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Teach Yourself Ancient Greek
An introduction to the language of the people who began Western civilization.
Beginners and those with some knowlegde of the language will benefit from this clearly structured course which presents the fundamentals of Ancient Greek in 24 units. Original texts aare introduced at an early stage and enable the reader form and idea of the wealth and extent of Greek literature; authors represented include Homer, the tragedians, Aristophanes, Thucidydes, Plato and Demosthenes. Full notes and a key are provided for all reading.
A glossary of grammatical terms, review excercises, further reading and other material are available on a free website: http://tyancientgreek.org
Beginners and those with some knowlegde of the language will benefit from this clearly structured course which presents the fundamentals of Ancient Greek in 24 units. Original texts aare introduced at an early stage and enable the reader form and idea of the wealth and extent of Greek literature; authors represented include Homer, the tragedians, Aristophanes, Thucidydes, Plato and Demosthenes. Full notes and a key are provided for all reading.
A glossary of grammatical terms, review excercises, further reading and other material are available on a free website: http://tyancientgreek.org
388 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
About the author
Gavin Betts
21 books1 followerGavin Betts was Associated Professor of Classical Studies, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. His publications include Teach Yourself Latin, Teach Yourself New Testament Greek, Teach Yourself New Testament Greek and various translations of medieval and Modern Greek texts.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 20, 2020
The version of the Teach Yourself volume for Greek written by Gavin Betts holds a special place in my life. I used this book to teach myself Greek for about a year before I then went on to do a university degree in Classics. Many years later, much more proficient in the language and with the benefit of hindsight, I feel I can finally weigh the pros and cons of this book.
Over just twenty-five lessons and less than three hundred pages, Betts manages to relay all of the major features of Greek, at least standard Attic–Ionic Greek. The book does not specifically teach Koine Greek, as Teach Yourself publish a different book for that, but as the Koine is essentially simplified Attic this book serves for that as well. A person who has worked through this book should have no problem going on to real, albeit intermediate-level Greek literature like Xenophon’s Anabasis or the New Testament. Betts in fact begins with his own simplified reading passages but gradually begins presenting real extracts from literature. Later chapters have “Extra reading” sections where Betts presents drama or Homeric Greek, but I think relatively few readers will be able to work through these more difficult passages without guidance from a teacher.
Among the downsides is that the only exercises provided here are readings. There are no Greek composition exercises (later, when I did a Greek composition course, having to actively use the language took my Greek to a whole new level). There aren’t even drills, e.g. “conjugate the verb X” or “decline the noun Y”, so the reader would have to be self-motivated to create their own.
Betts’ book is also very densely typeset and it can be hard to go back and find grammatical information that you are looking for. Anyone working with this book would therefore be encouraged to purchase the Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek, a beginner/early-intermediate-level reference work that presents the grammar in a way that is clearer and more conducive to quickly looking up facts. Also, Greek accents are hard and Betts’ book lacks the space to delve into the entire system, so also get Philomen Probert’s A New Short Guide to the Accentuation of Ancient Greek. Both of the aforementioned books have exercises and drills, so together they help make up for the shortcomings of Betts.
Over just twenty-five lessons and less than three hundred pages, Betts manages to relay all of the major features of Greek, at least standard Attic–Ionic Greek. The book does not specifically teach Koine Greek, as Teach Yourself publish a different book for that, but as the Koine is essentially simplified Attic this book serves for that as well. A person who has worked through this book should have no problem going on to real, albeit intermediate-level Greek literature like Xenophon’s Anabasis or the New Testament. Betts in fact begins with his own simplified reading passages but gradually begins presenting real extracts from literature. Later chapters have “Extra reading” sections where Betts presents drama or Homeric Greek, but I think relatively few readers will be able to work through these more difficult passages without guidance from a teacher.
