Customer Reviews

An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An excellent book for beginners! From my experience the students quickly learn the basics of both grammar and syntax, and they also enjoy the way the book presents the material. The increments of new material are carefully apportioned with deep consideration of how much can a student absorb in a lesson. The sequencing of subjects is pedagogically effective. Grammar is explained clearly, with sufficient linguistic background to assist in comprehension. The presentation of syntactical concepts is exemplary in its clarity. Sentences in the exercises are based on lines culled from ancient writers, often aphorisms expressing the sort of universal truths students find engaging. These glimpses of Greek thought help encourage the students to persevere in their work. Unlike many books, this text exposes the student to original Greek immediately, in the Introduction -- and they can do it! The author's sometimes humorous tone is appealing, and students find the book "friendly." Luschnig approaches the student as intelligent and committed, including advice on how to tackle memorizing forms, for instance, a sort of mental discipline with which many students today are unfamiliar. I've taught from a variety of books, and I've never found the progress so easy. An efficient and enjoyable book for both students and teachers!
Hanna Roisman, Colby College

Dr. Luschnig has tackled a rough task: write an Ancient Greek textbook for beginners. On the whole, I think she succeeds admirably well. What appealed to me most of all with this textbook was the early and frequent inclusion of ancient writers in the translation exercises; "cookbook Greek" is kept to an excellent minimum. The student is started right off with the first principle part and all principle parts are included well. She gives the subjunctive and optative little and late attention for such important forms in Ancient Greek and her mini-dictionary index should not be relied upon for translation. These complaints aside, the industrious student should be well equipped in a year of study to begin translating Aristotle and Plato.

Aesthetics: A very attractive textbook. The Greek text is gorgeous and a pleasure to read, even when you're cursing it when a word stumps you. Important terms are in bold font for easy recognition, as are vocabulary words, etc.

Durability: The softbound cover is fairly resistant, but don't expect miracles if your study habits abuse books. The spine will crease if you repeatedly fully open the spread, and if you are careless, the cover will crinkle and bend. If you are careful, you will be adequately rewarded. The pages stay in the volume and the textbook should last quite a few years. However, study volumes as a rule get abused, and this one does not respond well to wear. Buy it in hardcover or be very careful.

Size: A good size for a textbook. Wide enough so it stays open without too much trouble (I laid a smallish book bridging it to the table to keep it open) and not too clunky, probably because Luschnig gives you the bare-bones needed to read/translate Ancient Greek.

Price: Almost unbeatable for a new Ancient Greek textbook. Comparable textbooks are almost twice this much on occasion.

All told, a quality textbook for the beginning Greek student. It will give you the information necessary to read Greek, provided you don't beat on it too hard (its greatest fault) along the way.

As a student at St. John's College Santa Fe, we taught ourselves Greek from this book with the aid of a tutor. Having compared it with several others since, it is better organized than most. The explainations are clear and the order in which it is taught is logical.

Many of the practice sentences are taken from classical authors which makes them fun and rewarding to translate.

Several typos in the Greek were encountered, so be aware of that and don't lose your mind trying to translate something that is obviously wrong.

On the whole a very helpful book for such a hard subject. Strongly recommended for beginners.

I am a student independently studying Ancient Greek with a little guidance from my Latin teacher. After struggling through Reading Greek: Text and Vocabulary (Reading Greek), I switched over to this book. It has been an incredible aid. Everything in the book is perfectly explained, and things that I never understood before have been made clear. It's great for anyone, but especially for someone who has studied Latin, because when a concept is similar in the two languages, a side note points it out.

An excellent book for beginners! From my experience the students quickly learn the basics of both grammar and syntax, and they also enjoy the way the book presents the material. The increments of new material are carefully apportioned with deep consideration of how much can a student absorb in a lesson. The sequencing of subjects is pedagogically effective. Grammar is explained clearly, with sufficient linguistic background to assist in comprehension. The presentation of syntactical concepts is exemplary in its clarity. Sentences in the exercises are based on lines culled from ancient writers, often aphorisms expressing the sort of universal truths students find engaging. These glimpses of Greek thought help encourage the students to persevere in their work. Unlike many books, this text exposes the student to original Greek immediately, in the Introduction -- and they can do it! The author's sometimes humorous tone is appealing, and students find the book "friendly." Luschnig approaches the student as intelligent and committed, including advice on how to tackle memorizing forms, for instance, a sort of mental discipline with which many students today are unfamiliar. I've taught from a variety of books, and I've never found the progress so easy. An efficient and enjoyable book for both students and teachers!
Hanna Roisman, Colby College

I learned Greek from this excellent text book 30 years ago. I'm glad to see it back in print. It is well organized. The text is peppered throughout with pithy Greek quotations from the many authors the student is striving to eventually read in the original. This is both fun for the student and psychologically astute. The learner is constantly reminded of why they are working so hard.

This is a really good language textbook. The explanations are clear, the notes are interesting, there are plenty of good exercises, and the online supporting materials are very good. Definitely a thumbs up!

This book covers the basics very quickly. Just after the first chapter, you are supposed to have mastered two declinations, active and middle-passive forms for the present tense and infinitive, and some 100 new words with two or three meanings each. I feel this is simply too much for an absolute beginner.

BUT for those who have learned some Greek before, know the declinations, understand the verbal system, have a good grasp of the several meanings of the most frequent words and the so called "particles", this is a book that will mostly please as a *second* course. There are many excerpts of classical writers and very good comments on them.

If you need to understand the basics in an intelligent way, try first Learning Greek With Plato (Bristol Phoenix Press - Classical Handbooks).

Best ancient Greek text out there. Amazon's price beats any bookstore by far. Shipping and handing was prompt and fair.

I can see the attraction in this approach to a Greek textbook: cover the basics quickly. Looking at the table of contents, though, I get a little alarmed at the very brief compass in which subjunctive and optative (two major facts of life that will never go away for the Greek student) are presented at the end. Turning to the exposition (via Amazon reader), it seems all right, and I like the idea of having the exercise sentences drawn from Classical authors; perhaps students will really take to mastering these memorable and sometimes aphoristic minitexts. But the second sentence (on p. 256: Menander, Sententiae #238) misprints the indicative for the subjunctive! I'm used to errors and misprints in the Greek textbooks from which I teach, but the extreme brevity, and the worst possible kind of error in the second sentence I sampled, have dissuaded me from considering this book.