Greek studies?

[swimmermom3]

Sailor Dude has expressed a serious interest in learning Greek. His goal would be able to take a stab at reading ancient Greek authors in their original language. Is this even possible or is it a bit like reading old English versus modern English? Another goal is to eventually travel to Greece; I am not sure if this has to do with historical sites or sailing, or both. :tongue_smilie:

 

Anyway, he has a very full academic schedule, so this will be at his own pace o his own time.  What do you recommend?

 

This is the book recommended on Donald Kagan's Yale Open Course class on ancient Greek. Could we start here? I know absolutely nothing about learning Greek.

[mims]

He will want to learn Koine Greek (this would be the equivalent to Old English so similar but not the same to modern Greek). I strongly recommend Elementary Greek from Open Texture. Very straight forward and easy to teach yourself. If he wants to turn it into credits you must remember these were written for all ages so Book 1 and about half of book 2 would equal 1 credit.

[crazyforlatin]

I seriously considered that book, Learn to Read Greek, but instead went with Athenaze, http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/Athenaze%3A+Intro+to+Ancient+Greek+Teacher+Book+1/031196/f97c82a271ada07d45d2a946?subject=15, since I have a younger kid.

 

I'm glad to see that now we can email Keller for answers. That was one of the reasons that held me back about Learn to Read Greek. I think I emailed the publisher and did not receive a response.

 

We did start out with Elementary Greek but it's Koine, so that's good if you want to read the New Testament.

 

Oh, I hope Corraleno will read this thread soon. One of her kids is enrolled in an online Greek class. In fact, I may go this route when DD is older. I'm having trouble remembering what I learn with DD and I just don't think my brain can handle Latin and Greek.

 

ETA:The link above is the Athenaze teacher's guide found at Rainbow Resource.

Ancient Greek is as different from modern Greek as old English is from modern English, but It is possible to learn, but it would be tough, especially on his own.  He'd really need to be motivated, and put in the hours.  There are online options.  Greek is harder than Latin, as it is also inflected, but Greek has more verb forms and the vocabulary is tougher.  The first choice you need to make is which dialect to choose, as they do differ from each other, here's a good discussion of that topic: http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/dialects.html  If he isn't interested in reading the New Testament, I would recommend Attic instead of Koine, and I would start with the text "Athenaze", which is a good text for advanced high schoolers, and is also used at the college level.  I haven't looked at "Learn to Read Greek", but I have worked with "Learn to Read Latin" by the same authors, and it is a very complete, but difficult text for rigorous university study.  I wouldn't use it for high schoolers or even average university students.

 

Now, I'm sure that successful self-study of ancient Greek would really make him stand out to universities versus other candidates, especially if he can independently verify his achievement with something like the National Greek Exam.  However, if the college of his choice doesn't offer Greek (and many don't these days), he may need to continue with Spanish for foreign language requirements either for entrance or for graduation to college.  Something to think about.

[Miss Marple]

I also would recommend the Athenaze books.  My son took a semester with Lukeion online.  I have mixed feelings about that specific online course but I liked the text and it is possible to get a teacher book to go along with the student text.  There are several other online courses offering Greek to that age group and use Athenaze as well.  Lukeion moved extremely quickly with very little feedback to the student.  The goal of Lukeion is to get the student advanced enough to take the National Greek exam.  That was not my goal and that may have led to the problems we experienced.  There is another class that uses Athenaze but moves much more slowly.  I think that would have been a better fit.  FWIW, we enjoyed the class and all the "go alongs" offered by Lukeion.  We were frustrated by the administration.  If you search Lukeion you can find lots of information.  I believe Martha also had a student in the same class and had the same complaints I had.

 

So if he is hugely motivated and can give at least 2 hours per day to the class and needs little hand-holding, Lukeion would set him up nicely for the NGE in the spring.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

We have been very happy with Lukeion's Latin classes...so much so that both kids want to begin Ancient Greek with them as soon as I will allow it.  I'm sorry to say they just finished their free "Learn the Greek Alphabet In About an Hour" class but you might keep an eye on their website or Facebook page for future seminars.  I will say that the courses are intense and demanding.  The instructors' goals include having students prepared for challenging courses and college level work.  A much lighter, no grading and no required prep option is their history and culture classes. (But they won't get you language skills.)

 

I would highly recommend the instructor and would urge you to look at their discussion of which form of Ancient Greek to study and why.

 

http://www.lukeion.org/greek.html

[Miss Marple]

Here's the link to the other online class we looked at:  http://www.clrchomeschool.com/

 

In fact, we had decided to enroll him in this for the 2nd semester of Greek but, instead, he decided to enroll in Spanish concurrently at our local 4 year university.  I spoke with the administrator of CLCR and think it would have been a better fit for us.

