Any advice to beginngers of Ancient languages?

[David.W]

Hi, I'm currently a undergraduate with a major in Modern Greek, and I'd like to learn Ancient Greek and Latin from scratch. Could anybody here give some advice to a beginner regarding methods or web resources? (Unfortunately, ancient langguage courses are not available in my school)

Should I memorize those grammars first and then read some texts or learn grammar by reading text piece by piece?

[JonathanEdwards]

Hi, I'm currently a undergraduate with a major in Modern Greek, and I'd like to learn Ancient Greek and Latin from scratch. Could anybody here give some advice to a beginner regarding methods or web resources? (Unfortunately, ancient langguage courses are not available in my school)

Should I memorize those grammars first and then read some texts or learn grammar by reading text piece by piece?

You might want to look over a basic Attic primer like Abbott & Mansfield, then dive in and read, read, read, returning to the grammar to check what looks odd through your Demotike lens. Yes, grammatical rules have changed, and so has much vocabulary, but Greek is one continuously spoken language. There’s a fascinating volume by Chrys Caragounis on that subject if your library has it. Some typical ‘starter’ texts with repetitive vocabulary would be Diodorus, Xenophon, St. John’s Gospel, and St. John’s First Epistle. Short Attic texts like Plato’s Crito and Apology will stretch your vocabulary once you’re comfortable with the grammatical rules. Homer is awesome, but the artificial construct of ‘Epic Greek’ will have enough exceptions to make your head spin.

Since you don’t have the leg up on Latin, you might want to go through a basic primer like Kennedy first before too much inductive learning. Hopefully, you can find a tutor in your area.

Best wishes on your summer reading!

Edited August 1, 2010 by Westcott

[JonathanEdwards]

web resources?

At Perseus, hosted by Tufts Uni., you can parse tricky forms from hard copy books you’re reading, and also work through numerous texts online.

At Textkit you can find a number of older grammars and annotated texts.

[David.W]

You might want to look over a basic Attic primer like Abbott & Mansfield, then dive in and read, read, read, returning to the grammar to check what looks odd through your Demotike lens. Yes, grammatical rules have changed, and so has much vocabulary, but Greek is one continuously spoken language. There’s a fascinating volume by Chrys Caragounis on that subject if your library has it. Some typical ‘starter’ texts with repetitive vocabulary would be Diodorus, Xenophon, St. John’s Gospel, and St. John’s First Epistle. Short Attic texts like Plato’s Crito and Apology will stretch your vocabulary once you’re comfortable with the grammatical rules. Homer is awesome, but the artificial construct of ‘Epic Greek’ will have enough exceptions to make your head spin.

Since you don’t have the leg up on Latin, you might want to go through a basic primer like Kennedy first before too much inductive learning. Hopefully, you can find a tutor in your area.

Best wishes on your summer reading!

Thank you Westcott! Your suggestion is really useful. I also search the web sources mentioned, and they are just what I have been looking for!

Many thanks to your generous help!