Is it advisable to study Greek before Latin?

[sahabat]

Hello and greetings to all. I'm a new member, and I would like to begin studying Latin and Greek using some of the texts available on this site.

The question I have is whether it would be preferable to learn Greek before Latin, or vice versa. From what I understand, it is standard to learn Latin first, but is there is a pedagogical reason for this?

Please let me know your views on this.
Best,
Sahabat

[mingshey]

Hi, welcome to textkit.
Please refer this thread about the topic: http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... php?t=3370

[sahabat]

Dear Mingshey,
Thank you for the link which I read. Interesting. However, most of the dialogue centred on identifying whether Latin or Greek is more difficult, rather than the benefit of learning either of the languages before the other.

Any one have any thoughts on this?
Best regards
Sahabat

[cweb255]

Well, certainly learning Latin first is much easier, so learning Greek first would be more difficult and thus reverting back to Latin might be easier comparatively relative to memorizing paradigms and such, but it doesn't really matter one way or another. The Greeks learned Latin and the Romans learned Greek.

[mingshey]

Dear Mingshey,
Thank you for the link which I read. Interesting. However, most of the dialogue centred on identifying whether Latin or Greek is more difficult, rather than the benefit of learning either of the languages before the other.

Any one have any thoughts on this?
Best regards
Sahabat

Yeah, the threads often flow in a different way than it started. A few of the first posts show the point, however. It is just that Greek was being learnt quite late in the history of non-Greek western world when Latin was in constant use, thus textbooks were written in respect of Latin. But in the respect of difficulty, there's not much difference, or at least it is disputable, as the later part of the thread suggests.

[sahabat]

Hello, thank you for sharing your views on this! Somehow I feel the idea that familiarising oneself with Greek, and in particular, the Greek cultural context before taking on Latin seems wise.
Best regards
Sahabat