[crazyforlatin]

Here's the link to the other online class we looked at:  http://www.clrchomeschool.com/

 

In fact, we had decided to enroll him in this for the 2nd semester of Greek but, instead, he decided to enroll in Spanish concurrently at our local 4 year university.  I spoke with the administrator of CLCR and think it would have been a better fit for us.

 

Good to know there is another option besides Lukeion.

 

[Corraleno]

Another vote for Athenaze! DS finished both volumes with Lukeion, and is chomping at the bit to start Greek 3 (reading) in a few weeks. Athenaze is very thorough but also really fun, because it has you reading and translating whole paragraphs of Greek from day 1. The first paragraphs are simple ("Dikaeopolis is Athenian; but he lives not in Athens but in the country...") but even so, DS was thrilled to be reading Greek right away, plus the story is really funny, especially in the beginning. It kept his motivation up even as he struggled mightily through that first semester; I don't know if he would have done as well with a text where you go through tons of grammar & vocab and only get to translate a few sentences. He was really motivated to keep going because reading Greek from the very beginning meant that reading Greek was an achievable goal, kwim?  And by the end of the first book you are even reading some (slightly adapted) Herodotus & Thucydides, which DS thought was the coolest. thing. EVER. That was his goal, he worked his butt off, and there he was, nine month later, reading Herodotus in Greek!

 

Lisa, I'll be happy to send you the first volume of Athenaze, along with the ancillary materials, if you want to look them over. And if Sailor Dude wants to have a go, you're welcome to borrow them. If he has any questions, he can email DS! And if he really gets into, and can find the time in his schedule, I highly recommend Lukeion. We love love LOVE the Barrs — DS has taken Greek, Latin, grammar, and a bunch of history & lit workshops with them, and in many ways Lukeion has changed his life, solidifying his passion for all things Classical and sparking an unexpected interest in linguistics and languages in general. 

 

Greek is awesome!!!  :thumbup:

 

Jackie

[Allearia]

My son used Learn to Read Latin for his Latin class, and his tutor uses the Learn to Read Greek for the college Greek classes he teaches, but it is definitely a lot denser than Athenaze. Ds used Athenaze for his Lukeion class and I would recommend starting with that. However, perhaps along with the open course the Learn to Read Greek would work, and it is supposed to be really good. I know with the Learn to Read Latin you are reading original stuff right away. As your son is in tenth grade a serious college level text like that would work, it is more how difficult it would be to self study. Learning to read original Greek authors is definitely doable - my son after two years doing Lukeion Greek and working with a local tutor is spending the next four weeks in a workshop reading Homer in the original.

 

Of course if he decided to try out a course I highly recommend Lukeion.

[mumto2]

I am posting so I can find this tomorrow if someone else doesn't answer what I am missing.;) There is a mom on the board (can't remember who--sorry) who majored in Greek. She has done many posts on this. She also recommends "Reading Greek" by Cambridge I think. I have been up almost 24 hours so not real clear but wanted to put that out there for the discussion.

[swimmermom3]

You all are wonderful!

 

So in reading through all the posts and looking at the materials, if ds took the Lukeion course or at least worked his way through Athenaze, would he understand anything that was being said if he traveled to Greece? Is there a middle ground? If he learns modern Greek, will he be able to read any of the ancient Greek authors?

 

He is committed to four years of Spanish instruction, but the Greek is something just for him - not necessarily for academic accomplishment. Does that make sense?  He has long been captivated by everything Greek.

 

I think ds has a gift for languages and his Spanish teacher is supporting that theory. He attended Chinese Saturday school when he was younger and progressed quickly, but he was the only minority and it wasn't as much fun for him socially.

 

I would like to do everything I can to encourage multilingualism - even if I am not sure that learning Greek is the most practical thing to do.

[Corraleno]

No, learning ancient Greek will not let him speak modern Greek, or vice versa; they are very different. When we were in Greece, DS found that he could at least read a lot of the signs and guess the meanings, but he certainly could not hold a conversation. However, learning modern Greek would be a piece of cake if you know Ancient Greek (it is much simpler). If Sailor Dude wants to travel to Greece someday, he can do a quickie Teach Yourself Greek type course and get a tourist level knowledge pretty quickly.

 

If he wants to read the ancient authors in the original, and he's willing to work through Athenaze 1 & 2, that would get him there. And then there are plenty of "readers" specifically for intermediate students, which include various helps, like grammar notes, vocabulary glosses, etc. 

 

Jackie

[Corraleno]

I would like to do everything I can to encourage multilingualism - even if I am not sure that learning Greek is the most practical thing to do.

 

No, it's not particularly practical — but what an incredible gift to be able to read Greek literature in the original! When DS was making his case for studying Greek instead of Spanish, he said "I could learn Spanish and use it once in a while on vacation, or I could learn Greek and read Greek literature for the rest of my life."

