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Title: Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek by Gilbert Lawall, Maurice G. Balme ISBN: 0-19-514956-4 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.36 (45 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good for learning vocabulary and syntax, weak on grammar
Comment: I bought this book to help me learn Greek through self-study. I have worked through the first half so far. The focus of this book is to teach you to read classical (Attic) Greek. The book takes the inductive, learn-by-example approach to language learning. Grammar is also introduced along the way.
I have learned a lot of vocabulary and syntax from this book. The main story you will be reading has been made up by the authors. I do agree with previous reviewers that this story is rather weak. As a narrative is not the greatest. But the story is set against the backdrop of Athens during one of it's most interesting times, and this made the historical setting come alive for me. The authors effectively use the story as a way to introduce aspects of Greek culture and history. Where else can you experience, in beginning Greek, what it was like to attend the festival of Dionysus in Athens, for example? There are also wonderful secondary reading passages from the classical period, based on Homer, Heroditus, etc. It was great fun to read stories about Odysseus and Theseus in Greek (albeit dumbed-down).
Athenaze throws a lot of vocabulary at you, which is good, but I needed to re-read the lessons several times before I felt like everything was completely sinking in. While working through the readings, I often could not find a word in the vocabulary that is provided for that chapter, and I had to search the Greek-English lexicon at the back of the book. Sometimes I never found the word and had to consult other lexicons.
The main weakness of this book is grammar. It may be hard to learn all the grammar you need from this book alone. I had previously learned some grammar from other books, so I found the grammar explanations in Athenaze sufficient during the first half of the book. Thankfully, only the present tense is used in the first half, to keep things manageable. It's hard enough to absorb all the new vocabulary, without having to juggle a lot of verb forms too. But when the aorist was finally introduced I found the explanation poor. If I had not learned about the aorist from other books, I would have been completely lost. And why they start with the second aorist is a mystery to me; the first aorist seems a simpler place to start. I notice that a second edition of this book will be published soon, so maybe that will do a better job.
I have studied other books with a similar approach: the Reading Greek books by JACT and Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach by Stephen W. Paine. This learn-by-reading approach appeals to me. The best way to learn vocabulary and syntax is in the context of a narrative. It helps you remember and understand. And working through a grader reader is much more interesting than grammar drills, which is the traditional way. However, if you do not master the grammar along with the reading, eventually you will hit a wall where it becomes very difficult to proceed. Alas, there is no shortcut to learning Greek, or any other language. Sooner or later, you will need to dedicate yourself to serious study of grammar. As it is, I'm stopping the Athenaze series half way through this first book. I have recently bought the grammar text Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald J. Mastronarde, along with the separate Answer Key. The time has come for me to get serious about grammar. I'll come back to Athenaze when I've got a better grammatical foundation.
I think this book would be good for classroom use, as long as your teacher doesn't skimp on grammar. Ideally, you would have a semester or two of basic grammar before this book, and then use this book to review grammar and focus on learning vocabulary and syntax. This book could be used for an absolute beginning class, but the pace would have to be slow, and ideally the teacher would supplement the text with extra grammar exercises.
For self-study, this book may be steep climbing for beginners. I do recommend this book to all you autodidacts out there, but you may want to study some basic grammar first. There are no answers or self-correcting exercises in the book, although apparently the Teachers' Edition does have this. I also see that there is a Workbook that will be published soon, so maybe that will be useful too.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent, thorough introduction to Attic Greek
Comment: I'm a huge fan of greek lyric poetry and the plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes. However, much of the beauty of the language is lost in the translation of these works into English.
Athenaze is a highly superior text book for beginning students in ancient Greek, especially those interested in reading the classics in the original language. The text uses characters and excerpts from Aristophanes' play "Acharnians" throughout, and gently introduces first-time readers of Greek into the language. References to other texts and resources are included, as well as a reference grammar and a brief greek-english-greek dictionary.
I should point out that I did not take a class in ancient greek... I picked up this book and the accompanying teacher's manual and studied it myself. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is not a highly motivated learner, but due to the low-cost of the book and the excellent job the author's did at introducing greek, this is a perfect book for self-study as well as classroom study.
I teach computer science, not Greek, yet I would highly recommend Athenaze to any Greek instructor or student.
Rating: 5
Summary: Thoroughly educational and enjoyable
Comment: This book made learning Ancient Greek attainable! It includes a smattering of various exercises to strengthen one's understanding of the language (including English to Greek sentences, stories in Greek, vocabulary exercises, sentences in Greek that illustrate new grammar concepts and more!). It also made the stories in Greek progressively more complicated, but not enough to confuse students. New grammar is introduced gradually and the vocab presented is used frequently in "everyday" conversation. Also included with this book are phrases from ancient authors and even Bible verses (for those students interested in Coinae Greek).
After one semester of using this book, I am able to sit down and understand some of the Bible and other ancient authors! This book is definitely the best way to gain a solid foundation in Ancient Greek!
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Title: Athenaze, Teacher's Handbook Book Two: An Introduction to Ancient Greek by Maurice Balme, Gilbert Lawall ISBN: 0195069307 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: February, 1991 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary by James Morwood, John Taylor ISBN: 0198605129 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek by James Morwood ISBN: 0195218515 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald J. Mastronarde ISBN: 0520078446 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: March, 1993 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Greek: An Intensive Course by Hardy Hansen, Gerald M. Quinn ISBN: 0823216632 Publisher: Fordham University Press Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
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