Among the downsides is that the only exercises provided here are readings. There are no Greek composition exercises (later, when I did a Greek composition course, having to actively use the language took my Greek to a whole new level). There aren’t even drills, e.g. “conjugate the verb X” or “decline the noun Y”, so the reader would have to be self-motivated to create their own.
Betts’ book is also very densely typeset and it can be hard to go back and find grammatical information that you are looking for. Anyone working with this book would therefore be encouraged to purchase the Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek, a beginner/early-intermediate-level reference work that presents the grammar in a way that is clearer and more conducive to quickly looking up facts. Also, Greek accents are hard and Betts’ book lacks the space to delve into the entire system, so also get Philomen Probert’s A New Short Guide to the Accentuation of Ancient Greek. Both of the aforementioned books have exercises and drills, so together they help make up for the shortcomings of Betts.
April 25, 2012
Very, very dense. Will require multiple readings of increasing intensity; I've only given it a cover-to-cover reading thus far, without memorizing the paradigms. If I can manage to read this a few times and memorize most of the vocabulary and paradigms, I may never need another Greek grammar. For that, the author deserves praise. I recommend this if you have prior experience as an autodidact in language learning.
March 12, 2017
Mi sarebbe piaciuto avere questo libro quando al liceo cercarono di insegnarmi questa lingua. Avrei dovuto conoscere prima l'inglese, ma avrei dovuto essere un dinosauro ... La cosa, allora, non regge. C'è un tempo per ogni cosa, ha ragione Qohelet. Le cose della vita ci sfuggono e noi non facciamo nulla poco per trattenerle. Ma come, poi? Come potrebbe trattenere la gioventù? Del greco antico non ho trattenuto niente, ma non me pento troppo ...
March 8, 2018
Up to chapter 6. It's very irritating that after chapter 4, there are no vocabulary lists provided, and you have to use the dictionary at the back! That's why I gave it 3 stars and not 4.
It's just after annoying verbs are introduced that add random vowels onto the front of certain tenses, so you look up an e- verb and find it isn't one at all! Grrr! Not helpful.
However there is a great sense of reward at working out a translation and realising you've got it right! Still going! It's oddly fascinating.
I've got a hold of a much older edition by F Kinchin Smith, and it's very curious that about half of that book used New Testament and biblical examples for translation and as a considerable help in developing the learner's vocabulary. Lots of contextual examples, like how the ancient Greek word Chrestos (good, useful) came to be used for Jesus, etc. it actually helps with learning vocabulary, (even though I'm not religiously inclined myself.)
I'm sure there are differences between the most Ancient Greek and Greek of the first couple of centuries AD, but to the interested amateur, they aren't hugely relevant. I am surprised at the total absence of anything biblical in this book though, as it's a legitimate development of the language.
(Later - apparently they brought out a different book purely concentrating on New Testament Greek. A pity really, because a variety of sources is interesting in itself, and a purely biblical book sounds dry)
If you do want a TY book to help with both biblical studies and ancient greek writers, try to get a hold of the older edition. I got mine at Amnesty books for 50p. Plus, it's miles better at developing your vocabulary and gentler on the pace of grammar.
Reached Chapter 9 and the new vocabulary count is over 600 so far! I'm still going, because it is fascinating stuff, despite being so dense I have to return to past sections often.
Good stuff- well finally there was a short New testament section to translate, and I love real Thucydides and Herodotus extracts. I actually feel I'm learning something. Maybe one day I'll be able to fulfil my ultimate goal of reading Theophrastus' botanical works in Greek!
Bad things - oh those aorist verbs with added prepositional prefixes. They are f-ing hard! Some of them I just cant untangle - like epephereto for example, which the key tells me means "it moves upon." No idea. Yet. Using an Ancient Greek dictionary app to supplement the aoristic inadequacies of the end of book dictionary.
Aargh! Had a look at my friend's more modern version and it has vocabulary lists for chapters 5 to 9, unlike my version! Unfair! I've had to construct my own, and it would have helped with those bloody aorist and irregular verbs! Just got book 1 of Athenaze. Maybe it'll be an improvement?
