Learn to Read Greek, Part I

by Andrew Keller, Stephanie Russell

Learn to Read Greek is a text and workbook for students beginning the study of Ancient Greek. It is the companion volume to the authors’ Learn to Read Latin, published in 2004. Like its Latin predecessor, it has a grammar-based approach and is intended for students who have a serious interest in learning the language.

The text and workbook include carefully chosen vocabularies and extensive vocabulary notes; clear and complete presentations of all necessary morphology and syntax; large numbers of drills and drill sentences; and abundant unabridged passages from a variety of Greek authors and texts.

Genres: Language

384 pages, Paperback

Published August 15, 2011

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mainly used this book for reading practice and grammar revision, as I already took courses in Ancient Greek using other textbooks. The vocabulary lists give great explanations of the semantics, origins of the words and their possible meanings and thus greatly help digging deeper into the language. The grammatical explanations are extensive as well and were a nice tool for revision.
Concerning the reading parts, which are separated into short and long readings, I have mixed feelings. This book focusses mainly on poetic texts (those following a meter). Although they are harder to read, translate and understand for beginners than texts in prose, this in itself is not a bad thing, since many textbooks are rather oriented on historiography and philosophy. If your main interest lies in poems, tragedy/comedy and epic poems, this is a good option. But unfortunately the authors mostly give pure vocabulary information in their commentary on the texts, while the hints on unusual or unexpected figures of speech and confusing grammatical constructions are either nonexistent or at a bare minimum. On top of that some phrases have been cut out of their context in a way that makes it really hard to grasp the meaning of what is being said. The authors try to retain this context with short explanations, but many times it is still too confusing.
So all in all be aware that some of the readings in this book can be very frustrating and make Greek seem like an impossible language (which it isn't), especially if you read this on your own without an accompanying course and/or a teacher to help you out. As a beginner, if your main interest lies in poetic texts and you can get outside help, go for this one. If you have a general interest in Greek antiquity (and are on your own) I would highly advise starting with something like Athenaze instead - you can always come back and work through this book with more knowledge.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I have nothing to compare this to, I'm really kind of shooting in the dark with my rating. At the end of the semester I knew a hell of a lot more Greek than when I started, so I guess the book did its job.

[Justin Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the many courses of Attic i have so read, this one by far gives the best explanation into small insights and stipulations of the language. This was quite ideal for me having experience with reading and having a greater vocabulary and gave me the chance to exhaust my practise to the basics with not so many words to be used.

Attic/Ionic/Doric etc. is a very colourful and difficult language, or so a modern English speaker would think, but this course was more than I hoped for.

Definitely would recommend at any beginner level or for those requesting in depth practise for whatever rote (or there lack of) learning done previously.