Customer Reviews

Introduction to Attic Greek

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you simply adore rules of grammar you could begin learning Greek from this book. But you will memorize 57 pages of complicated noun declensions and prepositional phrases before meeting a single Greek sentence--a one-word sentence that means "I see". Most people would do much better beginning with ATHENAZE, which has you read whole paragraphs of simple but correct Greek in a few pages. But you will eventually want to learn grammar more systematically than the immersion method of ATHENAZE allows. Mastronarde loves Greek grammar and his love is almost infectious. He does it in considerable detail from the start, and makes it all more attractive than I'd have thought possible. This book is not a reference grammar, as it does not discuss the many, many variants that actually occur. It is a terrific systematic introduction.

I'm not sure how to answer the chap who thinks learning a language ought to be a distractingly entertaining experience. But let me try. Language learning can indeed be accompanied by merriment at times, usually during the immersion phase and often at the expense of the learner. I'm afraid we've missed that boat by a couple millennia. If the pure cerebral rush that comes with the gradual mastery of the inner logic and outer mechanics of your target language is not sufficient stimulation in itself, then the learner might be better advised to stick to Spanish, where he can start pretending to make sentences almost from the outset.

Mastronarde's presentation of Greek grammar offers a welcome alternative to the disorganized "here a bit of noun, there a bit of adverb" approach of Crosby and Schaeffer and to Hansen and Quinn's agonizingly slow paced "Intensive Course."
Mastronarde's Introduction to Greek is well organized and to the point, but asks the learner to bring either the background or the interest required to appreciate the point. After working through Mastronarde's grammar, which can be accomplished with industry in a few weeks but should at any rate be done quickly rather than slowly, the student is much better prepared for subsequent study of Attic Greek than are others who, perhaps, spent their initial efforts trying to write (or utter!) original sentences in Ancient Greek.

A word of criticism is in order, however. Mastronarde has chosen not to mark long vowels either in text or in vocabulary lists. The justification he gives is that accentuation will indicate vowel length, which in most cases it will. But in doing so, Mastronarde denies those students fortunate enough to have good visual memory retention the advantage of that gift. In a beginning grammar, where students may be encountering vocabulary for the first time, why not give them every aid available to get them up and running? It's a minor tragedy as these things go, and the student can write in vowel length himself until he feels confident enough not to need to. Still, it would have been a magnanimous gesture on Mastronarde's part.

Note to the self-paced learner: the answer key is reason enough alone to use this book.

Along with its answer key (ISBN 0520201779)-- and its Electronic Workbook (ISBN 05202813) this text is particularly valuable for those of us mad enough to slog Ancient Greek on our own. One of its primary strengths lies in the clarity of its description of grammar. Mastronarde doesn't assume that you KNOW what a preposition is or a pronoun either for that matter. He provides very thorough and clear descriptions at every stage. And something you rarely see in this kind of text, he will suggest that you return to a particularly difficult stretch after moving on a few chapters--accentuation, for example. Great! He knows that some of us are human and older. Sometimes both. Also recommend the JACT (Joint Association of Classical Teachers) series--three books.

If there was ever one book that I would recommend without equivocation or doubt, it would be _Introduction to Attic Greek_ by Donald J. Mastronarde (University of California Press: Los Angeles and Berkeley, 1993). This book is 425 pp. in length and worth every bit of the price.

Out of all the introductory grammars and workbooks on either Koine or Attic Greek that I've ever read or perused, Mastronarde's book seems to be the most practical one for those who desire to be either tutored or self-taught Attic Greek.

For starters, _Introduction to Attic Greek_ has the common fare. It covers the standard nominal declensions; the present active indicative endings; the present/middle passive verbs; information about conjunctions, prepositions, adverbs, pronouns as well as tense, aspect and athematic aorists. What makes this
book different, however, is its approach to and organization of the aforesaid material. In each section of the book, helpful exercises are given to assist the student in his or her endeavors to grasp Attic Greek. The lessons are also relatively short, so most pupils should not feel overwhelmed. Many helpful paradigms are included in this publication, and can be consulted with regularity in case one is inclined to forget declensions and conjugations. Rich vocabulary lists and
English associated words are also listed so that the student progressively builds a rich vocabulary and increases the pace and accuracy of his or her reading.

But Mastronarde is not content to simply include "artificial" Greek in his publication. He includes actual texts from real-life Greek sources like Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Simonides. In this way, one gets a feel for and learns directly how the Greek language functions and expresses key concepts. Thus while memorizing is necessary when learning Greek from this book, the
student is not made to depend on rote memory alone, but learns the Greek langauge in an inductive manner.

Finally, Mastronarde has contents that will greatly accentuate any NT student's knowledge of Koine Greek and its background. He even has a little information on on NAOS (its declensions and Doric or Ionic spellings as well as its denotations). Yes, I give Mastronarde a perfect rating (a five). Buy
it today, if you have the chance!

I used Mastronarde's book to teach myself Attic Greek several years ago (and _before_ I knew Latin). I was adrift until I bought the ANSWER KEY. Nowadays, Mr. Mastronarde has a *(free) online website* which supplements this textbook, offering among other things versatile electronic flashcards keyed to the units (and is easily findable on Google). Of other textbooks I've seen, I also recommend Hanson and Quinn's "Intensive", which I think is a little stronger with respect to teaching the Subjunctive and the Optative Moods, but less good for solo learners.

