Customer Reviews

Reading Greek: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises (Joint Association of Classical Teachers Greek Course) (Pt.1) (English and Greek Edition)

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

 

 

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.

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: these books are well done, but dense and very demanding. If you're studying Greek on your own, you'll require either a lot of persistence--or assistance from other texts--to get you over the hump at the beginning of the course.

It's drab.

You only buy this book because it's the set text for your Greek course. You are part of a captive market. The teachers who wrote the book prescribe the book. There was a perceived need for this book when it was first published in 1978. But it has only been corrected once - in 1979 - and the type has never been reset. Much of the Greek text is in a font so small that it is extremely difficult to discern the diacritics. The headings and sub-headings are all over the place and rarely in bold type. This book (and its companions) ought to be at least re-set by a competent typesetter and preferably revised by an editor who knows the meaning of the term "user-friendly".

And what about the content? The explanations are much too brief and the reference material is difficult to find being, as it is, scattered thoughout the text and poorly indexed. The widespread use of abbreviations and incomplete tables does little to facilitate understanding. The authors brought out "A Guide to the Reading of Greek" in 1989 which is little more than an apology for the original work. (But you will have to buy this addendum as well if you are to make any sense of the course.)

I studied Greek at a university for three years and this book gave me a very poor start. I regret that my tutor chose this book for the course.

As other reviewers have noted, the series is ungainly and one needs to have a minimum of three of the books (text, grammar and vocabulary, reader's guide)and possibly a fourth (vocabulary alone)before going on to the intermediate reading selections, of which there are now three.

But more importantly the evident strengths of the series are mixed with equally important weakness. It's indeed exciting to begin to read simplified Greek text from the first lesson, within a very few to be reading only slightly adapted extracts from the great authors, and to end with original passages from Demosthenes, Euripides, Herodotus, and Homer. All the selections (quite a few from Aristophanes and Plato)and settings (adapted from Thucydides for the time of the plague in Athens) are fascinating and authentic.

On the other hand, there are at least two problems apart from the awkwardness of using three or four books together. After the first seven or eight lessons, the level of difficulty gets exponential not so much in absorbing, but in retaining the grammatical complexity. The exercises are just too few to be really helpful in this regard. By the time the student finishes the basic text, the base is insufficient to go on reading other texts with facility.

A second problem is the diffuseness of the texts: a smattering of many different styles and types of ancient Greek does not really provide focus. As the language kept evolving, with the simplest being the koine, it's perhaps a mistake not to start with grounding first in this form. Alternatively, much more emphasis on Homer could equally help provide a base from which to expand. The most difficult authors in some ways are in the classical Attic (Demosthenes, Aristophanes, Plato). Again, it could have been a better strategy, even keeping the focus only on these, to concentrate on say, Plato.

To sum up, my suggestion would be to use this series with some caution: It's quite effective to acquire some of the basics, and reading all the text in the first volume is certainly a satisfying experience. But for a more thorough base in ancient Greek, it may be better to: (i) master the koine of the New Testament; (ii) focus on Homeric Greek with Pharr's text; (iii) and, acquire depth in the Attic dialect with either of different texts which rely on a single author (Hansen's course uses extracts from Plato; in the older tradition, Mather and Hewitt provide the whole of Xenophon's Anabasis in an excellent, annotated version).

As other reviewers have noted, the series is ungainly and one needs to have a minimum of three of the books (text, grammar and vocabulary, reader's guide)and possibly a fourth (vocabulary alone)before going on to the intermediate reading selections, of which there are now three.

But more importantly the evident strengths of the series are mixed with equally important weakness. It's indeed exciting to begin to read simplified Greek text from the first lesson, within a very few to be reading only slightly adapted extracts from the great authors, and to end with original passages from Demosthenes, Euripides, Herodotus, and Homer. All the selections (quite a few from Aristophanes and Plato)and settings (adapted from Thucydides for the time of the plague in Athens) are fascinating and authentic.

On the other hand, there are at least two problems apart from the awkwardness of using three or four books together. After the first seven or eight lessons, the level of difficulty gets exponential not so much in absorbing, but in retaining the grammatical complexity. The exercises are just too few to be really helpful in this regard. By the time the student finishes the basic text, the base is insufficient to go on reading other texts with facility.

A second problem is the diffuseness of the texts: a smattering of many different styles and types of ancient Greek does not really provide focus. As the language kept evolving, with the simplest being the koine, it's perhaps a mistake not to start with grounding first in this form. Alternatively, much more emphasis on Homer could equally help provide a base from which to expand. The most difficult authors in some ways are in the classical Attic (Demosthenes, Aristophanes, Plato). Again, it could have been a better strategy, even keeping the focus only on these, to concentrate on say, Plato.

To sum up, my suggestion would be to use this series with some caution: It's quite effective to acquire some of the basics, and reading all the text in the first volume is certainly a satisfying experience. But for a more thorough base in ancient Greek, it may be better to: (i) master the koine of the New Testament; (ii) focus on Homeric Greek with Pharr's text; (iii) and, acquire depth in the Attic dialect with either of different texts which rely on a single author (Hansen's course uses extracts from Plato; in the older tradition, Mather and Hewitt provide the whole of Xenophon's Anabasis in an excellent, annotated version).

This book contains the Greek text for the three part series. A break-through method for teaching classical Greek, the emphasis is on reading graduated levels of modified Greek texts from various authors. Rather than the traditional method of reading a few sentences, and a heavy dose of grammer, this series provides an excellent balance of text with grammer. The grammer and vocabulary is found in the second book of the series, and the third book is the "Self Study Guide". I would recommend that you purchase all three books for a complete two year course in classical Greek. If you have a background in Latin, or have a Greek teacher available, this course is excellent for self-study.

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.

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.

This book is designed to be used with "Reading Greek -- Text". It provides the grammer and vocabulary portion of the course. A separate "Self Study Guide" is also available. This book includes a reference grammer, dictionary, and grammatical index. The grammer is fairly basic, but has an interesting section on Homeric grammer. The vocabulary has some rather colorful entries == "go to hell", "phooey", etc are included. The emphasis is on reading and understanding the text rather than on providing an extensive grammatical reference. It strongest feature is that it includes a running vocabulary. Each section has a group of words to memorize, and you are not expected to learn all the new words for each section. Thus, the "non-essential" vocabulary is repeated for each section.

I like Reading Greek, because as an experienced language learner (Latin and/or other foreign languages) you can read really quickly and fluently. But if you're looking for a clear exposure to grammar, with nice charts etc., the book is not for you. And using the book, I'll need an additional reference grammar soon.