 

[i do realize that people can also read wonderful Spanish literature, or use it in their job, or whatever, but DS would not have gone that far in Spanish because he wasn't really interested in it.]

 

Ancient Greek is an incredibly rich language, and it can even sound quite beautiful (I love listening to DS read Greek). One day last spring, he was angsting over a particular passage, and I asked if he'd looked  up the problematic words in his "Middle Littell" (a very comprehensive dictionary) and he said that wasn't the problem — he knew what the words meant, but there wasn't a good English translation for what the passage meant; he could understand it if he was thinking in Greek, but he couldn't think of a way to express the same thing in English without losing too much of the meaning. To me, that's pretty much the holy grail of language study, you know? To be able to think in the language and to feel and understand things in a different way.

 

I love this quote from Churchill:

"I would make them all learn English; and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat."

 

Yes, Ancient Greek is difficult and requires a lot of work — but what a treat!

 

Jackie

[happygrrl]

Hi there, swimmermom!

 

For a conversational extra, you could look up Holy Trinity Cathedral in your area. They very likely have converational classes. I recently met the 2nd priest from the Cathedral, Fr. Demosthenes. Fr. Demos is from Greece and teaches a Byzantine chant class there that is truly world class. Just attending a service where he is presiding will have you in a swoon. Their festival is usually in October, for some yummy treats. Um, I mean cultural study opportunities. :)

[swimmermom3]

No, learning ancient Greek will not let him speak modern Greek, or vice versa; they are very different. When we were in Greece, DS found that he could at least read a lot of the signs and guess the meanings, but he certainly could not hold a conversation. However, learning modern Greek would be a piece of cake if you know Ancient Greek (it is much simpler). If Sailor Dude wants to travel to Greece someday, he can do a quickie Teach Yourself Greek type course and get a tourist level knowledge pretty quickly.

 

If he wants to read the ancient authors in the original, and he's willing to work through Athenaze 1 & 2, that would get him there. And then there are plenty of "readers" specifically for intermediate students, which include various helps, like grammar notes, vocabulary glosses, etc. 

 

Jackie

 

Jackie, thanks so much for the clarification.  I think the part in bold would be a good plan. Learning Ancient Greek through Athenaze would give him some fairly quick satisfaction and he can learn the modern Greek later on down the road before traveling. If he likes Athenaze and is putting some effort into it, we may look at Lukeion down the road. I do appreciate Miss Marple's heads-up on the pacing. This year's work load is significant and there isn't room for another official class, especially one that requires two hours a day.

 

It's great to read about how your son is thriving. I always enjoy the updates.

 

[Nan in Mass]

Another vote for Athenaze! I used I and II in college. It was a blast and made me realize that the Ancient Greeks were people, real people, intelligent, with a sense of humour, struggling with many of the same issues we still struggle with - lawyers and law suites (sp?), red tape, the stupidity of people in groups, inlaws, ... It is Attic Greek. My prof said if you learn Attic, you can read the Bible without too many problems, but it doesn't go the other way round as easily.

 

Tell him that in about two months or less, 1/2 hr. a day, he can always learn enough modern Greek to travel by doing the Pimsleur tapes.

 

What fun!

Nan

[Miss Marple]

Lisa, if your son has a gift with languages he would probably do fine with the pacing of Lukeion.  We are not language-gifted in this house :) and having to learn a new alphabet as well as well as all the accents and which way they go - well that really stretched my son (and me as well).  I think Mr. Barr recommended the 2 hours per day at some point in the course.  For us that was just too much when paired with all the other courses my high-schooler was taking.  And your son would probably need less hand-holding than we needed.

[Nan in Mass]

Oh - And amount of time spent... I had a 45 or 50 minute class 3 times a week, probably spent an hour a week with flashcards memorizing the grammar tables and vocab lists for the weekly quiz, probably spent about five hours studying for each exam, and probably spent another hour and a half to three hours doing the weekly translation excersizes. We didn't do every single excersize - we were assigned certain ones to do. We did Athenaze I first semester and II second semester. Most of the grammar was entirely new to me. I had had some French and no English grammar. I was taking it just for fun.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

Sorry - Can't edit, so I just have to keep posting rather than fixing.

 

Your son might find my reasons for taking it funny. I didn't normally plan ahead or even look ahead past the next summer because it was too upsetting, but this was one of the rare times I did. I was 21 when I took it. I knew I'd never have time to keep working on it and that I was going to forget it all within a few years, but I thought if I took it while I had a chance, when I got really old and was stuck in a chair, I could relearn it and read Greek literature. I thought if I had learned it once, I would be able to figure it out on my own a second time. The funny part is that now, in my 50's, I still think this is a good plan and can see myself doing it.

 

: )

Nan