Customer Reviews

Greek, Classical Vocabulary Cards: Academic Study Card Set (Greek Edition)

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The Vis-Ed card set for Classical Greek is one of the better entries in this series of study helps, which has become something of a fixture on college campuses.

The Classical Greek set concentrates on the core vocabulary for the student of Attic Greek (Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.) in a lexically standard form. A separate set is available for Biblical Greek vocabulary; students of Homeric Greek should refer instead to Owen and Goodspeed's Homeric Vocabularies, which will provide the best return for the effort there. This is only an intermediate step, of course, to the mastery of a vocabulary large enough to cope with Aeschylus or Thucydides, or even most of Plato, but mastering a basic vocabulary makes further reading a good deal easier, and the climb is commensurately less steep.

In the Classical Vis-Ed set, verb cards give all principal parts, nouns offer genitive singular endings, and so on. Definitions appear on the reverse. English cognates and derivatives also improve the memorization process.

The total count of 1000 cards significantly under-represents the set's usefulness: in fact one can acquire a vocabulary of 3,000 words or better, since many cards cluster words that share common roots -- especially families of verbs with prepositional prefixes. Not only does this enable the student to learn more words, but it provides a stable base of comparison, where the varying forms (often confusing in their variety) may be seen and compared at one time.

Definitions of the words are pithy, as befits a flash-card treatment, but not overly so: multiple meanings are offered where it is relevant to do so.

I have recommended these cards and their Latin fellows to my Greek and Latin students for years, and they all find them as useful as I did in my own day. Another Greek set, specifically devoted to Biblical vocabulary, is not quite as good -- not because the vocabulary is somehow inferior, but because the set is not as well assembled and as complete.

I would agree with most of what's already been said, but I'd like to comment on the applicability of these cards to a standard text, Hansen & Quinn's _Greek, an Intensive Course_. Study-cards like these are a valuable time-saver for students taking a strenuous summer intensive course, and I've found them very helpful. However, only about 80% of the vocab introduced in H&Q is covered in these cards--so you may find yourself creating notecards anyway--granted, 80% fewer than you would have otherwise. Definitions vary slightly as well, so your instructor might be a little confused by your word-choices when translating. Some words are only introduced in fine print at the bottom of a card dedicated to another word--for instance the word for foot-soldier, "Hoplite" is introduced at the bottom of the card dedicated to the word for weapons. This makes good sense, since the words are closely related, but it also makes it difficult to target the word you want when working with the H&Q vocab. Also, to clarify some previous comments, not every verb is given with its 6 principal parts--the more "regular" verbs are printed with the first part only, and this includes many of the verbs introduced early on in H&Q, when students are in most need of rehearsing the verb-patterns.

None of this should be taken as criticism of a fine set of study-cards which were not intended as companions for H&Q, but I thought it might be worthwhile to explain how they co-function, since I imagine I'm not the only one putting them to this use.

Mr. McMenomy writes: "Another Greek set, specifically devoted to Biblical vocabulary, is not quite as good -- not because the vocabulary is somehow inferior, but because the set is not as well assembled and as complete."

I often wondered what he meant by the set not being quite as good; I have it now myself, and would like to clarify. The verb cards have only the first principal part, lacking the other five; all the cards lack the lists of similar Greek words (i.e. in the Classical set the card for the verb "to live" will also have the words for "life, course of life"; "life; living, sustenance"; "worth living"); and there are no English cognates and derivatives. The lack of principal parts is a serious problem; the other two are pleasantries which can be done without.

For what it's worth the noun cards do offer the genitive singular endings in addition to the nominative singular.

A good set if you like to have your Greek words printed, instead of sloppily scribbled; but if you're expecting a lot of nice extras you may be disappointed.

An excellent resource for both beginners and more advanced students looking to build their vocabulary. They saved me a huge chunk of time I otherwise would have spent making my own cards.

I am taking a Greek class and these cards have been a godsend. They help me with pronunciation, spelling, and more importantly, remembering. One of classmates has asked me to order a set for him because after looking at them, he saw them to be an excellent learning tool. Even my instructor, when I showed them to him, commented that this is a very good set and that I would learn a lot from them. This has been one purchase that I am truly happy that I made.

A great set of cards with a beautiful Greek font.
The vocabulary card technique is really a clever idea worth trying. I would like the same set with Latin-Greek cards.
The main problem is that all the cards have to be corrected by hand: macrons, rough spirits, subscript iotas are missing!

The cards are very thorough and enjoyable for any "greek geek" around. There are 1000 cards, all with helpful terms. My only caveat is that extra phrases are sometimes added to a flashcard, usually asking about related forms of the word, making the cards clunky and less accessible for the more novice greek student. Still a great value and a must-have. Very effective way to learn. Currently, I'm memorizing 4 words a day.

I used these vocab flashcards this semester while preparing for my MA Greek translation exam. They were extremely helpful! Obviously not every single word is included, but the most common words are, so you'll be ready to read Plato, Lysias, Homer, Euripides, Herodotus, and others without depending entirely on a lexicon. Just read 10 or 20 each night and soon you'll have a much broader base of vocabulary.

A very helpful and useful tool when studying Classical Greek. They have taken all the hard work out of writing vocabulary lists.