Rouse's First Greek Course

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jeidsath
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Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

I have made a new PDF of the third edition of Rouse's First Greek Course. There has been a version floating around the internet for some time. I took it and split the images into single pages for ease of use:

https://archive.org/details/FirstGreekCourse

I've also made it available from lulu.com as a paperback (the price you see is Lulu's price to me):

http://www.lulu.com/shop/whd-rouse/firs ... 93567.html

I've owned a copy of Mahoney's First Greek Course and unlike her editions of Morice's Stories or Rouse's Reader, there is substantial new material added to her version. The difficulty is that Rouse is minimalist with his material while Mahoney is maximalist, and the result is not so much a revised edition as a new textbook in a different style. I believe that there is a review of it on Bryn Mawr.

As for Rouse's original (non-Mahoney) textbook goes: This is a terrible textbook for self-study. Without an instructor, you must read widely to make up for the lacks. However, it is pure gold for anyone trying to instruct others in Greek as a living language.

I took the time to clean up the existing PDF and create the print version because I have been finding the conversation drills extremely useful when trying to improve my spoken Greek. They are easier than free-form conversation, and make it possible to practice correctness in speaking.

If anyone wants to practice conversation with me, or go through the course chapter by chapter, please contact me. I think that it would be a lot of fun.

(BTW, I'm still doing Sidgwick, but the last few stories I wrote down longhand, and lately I've been reviewing the first set of stories so that I can fluently describe them to people from memory. I've found that makes the syntax stick better than composing on paper. I'll post some updates to the thread eventually.)
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by daivid »

jeidsath wrote: I've owned a copy of Mahoney's First Greek Course and unlike her editions of Morice's Stories or Rouse's Reader, there is substantial new material added to her version. The difficulty is that Rouse is minimalist with his material while Mahoney is maximalist, and the result is not so much a revised edition as a new textbook in a different style. I believe that there is a review of it on Bryn Mawr.

As for Rouse's original (non-Mahoney) textbook goes: This is a terrible textbook for self-study. Without an instructor, you must read widely to make up for the lacks. However, it is pure gold for anyone trying to instruct others in Greek as a living language.
Do you mean that Rouse skimps on the grammatical explanations or on readings/exercises to practice the grammar being taught? And which of those two lacks does Mahoney best make up?

As I have downloaded your pdf I guess I will soon know the answer to my first question but what Mahoney adds I will still be keen to know.

And thanks very much for making the Rouse version available.
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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

Rouse minimizes explanation and emphasizes practice. Every grammar explanation is reduced to a two or three sentence explanation with a heading like Syntax Number ##. Chapters have varying numbers of those, never many. The readings and exercises are voluminous, but geared for classroom conversation practice. In the introduction to Greek Boy, Rouse suggests replacing the readings from First Greek Course with the equivalent chapters from Greek Boy.

From the introduction:
The book was first used in manuscript for a year; then printed and used for a year in proof; finally, with many alterations which use suggested, it was reprinted and used for a third year. I think, therefore, that I may safely call it a practical book.
As far as lacks being made up, I don't think that any edition could do it. The book needs a living teacher. I would steer anyone away from First Greek Course who really does need a first Greek course and is trying self-study.

But if you are interested in conversation practice, try the exercise on page 8:

Image

Either do it in front of the mirror, or better yet Skype someone.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by Markos »

jeidsath wrote:...if you are interested in conversation practice, try the exercise on page 8:

Image
These strike me as very well-designed and effective drills which would be helpful both to beginners trying to internalize the forms and to anyone who wants more practice in speaking Ancient Greek.

