Attic Greek and Latin - which books and from where?

[MamaBearTeacher]

I want to teach my kids Attic Greek and Latin this year and I am confused about which books would be best to use. :confused:

 

Attic Greek:

I have heard of Galore Park in England and they have Greek: A New Guide for Beginners by Kristian Waite on their site. Is this the book others are using for their kids? Is shipping very expensive from this company because they are in England?

Has anyone used the book Ancient Greek by Gavin Betts? If so, was it clear?

What about Athenaze? Could I start with this? Can I get Athenaze from Amazon?

I have also heard of Greek Alphabet Code Cracker and Hey Andrew or something like that. Do these teach the Attic Greek alphabet?

My plan is to teach them Attic Greek and if that goes well to teach Homeric Greek later.

 

Latin:

For Latin, Should I use Latin Primer I and II with the CDs? Can I get these from Amazon? I have also heard of Minimus and Latina Christiana, Henle and Latin Prep. Are these better for my purposes?

 

I am hoping to get my kids to an intermediate level in each language at this point. I would prefer a more secular text. My children have a very unique learning style in that they are very gifted with languages and learn quickly without repetition. They don't do exercises at all and so a book with lots of exercises would be useless to us. I don't know Greek and Latin myself so they will have to figure it out on their own so I want a book that is clear and well organized. Also, if possible I would rather not have to order from 10 million places. What should I do? Advice?

[yslek]

What ages are your kids?

[MamaBearTeacher]

They are 8 and 5 but they have used adult texts for learning language before. I prefer kids books though because they usually have larger font and are more fun.

[Laura Corin]

For those ages working together, I wouldn't suggest anything that Galore Park publishes, neither the Greek text nor Latin Prep. Latin Prep requires a lot of translation into and out of Latin - it takes the ability to hold a large amount of information in your head and manipulate it neatly. The Greek is a barebones text, with little hand-holding for teacher or child.

 

For both, I would say that age nine is the earliest normal, age ten is ideal, with age eight for a highly enthusiastic child. My Calvin tested profoundly gifted; Hobbes is probably similar. Each is learning three foreign languages at present, with Hobbes starting a fourth in September. I am glad I waited until they were eight/nine.

 

When you say they don't do exercises at all, can you explain how they normally learn languages? Give us a picture of a normal session.

 

Laura

Edited August 11, 2009 by Laura Corin

[MamaBearTeacher]

What do you mean by barebones text? That might be what I am looking for. My children are 5 and 8 but really do not learn language like 5 and 8 year olds. So far, studying languages I have usually gone through a "My first 1000 words book" with them and then progressed from short picture books to novels. They have disabilities that prevent them from writing so we don't do exercises. They learn every word the first time they are exposed to it and are good at figuring things out intuitively too. We never really did any grammar in any language other than English and in English they learned grammar easily without repetition or exercises. For Greek, I will have to ask them to read a section of the book each day on their own. The 5-year will do this and understand it. I will probably not learn much Greek alongside them though Latin might be easier. That's why I need a book that's clear and well-organized. I am very confused about which book to get but they are excited to learn these languages.

[Melissa B]

Lingua Latina would probably work well. It can be purchased as a book or as a computer CD. Amazon usually carries the series as well.

 

http://www.pullins.com/txt/LinguaLatina.htm#set_1

[Laura Corin]

If you want a more intuitive, less grammar-and-translation route for Latin, then I would suggest the following: either Minimus, followed by Cambridge Latin, or Lingua Latin by Orberg. I haven't used the latter but have heard good things about it.

 

The Galore Park Greek text doesn't have much for your children to read and pick up the language from. A new piece of grammar will be explained briefly, with the expectation that it will be memorised, then there are exercises to follow. Towards the end of the book there are passages, but not many. It doesn't sound like what you want.

 

Laura

[MamaBearTeacher]

These books look perfect for Latin! Are the audiocassettes that they sell good for pronunciation? Do they match the books?

 

I still want to start on the Greek alphabet. Would it be worthwhile to use Greek Alphabet Code Cracker or Hey Andrew Teach Me Greek if we will be learning Attic Greek?

[yslek]

I still want to start on the Greek alphabet. Would it be worthwhile to use Greek Alphabet Code Cracker or Hey Andrew Teach Me Greek if we will be learning Attic Greek?

 

Both of these programs are geared toward learning Koine Greek. B did the Hey Andrew...book 1 a couple of years ago. If writing is an issue, I think it would be a waste of time, as it's a workbook that has one Greek letter per page with space to practice writing the letter.

 

Since your dc memorize things so easily, I'd think a simple intro to the Greek alphabet would probably be sufficient. The letters look odd at first, but learning which letter stands for which sound is not very difficult. :)

 

I haven't personally looked at Athenaze, though I plan to use it with my dc when they are a bit older (it's geared for high school students +). I used Reading Greek (http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Greek-Association-Classical-Teachers/dp/0521698510/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250107435&sr=8-1) in my college Attic Greek classes. I typically don't recommend it for self-study, as there were many parts where our class needed extra explanations from our professor, but now that there's an Independent Study Guide to accompany the text, it might be worth considering. I believe that both Athenaze and Reading Greek dive into translation almost immediately.

[latinteach]

If you want a more intuitive, less grammar-and-translation route for Latin, then I would suggest the following: either Minimus, followed by Cambridge Latin, or Lingua Latin by Orberg. I haven't used the latter but have heard good things about it.

 

 

Laura

 

MamaBearTeacher asks:

These books look perfect for Latin! Are the audiocassettes that they sell good for pronunciation? Do they match the books?

 

The pronunciation on all of these is very good. All use Restored Classical, done very well. I think Minimus/CLC is available in both cassette and CD. Lingua Latina is available as CD, plus you could also decide instead to subscribe online (about $15) to Focus Publishing's Lingua Latina site, which includes the audio online.

[Saille]

My kids *love* Greek Code Cracker. I think we'll end up with a Koine program after that, though we'd prefer Attic. We're going to go to Song School Greek (unless someone from the board runs toward us in slo-mo yelling "Noooooooo!"), and probably one of the Hey Andrew books or Greek for Kids (if it comes out).

 

I emailed Galore Park last week, and they said they're at least eighteen months away from releasing Greek Prep, which will be classical and similar to their Latin Prep program.

 

For Latin, we've used Song School Latin for our pre-reader, followed by Rosetta Stone until she's reading fluently. My oldest son is in the second half of the first Big Book of Lively Latin, and I plan to go on to the second, barring major incident. We do Minimus in the summers, and they both love it. I don't have the teacher's manual (too expensive). I wish I did, as I think there are activity sheets in there. I plan to buy the little Minimus primers at some point.

[Saille]

I emailed Galore Park last week, and they said they're at least eighteen months away from releasing Greek Prep, which will be classical and similar to their Latin Prep program.

 

Nobody's going to react to this? Cause it kind of makes me :confused: :banghead:

[Laura Corin]

Nobody's going to react to this? Cause it kind of makes me :confused: :banghead:

 

The Greek market in the UK is extremely small: it's a prestige project, I suspect, rather than a money-making opportunity. In that situation, other more popular books are likely to push Greek to one side, especially in a small, relatively new, publisher. Frustrating, but not surprising.

 

Laura