Hello everyone,
I recently realized that most of my Greek googling leads me to this site, so I made an account. And for my first post, I was hoping some of you could help me out by recommending good texts for transitioning from Koine to Attic.
Here's where I'm at: I've had three official seminary semesters of Koine (along with a reading group for another semester). I worked through Clayton Croy's Primer and Wallace's Basics of New Testament Syntax. I've memorized all NT occurrences up to about 15 words; and with my slight knowledge of Attic and Greek Philosophy generally speaking I'd say I have a vocabulary of around 1,000 words. Provided I have some minor vocab help (Zondervan's NT Reader), I can sight-read all of the gospels, revelation, 1, 2, and 3 John and 1 Corinthians, but I struggle with sight-reading the rest of the NT.
But I can hardly make out a single sentence of Plato — and I'm about to begin a Ph.D. program in Ancient Philosophy! I've tried to rectify this using Grotton's Alpha to Omega but I'm not finding the sentences entertaining enough … nor numerous enough. I've completed chapter 34 in this; and I can translate the sentences near perfectly, but I'm not sight-reading them like I was with my NT sentences. I need a pen and paper and some slight diagramming to make sense of them. This doesn't feel right to me, and makes me think I'm doing something wrong. (Or is Attic simply just that much harder than Koine?)
Does anyone have any suggestions about how to ease this transition? specifically a text that I would like? I love Wheelock's Latin, if that helps. And I can handle far more Vocab than most texts provide. I just don't know what to do. I think Greek 1 and even Greek 2 at a university would be a waste, and yet I don't feel prepared for Greek 3 (third semester, not third year) — which is where I'd like to be in the next couple of months.
I appreciate the help!
Doug