Having just started on Greek I am going to have a whinge about the textbooks - why in all of them do they use such a tiny font to reproduce the Greek alphabet? Even modern textbooks suffer from this. I can read perfectly well in English and Latin without glasses, but as soon as I pick up a Greek textbook the fresnel lens has to come out (a magnifier). In some, the grammar is written in a miniature font, but the exercises are larger and legible, so why put the important part in the smallest type?
Even modern texbooks suffer from this fault. If any of you are thinking of writing a new textbook think big!, or at least just normal type size.
Tiny writing
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Carola
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Bert
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I know what you mean Carola. In the bold print of Pharr I have a hard time distinguishing rough from smooth breathing.
The regular print isn't bad but the vocabulary is in bold print.
The Greek characters are smaller than the English, the diacritical marks are even smaller. In bold print all that is left of a breathing mark is a little almost round ink-blob.
The regular print isn't bad but the vocabulary is in bold print.
The Greek characters are smaller than the English, the diacritical marks are even smaller. In bold print all that is left of a breathing mark is a little almost round ink-blob.
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Carola
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It was rather disappointing to find that in the "Joint Association of Classical Teachers, Reading Greek" series, which is otherwise so good, that they have used such a small type face for the grammar. I might look at the "Athenaze" book. Might as well completely trash my bank account!
I have printed out some of the Textkit books with the pages set to a full A4 size and double sided the paper, that's not too bad but sometimes the old metal type printing wasn't very clear to start off with, so all you do is enlarge the blobs and blotches. The Pharr is a good (or do I mean bad!) example of this.
Apart from this, it's only taken me about 2 weeks to learn to read the Greek alphabet reasonable well, so maybe there is something to be said for squinting at it through a magnifier. What did someone say about no pain no gain.....?
I have printed out some of the Textkit books with the pages set to a full A4 size and double sided the paper, that's not too bad but sometimes the old metal type printing wasn't very clear to start off with, so all you do is enlarge the blobs and blotches. The Pharr is a good (or do I mean bad!) example of this.
Apart from this, it's only taken me about 2 weeks to learn to read the Greek alphabet reasonable well, so maybe there is something to be said for squinting at it through a magnifier. What did someone say about no pain no gain.....?
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Geoff
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William Mounce mentioned some of the changes of the second edition of his workbook on his site;
"The workbook was changed extensively, larger Greek font, has a different structure and much better sentences. The first year I used the new workbook, the average grade in class went up almost an entire grade"
I Thought that was funny. I'm sick, I print out Samuel Green on four pages per 8 1/2 X 11 and chop it up and comb bind it to carry in my pocktet.
"The workbook was changed extensively, larger Greek font, has a different structure and much better sentences. The first year I used the new workbook, the average grade in class went up almost an entire grade"
I Thought that was funny. I'm sick, I print out Samuel Green on four pages per 8 1/2 X 11 and chop it up and comb bind it to carry in my pocktet.