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Ancient Greek for grammar newbie | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| kealist Senior Member United States kealist.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6047 days ago 111 posts - 124 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Uyghur, Mandarin, Shanghainese | Message 1 of 6 19 October 2008 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
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I have recently been tutoring a friend with his Ancient Greek homework for seminary. I"ve never studied ancient greek (although I have studied latin), but I have been able to help him understand some basics in his translation excercises. In the class, they use software (LOGOS) to give information about the grammatical function of each word and then they are given some handouts that have (terrible) grammatical explanations and they are supposed to teach themselves how to translate it into English. I can translate them without too much trouble because of my experience with latin, but my friend is getting further behind as time proceeds. Sounds like a terrible class to me--treating language like a puzzle.
Anyways My friend majored in art in college and has never studied a foreign language before. He is not familiar with English grammar for the most part. He has worked hard with learning terminology, but gets easily confused and discouraged. So, I was wondering if anyone knew of any good Greek books or lessons that he could use to learn greek that is less grammar driven, or has simple grammar explanations with good examples. And also any suggestions for English grammar books that clear and simple (English Grammar for Dummies?). Most of the free books I've seen online are too tough for him with their grammatical explanations So looking for an ancient greek textbook: - less focused on grammar (Lingua Latina -esque would be nice or Assimil-like) - New testament greek oriented - Clear and simple grammar explanations - Slow moving pace in lessons--not too much new info at once - Sound recordings would be a plus Thanks for any suggestions. I will search around the forum some more too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kealist Senior Member United States kealist.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6047 days ago 111 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Uyghur, Mandarin, Shanghainese | Message 2 of 6 20 October 2008 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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I also realize that these are strict requirements, but if anyone could suggest a text that would be better for someone with bad grammar knowledge that would be awesome
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| FrancescoP Octoglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5761 days ago 169 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Italian*, French, English, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Norwegian Studies: Georgian, Japanese, Croatian, Greek | Message 3 of 6 21 October 2008 at 4:10am | IP Logged |
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Let me see, I'm not into this kind of methods (I'm more of an old school guy when it comes to ancient languages), but I noticed that my sister in law is doing her Greek in school using a "modern" method that's called something like "Athenaze", I'm not sure. It's a bit Assimil-like, in that it provides easy text to read and explains grammar as it goes along. By the way, Assimil DOES have an ancient greek manual, too. As far as I could tell, anyway, the results were not that good, as it turned out that students who had used this new experimental method weren't half as good as students who had followed the traditional path of grammar drills and auhtor translations, and they had to study everything over the old way to comply with exam requirements (and I'm speaking of highschool, not uni). As long as you keep your door open to complementary approaches, however, Assimil and this Athenaze (supposed it's the right title) could be a nice entry-level choice.
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 magister Pro Member United States Joined 6414 days ago 346 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Turkish, Irish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 6 21 October 2008 at 6:23pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, Athenaze is the correct name, and I second FrancescoP's recommendation. If you google Athenaze, you can link to a preview of the Teacher's Manual, which will lay out the pedagogical methods and goals of the course (for some reason, if I search within Google Books itself, I can't find a preview).
There are also a good number of sites out there with exercises to accompany the text. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 5959 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes | Message 5 of 6 22 October 2008 at 1:11am | IP Logged |
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The Italian edition of Athenaze is even more "Lingua Latina"-ized. Also take a look at Thrasymachus.
Assimil has released an Ancient Greek course with reconstructed Classical Pronunciation, which is fairly accurate, despite what one Amazon review says to the contrary. They all focus on Attic Greek though. I've come across this [url=http://www.biblicalulpan.org/]sitep/url] for Koine before but don't know much more about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Dario8015 Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5812 days ago 37 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 6 of 6 30 October 2008 at 2:32pm | IP Logged |
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You might find John Dobson's book of interest - it contains a CD with readings of the passages and has very good reviews - I have a copy myself and always found it excellent.
http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Testament-Greek-John-Dobson/dp/0 801031060/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225394161&sr= 8-1 If the link doesn't work, just go to Amason's site and enter 'Learn New Testament Greek' in the search bar. Edited by Dario8015 on 30 October 2008 at 2:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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