Reading Greek: Text and Vocabulary

Reading Greek

by Joint Association of Classical Teachers’ Greek Course

First published in 1978, Reading Greek has become a best-selling one-year introductory course in ancient Greek for students and adults. It combines the best of modern and traditional language-learning techniques and is used widely in schools, summer schools and universities across the world. It has also been translated into several foreign languages. This volume contains a narrative adapted entirely from ancient authors, including Herodotus, Euripides, Aristophanes and Demosthenes, in order to encourage students rapidly to develop their reading skills. Generous support is provided with vocabulary. At the same time, through the texts and numerous illustrations, students will receive a good introduction to Greek culture, and especially that of Classical Athens. The accompanying Grammar and Exercises volume provides full grammatical support together with numerous exercises at different levels, Greek-English and English-Greek vocabularies, a substantial reference grammar and language surveys.

Genres: Language, Nonfiction, Classics, Textbooks, Linguistics, Reference, Greece

318 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2007

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you ask the Internet how to learn Greek you'll typically get three answers: Mastronarde, Athenaze, and JACT. I've previously reviewed Mastronarde and Athenaze runs well over £200, so that leaves JACT.
The first difficulty is knowing which books you need and where to start: the full range includes close to a dozen books, and now that the JACT itself has merged with the Classical Association it doesn't even have an official website to provide any kind of guidance. Maximally, Reading Greek itself (which the introduction calls the first part of the course, but AFAICT all of the rest is just more texts, not deeper study) comprises four books: Text and Vocabulary, Grammar and Exercises, An Independent Study Guide (which is just an answer key), and The Teacher's Notes (which I don't own and didn't miss). Additionally, you probably want The World of Athens, which provides more cultural and historical background and is referred to often in the text (I do own that but I decided not to use it and just read it separately, later), and possibly the Speaking Greek CDs, which has spoken versions of all of the texts (with very passable pronunciations despite having British performers).
The suggested entry point is the Text and Vocabulary book, but you can (and I would suggest you do) start from the Grammar and Exercises one instead. The content runs parallel and you do need both.

The course itself I would characterise as very high-school, in contrast to Mastronarde's undergrad. By that I don't mean it's easier—the opposite, in fact: it generally relies more on rote memorisation over analysis of seemingly irregular forms (e.g. the augment interacting with vowels is not explained in terms of contraction, but just as a table to be memorised), and sometimes simplifies to the point of unhelpfulness (e.g. in the discussion of metre, or the fact that vocabulary lists at no point include the principal parts of verbs (or even separate out any preverb)). With the high school approach also comes the expected high-school-level bad history, but that's presumably worse in World of Athens than it is in Reading Greek itself: even though Peter Jones was director of the JACT (and his execrable Learn Ancient Greek is recommended in the introduction as a "starter"), his reprehensible politics only shine through once or twice, in the sections dealing with Athenian law.
But the biggest difference with other approaches is the fact that it immediately throws you into the deep end as far as texts are concerned, starting with long and fairly complex dialogues instead of the much-mocked artificial "Caecilius est in horto" style sentences that are now unfashionable. That they've gone out of fashion isn't because there was anything actually wrong with them, though, and I'm not all convinced that every paragraph having an ad-hoc vocabulary of four dozen words in addition to the dozen or so you're actually expected to memorise is in any way an improvement; it did make the first few chapters much more daunting to me, even as someone who already had a reasonable grasp of Greek. I've complained about text-first language courses before, but they're an especially bad choice for grammar-heavy languages like Greek.
As for the good: it does have a lot of exercises (a lot more than Mastronarde), and the last two chapters explicitly if very briefly discuss dialectical differences between Attic and Ionic ("Herodotean") and Homeric Greek (though they take a firm and incorrect position on the Homeric question without even hinting at any controversy regarding the matter), which I didn't expect.

So yes, Reading Greek will teach you Greek if you let it, but, while it does an okay job of it, unless you're learning Greek because you're a Tory who thinks Athens was the cradle of western civilisation who is learning Greek mainly because the thought of translating the New Testament (e.g. with the JACT's New Testament Greek: A Reader) appeals to you and you preferred high school to college I see no reason to prefer it to Mastronarde, and that will continue to be my recommendation to people.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as part of Open University course A275: Reading Classical Greek and enjoyed it. The passages start off very simple, with plenty of repetition so that you learn the vocabulary and have plenty of opportunity to see verb forms etc being used in context. The course uses adapted versions of ancient texts, plays etc, which gave me a real sense of achievement to think that I was able to read works by the likes of Aristophanes, even in a simplified form. The texts also cover key events and ideas of the time, so you're learning about the history and culture of ancient Greece as you learn the language, which is always helpful.

I read about half the book during my course, but I would like to go back to it at some point and try and work through the rest of it, as I found it very enjoyable and learnt a lot.

[Cristobal Peña · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "Reading Greek" series published by the Joint Association of Classical Teachers (JACT) has the potential to be an outstanding resource for anyone looking to learn ancient Greek. The idea of a three-book package that teaches all the necessary skills to read authentic texts is great. Unfortunately, the series falls short of this goal.

The grammar section of the books is quite heavy, which can be overwhelming for learners. The pace of the reading texts is also slow since they are designed to be translated. As a result, the series is meant to be completed over a period of 1-2 years, which means you will be reading very few words.

Overall, the "Reading Greek" series feels like a traditional grammar-translation approach with a bit more reading. While it can be a valuable resource for those willing to put in the time and effort, it may not be the best fit for everyone.

[Meg]

The better and glossier version of my second hand edition. It really looks good along with its companion grammar volume, and I was really tempted. Sadly the 2 volumes together cost more than fifty quid, which is more than I can afford, but my 1978 £2 copy has identical greek passages - I checked!

[C.]

just in case I needed another language!