by Scribo » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:42 pm
Sorry! I've been trying to save up my sweet sweet procrastination time a bit and was hoping to see what else people were using, I'm very interested to see two people liking Rico - and one of them who disliked JACT too! It must be bloody amazing. I was also intrigued by your review of Thrasymachus.
Also I'm not sure how to organise my response, I've used quite a few at different levels just out of curiosity (and this is a problem, can one accurately review a textbook if one already knows the language?) and actually I've never finished a single textbook. I ended up picking up texts and reading grammars and style guides. That said here goes.
I'm eschewing listing a favourite so early, the closest I might have has been Donovan's "Advanced Greek Prose Composition" but its been a textbook and a monograph like Denniston's excellent, if judgemental, "Greek Prose Style". That said, the focus on idiom and expression really sorted a lot of stuff out for me. Both volumes are available on archive.org and are recommended.
"Reading Greek". I think this was a bad choice for me, coming in with (modern) Greek and having a textbook which limits hard work was bound to make me lazy and I suddenly went from "oh ahaha this is easy" to "wait what the hell just happened?". That said its a very good book, the best of the reading methods. Too slow. It did sort of get the job done though.
"Alpha to Omega" by Groton. Awful book, I've railed against it before. I don't know why necessarily, something about the layout, the sheer size and the boring as hell readings.
"Pharr's Homeric Greek" this I did a lot of while relaxing in Crete. One can rail against the prose section (I skipped them) but its relatively concise and I feel well explicated.
Günther Zuntz "griechischer lehrgang" Needed to work on my German but not a fan of the language, though I'd revise both at once. Quite theoretical, heavy going....good but not the most sensible course.
As a sample. Generally I've always been a minimise textbook and flail around at a text until you get it kind of guy. Though I must admit for Latin I loved Wheelocks, Lingua Latina and Do'Oge. As in finished them.
If I ever wrote a Greek textbook it would basically we like Houten's "Element of Hittite" but more condensed and with more readings and a handful of discursive essays on reading strategies.
(Occasionally) Working on the following tutorials:
(P)Aristotle, Theophrastus and Peripatetic Greek
Intro Greek Poetry
Latin Historical Prose