Jump to content

Menu

Ancient Greek recommendations


Guest Lorna
 Share

Recommended Posts

I suspect that you know what I will say.... Hobbes and I are using the existing course distributed by Galore Park: Greek A New Guide for Beginners, by Kristian Waite. It's not designed for children as young as he, so we are taking it slowly - after a year or so we are on chapter 8 of 15. We did spend a lot of time learning the alphabet, using materials pulled off the internet. The book is slim - you would easily do it in a year with children the age of yours. There is no answer book, but so far I haven't been too challenged by coming up with the answers myself.

 

I am hoping to move on to Greek Prep when it is published, but Nick just said that it has been delayed from the previous deadline of this September, so we are dawdling through the existing text. Giving Hobbes' age, this is not a major issue, but might not suit you. When I was first looking for Greek, I had a hard time finding Ancient (rather than Koine) Greek courses. My understanding is that Koine is somewhat simpler, so I wanted to do the more complex version, particularly as Hobbes is likely to go to a school that teaches Ancient Greek later on. Suitable courses for this age group seem thin on the ground, however.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

Edited by Laura Corin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My Latin teacher at (a Scottish) school taught us some Ancient Greek (during what was supposed to be Latin time;)). I loved the experience. Moreover it gave me the keys to unlocking the meanings of some scientific words, symbols and English words later on in life. I would love to do this for our children.

 

Laura, thanks for chiming in. I hoped you might. I have the book you mentioned in storage but ideally I would love a course like Latin Prep. Let's hope the Galore Park verison comes soon.

Do you know what materials the schools you mentioned use? I know my teacher made his own course (much like yourself).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't but I can ask. The school we are most interested in teaches Latin as a main subject, but has a Greek club after school for the keen. I'll be visiting in March, so I can see if I can get any information then. You might also like to do some searches around '13+ Ancient Greek', to see if there are any other courses used in prep schools.

 

The very basic course we are using has (brief) exercises in derivation. Today we discovered the origins of 'strategy', 'pause', 'phone' and 'philosophy'.

 

Good luck with the search. How many languages will you be teaching if you take up Greek? I am starting to think that three per child is about our limit, so I'm not sure how Hobbes is going to fit in Latin. Hmmm..

 

Laura

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have Athenaze. I really like the look of it. I've been trying to begin working through it, so I can work a bit ahead of my dd, but so far have only read through it without doing any exercises. My dd will start the program next fall when she is 11, but nearly 12. Besides the student text, workbook and teacher's guide there are several online sites with additional help, additional worksheets, vocab practice, etc. at no extra charge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure if this is appropriate -- it's American -- but Chase and Phillips, Introduction to Greek is the book I learned with & I see it is still published. It was designed as a year-long course for American high school age. It is a bit dry, but I find myself still going back to it whenever I want a quick, clear answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How many languages will you be teaching if you take up Greek? I am starting to think that three per child is about our limit, so I'm not sure how Hobbes is going to fit in Latin. Hmmm..

 

Laura

 

 

 

Ancient Greek will certainly be done more casually than Latin and French. We do both of these every day. Only my husband has continued studying Danish; we had a teacher in Copenhagen but stopped when we came back to the UK.

 

I am looking to do Ancient Greek as an outside interest rather than a full subject and so I imagine we will do it once a week for an hour or less.

 

Anyway, I have a secret plan to introduce a bit of German at a later date (because we have family in Germany) and I am not sure I'll get away with that if I push my luck with the Ancient Greek.

 

By the end of my school years I had done a year of German, Ancient Greek, Russian, Italian (which I did as a 'o' grade crash course); French over four years and Latin over four years. Although I can only really converse in French, I am very glad to have had the experience of the other languages. Russian was especially interesting since we had two teachers from the former USSR schools come over to teach us. They used to send us home with hundreds of pages of homework and hand them to us like they were giving us the greatest gift. It taught me a lot about Russian children's attitudes to education.

Edited by Lorna
more information
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My teen is taking an out of the home course in Ancient Greek using the text Thrasymachus: Greek Through Reading by Peckett and Munday and is enjoying it very much. I believe it is totally secular.

 

In doing some searching (for the purpose of writing a course description), I stumbled upon the following site which might be of interest:

 

ANCIENT GREEK WITH Thrasymachus

 

The following site was recommended by my daughter's Greek teacher. It's hosted by Eton.

 

Review site for Ancient Greek

 

My daughter finds it helpful in reviewing vocabulary.

 

Regards,

Kareni

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My teen is taking an out of the home course in Ancient Greek using the text Thrasymachus: Greek Through Reading by Peckett and Munday and is enjoying it very much. I believe it is totally secular.

 

The book Kareni mentions above is similar to the Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata (Oerberg) textbook, though with more English language explanation of grammar.

 

Also see http://www.pullins.com/txt/Greek.htm for more Greek language textbooks to consider.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...