You could modify the drills for those learning NT Greek.
Rom 10:9-10:
ὅτι ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃς ἐν τῷ στόματί σου κύριον Ἰησοῦν, καὶ πιστεύσῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου ὅτι ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν, σωθήσῃ: καρδίᾳ γὰρ πιστεύεται εἰς δικαιοσύνην, στόματι δὲ ὁμολογεῖται εἰς σωτηρίαν.
ὦ ἀδελφέ, τί ἔχεις?
στόμα ἔχω.
τί ποιεῖς στόματι?
στόματι ὁμολογῶ κύριον Ιησοῦν.
τί ἄλλο ἔχεις?
καρδίαν ἔχω.
τί ποιεῖς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου?
ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ μου πιστεύω ὅτι ὁ θεὸς Χριστὸν ἤγειρεν.

κ.τ.λ.
jeidsath wrote:I've also made it available from lulu.com as a paperback (the price you see is Lulu's price to me):

http://www.lulu.com/shop/whd-rouse/firs ... 93567.html
καλὸν πεποίηκας.

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

You could modify the drills for those learning NT Greek.
So I haven't practiced enough with this sort of thing, but the gist of the course seems to be that it's training you to do exactly this sort of thing with new texts to help internalize the the language.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by Markos »

W.H.D. Rouse wrote: Image
τί ἔχει Θεός?
τὸν ἥλιον ἔχει.
καὶ τί ποιεῖ Θεὸς τῷ ἡλίῳ?
τῷ ἡλίῳ τὸν ἀέρα θερμαίνει.
οὐ μανθάνω γράφειν, ἀλλὰ γράφω τοῦ μαθεῖν.

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by Σαυλος »

CulturaClassica is a website (Spanish language) that promotes living language approaches to learning Latin and Greek. Some of their members re-wrote Rouse’s “Greek Boy.”

The book came out a year ago and is sold for 16 Euro.

The preview pages show some truly wonderful artwork done specially for the book. It looks like they’ve simplified the story a bit, a good thing.

See following link:
http://www.culturaclasica.com/lingualat ... graeca.htm

Connected to this book is a wikispaces spot for developing materials connected to the book. Each lesson has a link on this page.
http://alexandros-thp.wikispaces.com/

There are some nice images there.
Image
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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by daivid »

The image is beautiful but I'm not sure about making a modern word conform to Greek grammar as a way of expressing something the Greeks didn't know about. Especially when such words are not the same in all modern languages. Platanos may make sense to Spanish students as a word for banana but not to English as Plantains are normally regarded as quite distinct from bananas. Constructions on lines of moon-shaped-fruit it seems to are better solutions
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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

El plátano de Canarias is sort of from the Greek/Latin, literally "the plane tree of the Canary Islands." Not because the plant looked like the Mediterranean plane tree, rather because the word sounded like the native word. Banana/Plantain varies across the Americas in both Spanish and English usage.

An Hellenic version of the Académie française probably would not accept the word as good Greek, I agree.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by daivid »

jeidsath wrote:El plátano de Canarias is sort of from the Greek/Latin, literally "the plane tree of the Canary Islands." Not because the plant looked like the Mediterranean plane tree, rather because the word sounded like the native word. Banana/Plantain varies across the Americas in both Spanish and English usage.
Thanks for the correction but it strengthens my point. It is a word that makes no sense to anyone whose native language doesn't have that term for banana.
jeidsath wrote:An Hellenic version of the Académie française probably would not accept the word as good Greek, I agree.
It's not purism that is my concern but that using a term that is a description despite being long winded will give the reader a bit of extra exposure to actual ancient Greek words.
EDIT
Something like μηνοειδής καρπος perhaps?
λονδον

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by awt »

I found these conversation exercises to be pretty challenging. I was shocked to find that after a few years of reading and writing Greek daily, I could barely put a correct sentence together when attempting to speak it. With this in mind, I'm working on a podcast that should be helpful to people like myself who can't conveniently practice them with others.

Please let me know if you have any comments about it or suggestions, and if you find it at all useful.