Chapter 10:- much better than the last couple of chapters. Less grammar and more practice. Quite enjoyed it and seemed to find fewer problems analysing word structure, though the significance of some words having an accent and others not wasn't made clear before this, and the example of the word "tis." A 13 line extract from Plato was a nice incentive at the end of the chapter. Huge new vocab of 88 words.
Chapter 11:- not bad. Root aorists, more on passives and future, and some odd nouns. Nice translation passages on Thucydides and Antiphon. I'm picking up more of the rhythms of the language, so translations improving. New vocab of 74
Chapter 12:- participles. Yuck. 12 more forms of the verb, all of which apparently decline like adjectives. We are told this but not shown, so I had to resort to the internet to look a couple up that appeared in the exercises. As ever, the author is bloody mean with the reference tables he provides at the back of the book. NOT at all comprehensive, damn it. More throwing of the book across the room. Might order myself the Oxford grammar. Euripedes, and extra reading of Epigrams to translate; keeping my translations in a notebook now for reference. New vocab of 93
Chapter 13 - odd and Attic nouns, use of genitive/dative. Some very interesting material on new particles and their use for emphasis. The standard set of sentences to work on was nice, but the extra Plato material from Lysias was very challenging. Still the odd word that is puzzling to interpret because the basic form doesn't appear in the dictionary at the back! I'm coming to the conclusion that some of the translations aren't as precise as they could be, for the sake of a smoother English sentence. New vocab 81, making a total of 1068 for the whole book so far. I probably remember about 20%!
Chapter 14 - subjunctive and optative moods of the verb, which is surprisingly not as hard as I expected; except for where endings occur in more than one tense, like long e for example. I made a one page table of endings for reference, though I expect it will take a while to appreciate their nuances. Extract of Xenophon provided to translate.
Chapter 15 - explanation of verb vowel changes (boring!), some interesting use of participles and special verbs of aspect. The best part of this nondescript chapter was the varied passages for translation:- John 19: The Crucifixion, Plutarch's Moralia, and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. The poetic structure of the latter was interesting.
Chapter 16 - one of the more frustrating and challenging chapters, because the author uses examples of the perfect and pluperfect and other tenses that don't fit the suffix ending patterns he gives, (E.g. Epiladeia = they needed. Where is "ia" given as a 3rd plural ending in any tense?) Several words in the Euripides extra reading don't appear in the end vocabulary, or indeed, in my excellent vocab app, leaving me scratching my head. There also seems to be a certain looseness, shall I say, in some of the answer-translations. I know translation is an art, but as a learner, I value precision more than beautiful prose (and some of the original Greek is very beautiful). Oh well. I persevere.
Chapter 17:- oh dear. Signs that my heavy use of the book is starting a process of disintegration. I selotaped the pages that were starting to loosen in the vocabulary section.
Commands and the comparison of adjectives. Okay I guess. Extra reading - Prometheus Bound (Euripedes)
Half a dozen words I couldn't work out in each translation section. Getting tougher! Still finding a few irregular endings that don't match the (admittedly incomplete) word patterns in the appendix. And the Greek habit of replacing some word endings with an apostrophe is hugely annoying!
Chapter 18 - -mi verbs - still absorbing these. Types of conditional sentences - very simple, so why is it frying my brain? I suspect because I'm expecting more complications?
Translation not bad - though one verb I translated as "you" singular ending -ES, the author translates as "they" (which doesn't have -ES endings under any circumstances). It's little things like this that bring the most frustration! Aargh! If you're allowed to paraphrase, say so!
Chapter 19 and the horrors of -mi verbs like istemi, eccentric mai words and perfect words that are actually present tense instead. Ew! First mention of words having poetical forms. The far more logical Latin is growing in appeal. Mind you, looking at my TY Latin book after months of Greek, I was amazed how logical and ordered it was in comparison. The endings stay very predictable, unlike those of Greek that seem to vary much more. Translation exercises on this chapter were far nicer, or perhaps I'm improving? Unlikely!
