Greek, anyone?

[BibleBeltCatholicMom]

We're adding Greek this year. At first I thought we'd do Koine. First and foremost, my goal for gk is to read Scripture. However, I'd also like to read the classics.

 

I know Koine is widely regarded as easier and many ppl study that first to start reading scripture sooner and then add classical later as a next level.

 

I could do that.

 

But I wonder . . . if we study Classical w/o Koine, would we be able to read scripture? It seems so but I can't find where anyone has actually come right out and said it.

 

Thanks!

[Embassy]

Athenaze might be a good choice. It teaches classical Greek, but also has selections from the NT in the text. I believe that you are supposed to be able to understand most of the NT after completing Athenaze 1.

[TammyS]

My understanding is that he should be able to read Koine if he takes Attic Greek with fairly little difficulty. It's not a different language so much as more of it, if that makes sense. We did Hey Andrew several years ago and then Elementary Greek for two years and then I became burned out trying to keep up. So now Greek is on hold.

 

I do know that The Lukeion Project offers Greek. My son takes Latin there and likes it a lot. I'm hoping to talk my husband into it adding Greek after this coming school year, but we'll see. It's money, ya know.

[Allearia]

Athenaze might be a good choice. It teaches classical Greek, but also has selections from the NT in the text. I believe that you are supposed to be able to understand most of the NT after completing Athenaze 1.

 

I agree. My son just finished Greek 1 with lukeion and towards the end translated several bible passages. They have a discussion of this issue on their website as well. http://www.lukeion.org/greek.html

[justamouse]

your name is cracking me up. :D

 

I've done Mounce's Biblical Greek with Dd17, and she loved it. That said, I don't know if I loved it, but she's what mattered. :D

[mumto2]

Here are some more options:

 

Bluedorn has a koine course. Absolutely lovely but expensive.

 

Memoria press will have one soon. Koine only I think.

 

Galore park -- attic coming this fall with updated course.

 

We are working our way through Elementary Greek -- koine. Well laid out. Not too expensive. Both dc's who also take latin enjoy it. They learn 5 or 6 greek bible verses in each level. They are definately developing translation skills.

 

Dd also wants to be able to read the classics. Not sure which route we will take for that. This week i like Galore Park but who knows.

[BibleBeltCatholicMom]

Thanks, everyone! I think I've decided on classical. While my main goal is to read scripture, my secondary goal is to read classics. I think classical will allow us to do both.

 

I still haven't decided which program, tho.

[Guest vanyali]

I'm working through Athenaze with an 11 year old and a 7 year old. We've been working on Greek for about 9 months now, and are still happy with it. We spent a few months really learning the alphabet and sounds first, along with history and mythology.

 

We're just going slowly, and picking the teaching points out of each chapter of Athenaze to learn one at a time. It's been going really well.

 

My girls like that the chapters are built around a continuing story. We act out the story, tell our own stories about the characters, and even play a game where I give them commands in Greek and they act them out (flege ho helios = turn on the living room light (pretending it's the sun); katadune ho helios = turn off the living room light, etc.) They like it, I like it.

 

The only problems are:

 

(1) Athenaze packs a lot into each chapter, so it takes some work from me to unpack the content into manageable bite-size pieces. It's not hard work, I just tend not to prepare lessons ahead of time if I can help it.

 

(2) I tried to hire a Greek tutor to do the work for me, or at least formally organize and present lessons once a week. But the tutor is not down with this classical homeschool education for kids, and thinks it's all nuts. She is convinced that no one can learn Greek before the age of 15, because that's when she learned it. Of course, she didn't say all this until after I paid for a month of tutoring in advance. So if I can't turn her attitude around by the end of the month, I'll fire her and go back to happily teaching my girls myself.

 

I am using ancient language to teach grammar, and it's going much better than it was when I was trying to just teach it through English. It's more fun for me this way, and I think my girls can tell and respond to that. I'm doing Greek now, and plan to introduce Latin in a few years after we have a good handle on Greek.

 

So, in summary, Athenaze is fine. Teaching grammar through Latin or Greek works fine and can be fun. Even young kids can be taught Greek, as long as you teach them like kids and not like little college students (but homeschool moms already know this). And all my research says that if you can read Attic Greek, you can read Koine Greek, so Attic is a fine place to start if you want to ultimately read the Bible.