materials. It’s difficult for me to recommend anything because my approach to refreshing my Greek probably differs a lot from yours.

Good luck.

Great links, donhamilton. Thanks!


The “Post and Submit for Correction” link title below is reminiscent of the instruction printed on the back of receipts for bus fare, when I was a boy: “Surrender when leaving bus.”

What I remember about riding a bus was the sign with the 5 dreaded words, “Driver Does Not Give Change.” Sometimes it was hard to gather together 25 cents in change.

Here is an online flash card app for basic ancient Greek vocabulary:
http://glirby.people.wm.edu/GreekIntermediate/flashcards/

Thanks, donhamilton, that app is very nice. My brother should like it, too, I think. He sent me this, http://www.class.uh.edu/MCL/faculty/pozzi/grnl1/grnl1.gateway.htm , just the other day, which may interest you. It looks fairly good, as it has sound files, but I have not looked at it closely.

What I remember about riding a bus in China was the sign “Please do not chat with the driver.” :slight_smile:

In parts of the U.S. there are “please do not talk with the driver signs,” too. The “surrender when leaving bus” instruction really should have read, “surrender this receipt when leaving bus,” as very often half-grown boys, thinking themselves very clever, would walk past the driver, hold hands up and say, “I surrender!, I surrender!” We all know the age. I’m sure the bus drivers were thoroughly sick of it.

But we digress. :slight_smile:

thanks for the thread and the great links.

@ Ernie - “I surrender!”

Ah, now I get it. I’m a bit slow, as usual. And now I also see the humor in “Post and Submit for Correction.”

Dickinson College lists the 500 or so most common vocabulary items in Greek (they have the same kind of list for Latin, too). I’m trying to learn/relearn them in conjunction with some of the “easy” Greek readings that I downloaded from the links that I listed above:

http://dcc.dickinson.edu/vocab/vocabulary-lists

donhamilton, That’s a nice page. In the Greek lists I like the grouping by various criteria–parts of speech, frequency, &c. And the Latin material is even better, w/ nice recordings and readings. Thanks for posting the link…