Mastronarde's book is an immensely useful and well-written introduction into Attic Greek. Now, Mastronarde does not bold-face important concepts or provide nice illustrations to guide the reader. However, if you are diligent enough to read the book thoroughly and do the exercises, you will have quite a thorough understanding of this language.

The pedagogical method is rather linguistical and historical. In addition to providing the forms for Attic Greek, Mastronarde makes sure that one understands the development of certain words and grammatical structures, vowel elongation, its relation to both Homeric Greek as well as other dialects, etc. Thus, this book suits not only the self-teaching amateur, but also aspiring classicists and linguistics students wishing to learn this language.

The structure of the book follows most others in that one begins with simple declensions and conjugations, slowly and systematically proceeding to more difficult and complex grammatical forms. We are given enough information to begin reading and writing simple sentences within the first ten sections. Yet, by the end, one is provided text from Plato's dialogues to translate.

While Mastronarde's text is not absolutely exhaustive in its treatment, I have found it to be very useful in learning this language. For a more comprehensive treatment of grammar, I suggest Smythe's Greek Grammar, a classic reference that is still used by many today (though, not by beginners). As for dictionaries, you cannot beat the Greek-English Lexicon by LSJ (Liddel, Scott, Jones) which is available also on the Internet (Perseus Project at Tufts).

If you desire to gain a serious and insightful introduction into Attic Greek, there really is no substitute for Mastronarde.

I have excelled at Greek with this book, and have successfully read Aeschylus, Herodotus, Lysias, Plato, Homer and Euripides. I have found that my memory of forms is quite good due to the rigorousness of this book.

But this is a hard book. True, Greek is a hard language: but this book is quite dry and has a dearth of sentences and a plethora of forms. I appreciate the book now because it has served me quite well (I didn't like it at all at first), but I must confess that learning Greek with this book was a huge chore and not a lot of fun.

So this is the deal. If you are like me, and hated algebra, you might not like this book, because its exercises are algebra-like; but if you stick with it, it will do you good. If you are the sort of strange person that thinks algebra is fun, you will absolutely love this book.

When it all boils down to it, I admire any author who is willing to be as structurally attentive as this one, and who admits that the learning won't be fun, but that you simply have to grind through it. The fun comes later, when you can read Herodotus and Homer with ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM if you just have the patience to get through this book. Your knowledge of Greek will probably be better than your classmates who used a less rigorous introductory textbook. This, I think, is a great compliment to Mastronarde.

Although I have not yet completed the book, I have thus far been thoroughly impressed. Now at Unit 17, I am able to construct basic sentences and read even more. The approach to the text is, in my opinion, necessarily thorough. Admittedly, I feel that having studied several years of Latin has given me an edge, particularly when it comes to dealing with a heavily inflected language, but the text does not assume that one has done so. In fact, the explanations of very basic grammatical points are excellent and I imagine someone not acquainted with another language would do very well. Let one not be misled, however: there is much memorization of noun/verb forms and vocabulary lists. But, very early on you feel it begin to pay off through the thorough sense of comprehension you gain. Lucid and comprehensive explanations make this an excellent book for those motivated to work through all of the exercises and memorization. Finally, I *highly* recommend purchasing the Answer Key that is sold separately. After about chapter seven, I found it indispensible for understanding when/where I was going wrong.

I'm not sure how to answer the chap who thinks learning a language ought to be a distractingly entertaining experience. But let me try. Language learning can indeed be accompanied by merriment at times, usually during the immersion phase and often at the expense of the learner. I'm afraid we've missed that boat by a couple millennia. If the pure cerebral rush that comes with the gradual mastery of the inner logic and outer mechanics of your target language is not sufficient stimulation in itself, then the learner might be better advised to stick to Spanish, where he can start pretending to make sentences almost from the outset.

Mastronarde's presentation of Greek grammar offers a welcome alternative to the disorganized "here a bit of noun, there a bit of adverb" approach of Crosby and Schaeffer and to Hansen and Quinn's agonizingly slow paced "Intensive Course."
Mastronarde's Introduction to Greek is well organized and to the point, but asks the learner to bring either the background or the interest required to appreciate the point. After working through Mastronarde's grammar, which can be accomplished with industry in a few weeks but should at any rate be done quickly rather than slowly, the student is much better prepared for subsequent study of Attic Greek than are others who, perhaps, spent their initial efforts trying to write (or utter!) original sentences in Ancient Greek.

A word of criticism is in order, however. Mastronarde has chosen not to mark long vowels either in text or in vocabulary lists. The justification he gives is that accentuation will indicate vowel length, which in most cases it will. But in doing so, Mastronarde denies those students fortunate enough to have good visual memory retention the advantage of that gift. In a beginning grammar, where students may be encountering vocabulary for the first time, why not give them every aid available to get them up and running? It's a minor tragedy as these things go, and the student can write in vowel length himself until he feels confident enough not to need to. Still, it would have been a magnanimous gesture on Mastronarde's part.

Note to the self-paced learner: the answer key is reason enough alone to use this book.

Out of all the books on learning Greek that I have gone through, this is the best in terms of detail. Some books have good explanations, but poor charts; and other books have good charts, but poor explanations. This book, however, has good charts and explanations. This is great for those being taught or tutored. It is also great for review and greater understanding of the grammer. However, this book may be overwhelming for those teaching themselves Greek because of all the information presented in this 400 page book.