[B-Greek] Primers for Attic Greek

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Apr 16 12:13:45 EDT 2004


At 9:02 AM -0500 4/16/04, Dodson, Derek S wrote:
>Dr. Conrad, this was incredibly helpful; thank you.  Is there a particular
>resource that you recommend for studying Attic Greek?
>Derek Dodson

There are many primers of Attic Greek available, most of them intended for
regular academic teaching in universities; In my judgment, two of the best
are (I cite them with the page and info from Amazon.com, simply because
that's handy):

1. Hansen and Quinn is the textbook used in the intensive 8-week
maximal-absorption courses in Greek taught every summer at University of
California and City University of New York. Of all the traditional
textbooks, I think this has the most detailed explanations of basic
constructions in any textbook of ancient Greek that I've ever seen; I don't
think an absolute beginner could work through it without an instructor or
someone to answer questions arising while working through it, but if you
are rebuilding foundations this might be one of the better books you could
use. It's for Classical Attic rather than Hellenistic Greek, but my honest
opinion, for what it's worth, is that even the student whose primary
interest in the Greek language will be the New Testament or patristic
authors should get a solid foundation in classical Attic. Here's the
amazon.com URL:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0823216640/qid=1068464731/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-0274703-4404053?v=glance&s=books

Greek: An Intensive Course
by Hardy Hansen ,Gerald M. Quinn
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2. Another option--one that I think is probably no less viable than Hansen
& Quinn, is the British JACT series "Reading Greek" that is published by
Cambridge University Press. I taught Beginning Greek classes using this
textbook for the last decade or so of my academic career. No textbook is
optimal for every kind of student, and ultimately I think that learning
Greek in a regular academic course has more to do with the interaction of
teacher and student than with which textbook is used; the first textbook I
ever used for Beginning Greek back in 1952 was a wretched primer in NT
Greek that was god-awful; I learned not because of it but in spite of it
because I had a superb teacher to whom I will always be grateful, Joe Billy
McMinn, a product of Louisville Baptist Seminary himself who was/is (now
long retired) a splendid heir of the traditions of AT Robertson. _Reading
Greek_ has two volumes: one a volume with a year's worth of graded Greek
texts in sequential lessons beginning with heavily adapted Aristophanes and
ending with a segment of Homer's Odyssey; the second a volume of
grammatical explanations, vocabulary and some exercises accompanying the
text. The philosophy of learning embodied in this course is that one reads
the Greek texts in a lesson first with the aid of a vocabulary, then learns
the grammatical principles underlying that text and does some exercises
employing those grammatical principles. This textbook really needs a live
human teacher to make it work; some students may be able to work through it
without a teacher but not many; it may be more doable without a live human
teacher if one has also the _Independent Study Guide to Reading Greek_--the
third volume listed below. If you or anyone else should choose to work
through _Reading Greek_, I'll readily make available (send in a zipped or
Stuffit-archived big PDF file or Word.doc file) my own booklet, "A
Supplement to Reading Greek," which expands upon the grammatical
explanations in the grammar/exercise book of this series.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521219760/qid=1068464907/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-0274703-4404053?v=glance&s=books

Reading Greek: Text
by Joint Association of Classical Teachers. ,Joint Association of Classical
Teachers
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See details .
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6 used & new from $11.00
Paperback
20 used & new from $13.00
Product Details
Paperback: 204 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.46 x 8.35 x 5.93
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; (November 1978)
ISBN: 0521219760

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521219779/qid=1068465111/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-0274703-4404053?v=glance&s=books

Reading Greek: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises
by Joint Association of Classical Teachers
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Paperback: 384 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.68 x 8.36 x 5.87
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; (November 1978)
ISBN: 0521219779 | All Editions

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521478634/qid=1068465111/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-0274703-4404053?v=glance&s=books

An Independent Study Guide to Reading Greek
by Joint Association of Classical Teachers
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Edition: Paperback
Product Details
Paperback: 358 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.74 x 8.21 x 5.79
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; (July 1995)
ISBN: 0521478634

-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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