It's just after annoying verbs are introduced that add random vowels onto the front of certain tenses, so you look up an e- verb and find it isn't one at all! Grrr! Not helpful.
However there is a great sense of reward at working out a translation and realising you've got it right! Still going! It's oddly fascinating.
I've got a hold of a much older edition by F Kinchin Smith, and it's very curious that about half of that book used New Testament and biblical examples for translation and as a considerable help in developing the learner's vocabulary. Lots of contextual examples, like how the ancient Greek word Chrestos (good, useful) came to be used for Jesus, etc. it actually helps with learning vocabulary, (even though I'm not religiously inclined myself.)
I'm sure there are differences between the most Ancient Greek and Greek of the first couple of centuries AD, but to the interested amateur, they aren't hugely relevant. I am surprised at the total absence of anything biblical in this book though, as it's a legitimate development of the language.
(Later - apparently they brought out a different book purely concentrating on New Testament Greek. A pity really, because a variety of sources is interesting in itself, and a purely biblical book sounds dry)
If you do want a TY book to help with both biblical studies and ancient greek writers, try to get a hold of the older edition. I got mine at Amnesty books for 50p. Plus, it's miles better at developing your vocabulary and gentler on the pace of grammar.
Reached Chapter 9 and the new vocabulary count is over 600 so far! I'm still going, because it is fascinating stuff, despite being so dense I have to return to past sections often.
Good stuff- well finally there was a short New testament section to translate, and I love real Thucydides and Herodotus extracts. I actually feel I'm learning something. Maybe one day I'll be able to fulfil my ultimate goal of reading Theophrastus' botanical works in Greek!
Bad things - oh those aorist verbs with added prepositional prefixes. They are f-ing hard! Some of them I just cant untangle - like epephereto for example, which the key tells me means "it moves upon." No idea. Yet. Using an Ancient Greek dictionary app to supplement the aoristic inadequacies of the end of book dictionary.
Aargh! Had a look at my friend's more modern version and it has vocabulary lists for chapters 5 to 9, unlike my version! Unfair! I've had to construct my own, and it would have helped with those bloody aorist and irregular verbs! Just got book 1 of Athenaze. Maybe it'll be an improvement?
Chapter 10:- much better than the last couple of chapters. Less grammar and more practice. Quite enjoyed it and seemed to find fewer problems analysing word structure, though the significance of some words having an accent and others not wasn't made clear before this, and the example of the word "tis." A 13 line extract from Plato was a nice incentive at the end of the chapter. Huge new vocab of 88 words.
Chapter 11:- not bad. Root aorists, more on passives and future, and some odd nouns. Nice translation passages on Thucydides and Antiphon. I'm picking up more of the rhythms of the language, so translations improving. New vocab of 74
Chapter 12:- participles. Yuck. 12 more forms of the verb, all of which apparently decline like adjectives. We are told this but not shown, so I had to resort to the internet to look a couple up that appeared in the exercises. As ever, the author is bloody mean with the reference tables he provides at the back of the book. NOT at all comprehensive, damn it. More throwing of the book across the room. Might order myself the Oxford grammar. Euripedes, and extra reading of Epigrams to translate; keeping my translations in a notebook now for reference. New vocab of 93
Chapter 13 - odd and Attic nouns, use of genitive/dative. Some very interesting material on new particles and their use for emphasis. The standard set of sentences to work on was nice, but the extra Plato material from Lysias was very challenging. Still the odd word that is puzzling to interpret because the basic form doesn't appear in the dictionary at the back! I'm coming to the conclusion that some of the translations aren't as precise as they could be, for the sake of a smoother English sentence. New vocab 81, making a total of 1068 for the whole book so far. I probably remember about 20%!
