Logos. Lingua graeca per se illustrata. ΛΟΓΟΣ. Ἑλληνική γλῶσσα

by Santiago Carbonell Martínez

1

384 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2023

Reviews

[Einar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book probably deserves 5 stars, but it loses one for not having a compelling storyline.

I'm a strong proponent of the Comprehensible Input hypothesis, and I think it's great that we've gotten another very good book full of comprehensible Ancient Greek. What is lacking, however, is a compelling narrative that draws you in and makes you forget you're reading in another language. In the interesting story department Athenaze, Seumas Macdonald's LGPSI and a couple other books win the cake. This book does have some narrative portions but they're interspersed with boring non-narrative lessons about certain themes.

[Drianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, first, big disclaimer: I haven't actually finished reading the whole book, but I *DID* teach out of it this semester, so I feel like that nonetheless qualifies me.

The reason I didn't finish the whole thing is the reason it's only three stars: a lot of the narrative simply isn't that interesting; I skimmed the whole book but was not at all compelled to sit down and read it. It's *definitely* in the mode of Classics textbooks perpetuating some of the worst examples of ancient beliefs/stereotypes (i.e. representation is bad to non-existent). The illustrations of the enslaved people in particular are kind of horrifying.

HOWEVER. In terms of pedagogy, it was by far the best of the current options. And it's not like the other books do much of a better job representing people (as people), so, y'know, I picked this book.

And I do think it was the right choice, particularly for my level of student (one semester introductory high school course, no particular goal to get very far, but wanted students to have a good, fun experience where they felt like they accomplished things). The first six chapters (as far as we got) definitely did that. The supplementary materials available (PowerPoints for grammar, vocab, oral exercises; videos!!; games; add'l exercises) were fantastic (only Athenaze comes close, and these were better). The chapter on animals was AWESOME and absolutely what I was looking for; kids loved it.

So, I would recommend this book - but only because of the lack of other options. Or, you know, they could NOT with the biases?

[Daniel C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book as a second attempt at revising my Ancient Greek from college in hopes of getting it back to a level where I can enjoyably read a couple student editions of the Argonautica. The book functions a lot like the Latin textbook Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata in that it is a simple narrative with the only help given in the form of images or monolingual glosses. The narrative either draws from the natural world or things that typically would be well known to someone who has enough interest in the classical world to learn Ancient Greek. There are bits about the gods and the myth of Prometheus as well as some quotes from Greek philosophers but also the battle of marathon and the governance of Athens. There are some exercises after each chapter which probably would have helped me be more prepared for the final few chapters which hit me like a brick wall. Overall you can tell that this book was a labor of love and an absolute gem. I am going to do "To Hellenikon Paidion" next.