The text:
Xenophon wrote in Hellenica I.i.18: τὰς δὲ ναῦς οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ᾤχοντο ἄγοντες ἁπάσας εἰς Προκόννησον πλὴν τῶν Συρακοσίων.
This is probably not the best text to illustrate the three methods because this is actually a comparatively easy Greek sentence. Most Greek sentences are harder than this. But I suspect that most B-Greekers cannot even read this sentence without help, and I wanted to use this sentence because I just read it this morning.
Under each method, the student is told to read the sentence carefully several times and try to figure out what it means without any helps. If unable, the student is directed to these helps, respectfully, found on the facing page.
Method One:
Hellenica I.i.18: τὰς δὲ ναῦς οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ᾤχοντο ἄγοντες ἁπάσας εἰς Προκόννησον πλὴν τῶν Συρακοσίων.
Αnd the Athenians, leading all the ships except for the ones belonging to the Syracusans, went off into Proconesus.
Method Two:
Hellenica I.i.18: τὰς δὲ ναῦς οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ᾤχοντο ἄγοντες ἁπάσας εἰς Προκόννησον πλὴν τῶν Συρακοσίων.
ναῦς: acc pl of ναῦς, εώς, ἡ. For the complete declension, see Smyth 275. ᾤχοντο: 3p imperfect of ὄιχομαι. See LSJ I. and John Doe, “The Imperfect and the Ηistorical Present in Xenophon’s Hellenika, A Study in Remote Prominence,” (Fortress Press, 1991, revised 1992.) Προκόννησον: island and city in Modern Turkey. τῶν Συρακοσίων: sc νεῶν.
Method Three:
Hellenica I.i.18: τὰς δὲ ναῦς οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ᾤχοντο ἄγοντες ἁπάσας εἰς Προκόννησον πλὴν τῶν Συρακοσίων.
καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖαι ῆλθον εἰς τὴν γῆν τοῦ Προκοννήσου. καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἔλαβον τὰ πλοῖα εἰς τὴν γῆν τοῦ Προκοννήσου. (ἀλλὰ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐκ ἔλαβον τὰ πλοῖα τῶν Συρακοσίων ἀνθρώπων.)
All three methods have their pros and cons. The first is the Loeb method, which I like, but many Loeb translations are too free to be much help as literal cribs for beginners. Plus, I like to stay in the target language as much as possible. The second method is the standard method used today for learning Ancient Greek, so if you are happy with the status quo, you probably like this method.
Versions of the third method are used by Frank Beetham and some of the Readers from Bolchazy Press. Jeffrey Requandt, I believe, has called for this method for the Greek NT, involving as it does Dr. Seuss Greek, designed for pure beginners. The disadvantage of this method is that if you spend too much time on the facing page (which you should not, by the way; remember that all three methods encourage you to just glance at the facing page and then quickly go back to the real Greek, except for the second method, which encourages you to read a bunch of secondary literature and THEN go back to the Greek) you may begin to internalize, simplified, bad, “artificial” Greek. I recognize this as danger, but I see it as the lesser of three evils.
In its form presented here, I more or less invented the third method, so if you use it to teach Greek, MAKE SURE YOU SPELL MY NAME RIGHT!
ὑπὸ τοῦ Μάρκου