Chapter 14 - subjunctive and optative moods of the verb, which is surprisingly not as hard as I expected; except for where endings occur in more than one tense, like long e for example. I made a one page table of endings for reference, though I expect it will take a while to appreciate their nuances. Extract of Xenophon provided to translate.
Chapter 15 - explanation of verb vowel changes (boring!), some interesting use of participles and special verbs of aspect. The best part of this nondescript chapter was the varied passages for translation:- John 19: The Crucifixion, Plutarch's Moralia, and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. The poetic structure of the latter was interesting.
Chapter 16 - one of the more frustrating and challenging chapters, because the author uses examples of the perfect and pluperfect and other tenses that don't fit the suffix ending patterns he gives, (E.g. Epiladeia = they needed. Where is "ia" given as a 3rd plural ending in any tense?) Several words in the Euripides extra reading don't appear in the end vocabulary, or indeed, in my excellent vocab app, leaving me scratching my head. There also seems to be a certain looseness, shall I say, in some of the answer-translations. I know translation is an art, but as a learner, I value precision more than beautiful prose (and some of the original Greek is very beautiful). Oh well. I persevere.
Chapter 17:- oh dear. Signs that my heavy use of the book is starting a process of disintegration. I selotaped the pages that were starting to loosen in the vocabulary section.
Commands and the comparison of adjectives. Okay I guess. Extra reading - Prometheus Bound (Euripedes)
Half a dozen words I couldn't work out in each translation section. Getting tougher! Still finding a few irregular endings that don't match the (admittedly incomplete) word patterns in the appendix. And the Greek habit of replacing some word endings with an apostrophe is hugely annoying!
Chapter 18 - -mi verbs - still absorbing these. Types of conditional sentences - very simple, so why is it frying my brain? I suspect because I'm expecting more complications?
Translation not bad - though one verb I translated as "you" singular ending -ES, the author translates as "they" (which doesn't have -ES endings under any circumstances). It's little things like this that bring the most frustration! Aargh! If you're allowed to paraphrase, say so!
Chapter 19 and the horrors of -mi verbs like istemi, eccentric mai words and perfect words that are actually present tense instead. Ew! First mention of words having poetical forms. The far more logical Latin is growing in appeal. Mind you, looking at my TY Latin book after months of Greek, I was amazed how logical and ordered it was in comparison. The endings stay very predictable, unlike those of Greek that seem to vary much more. Translation exercises on this chapter were far nicer, or perhaps I'm improving? Unlikely!
Did Not Finish
September 19, 2026O livro e baseado no em GT mais nao tanto quanto alguns no ramo , porque ao inves de conter muitos exercicios de gramatica ( eu fiz skimming de uma parte do livro para entender sua metodologia com base no livro que e dipsonibilizado gratutitamente na internet pela propria editora ) ele apenas explica-a , e depois vai jogando listas de vocabularios e depois leituras , e ouvi alguem comentando sobre ( nao vi tudo vi algo em torno de 50 a 80 paginas correndo olho para indentificar o metodo) que a tendencia e as leituras melhorarem ( mas que o leitor dessa avaliação que procure ter certeza!) mais pra frente
Portanto pode ser usado como um otimo companheiro para CI , para leitura extensiva , ou para aprendizado por si só , contudo não posso opniar com eficacia sobre a gramatica ensinada pelo livro ja que nao era o que eu estava buscando quando fiz o skimming
Portanto pode ser usado como um otimo companheiro para CI , para leitura extensiva , ou para aprendizado por si só , contudo não posso opniar com eficacia sobre a gramatica ensinada pelo livro ja que nao era o que eu estava buscando quando fiz o skimming
back-burner
November 24, 2018First impression:
- It has nice introduction material.
- It is annoying that tables and Phi are rendered as low quality images. Sometimes accented Iota and accented Upsilon are low quality images.
- It has nice introduction material.
- It is annoying that tables and Phi are rendered as low quality images. Sometimes accented Iota and accented Upsilon are low quality images.
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