Thanks,

- Adam

We have a very strict rule against the posting of any links for new users until they have made at least ten posts. Hence I'm afraid the link in this post has been removed. daivid

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by eris_discordia »

First Greek Course (Mahoney ed.) was the first book I used in my study of Ancient Greek. I actually had the great pleasure of having the author, Anne Mahoney, as my professor at Tufts for Greek. I think because I had the author as my professor, I may have a view of the book that might not translate to a purely self-study approach. The course was essentially taught as a living language, and the expectation was to listen to Ancient Greek, and respond in it (in sentences as complete as possible) right from the beginning. The book is, I think, pretty good at giving you a good amount of information about the reason why certain words appear so irregular in their patterns, etc., but again, that could be that the professor made this apparent in her lectures.

I wish there were more people (or professors, specifically) that were equipped to teach this as a living language. Although my goal was not to be able to formulate my own sentences in order to speak with people in this language, it certainly helped very much with acquisition. She really forced us to "think" in the language, and refrain from using a dictionary until about a year into our study. When you don't know a word, try instead to gain the meaning from the clues. And very little, if none, translation exercises, as she would always say, "The goal is to read and think in Greek, not back to English." For me, it was painful to not look up the words I did not yet know, but it was probably the most helpful piece of advice.

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by cajunesque »

I am in Los Angeles and just started the conversational exercises, recording them, and practicing them with some others I know.
Totally down for working with whomever. The more the merrier.

Mark

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by cajunesque »

OK. Only on the second reading II-a (The farm/estate) and scratching my head over the particles and relative pronouns apparently without antecedents.

What does this mean?
καὶ ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ λέγω σοι μανθάνεις ἕκαστα : δῆλον οὖν δή πού ἐστι , διὰ τί λέγω πολλάκις ἕκαστα .
πού still referring to where the family lives? or is it "δήπού", "perhaps"?
Since everything is in the present tense, it's hard to figure out what the Greek boy is telling us.
"And you will learn each and all things, in which time I am telling you:
so it is perhaps clear, why I tell each and all things many times."
This makes no sense to me. Why so much set up about the repetition?

What's the purpose of this?
καὶ ἐν ᾧ ἐγὼ λέγω , σὺ ἀκούεις.
"And you are hearing, in which (while?) I am speaking."
Again, not sure what to make of this.

Then he talks about the hill on the farm.

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

And while I speak, you learn each thing. It should be clear, since I say each many times.

And while I speak you listen.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

You can find an example of δῆλόν που in Pl. Ti. 53c

In Greek Boy IIΑ, notice that δή πού ἐστι parallels Rouse's usage at the beginning of the paragraph: οὐκ ἄδηλόν πού ἐστί σοι ὅτι οἰκοῦμεν ἅμα...

Also, you can tell that που is enclitic because of the accentuation. δη followed by a normal word would be "δὴ," followed just by που would be "δή που," and followed also by ἐστι (another enclitic) because "δή πού ἐστι." The first sentence had an even longer string of enclitics: "ἄδηλόν πού ἐστί σοι."

If you're still interested in conversation practice, feel free to PM me.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by mwh »

Just a small correction. δῆλον οὖν δή πού ἐστι, διὰ τί λέγω πολλάκις ἕκαστα does not mean “It should be clear, since I say each many times,” as jeidsath would have it, but “So I guess it’s clear why I repeat everything over and over.” You had it right, cajunesque.

Incidentally, on the accents, two consecutive accents cannot both be acute, even though you’ll often find them printed so, as here. But the important thing, as jeidsath says, is that που (or πού if another enclitic follows) is the enclitic που, not ποῦ with circumflex “where.”
And there’s no difference between δή που as two words and δήπου as one.

Relative pronouns don’t always have antecedents. ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ is shorthand for ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ ἐν ᾧ, so in a sense it does have an antecedent. The second ἐν ᾧ cuts out the χρόνῳ as redundant but still means the same thing, “while” (as you guessed), just as ἐν δὲ τούτῳ means “Meanwhile” (back at the farm …). You should take the Greek in the order in which it comes—just as you would hear it.

So welcome to Textkit, and good luck with the conversation practice! It’s a skill I used to have in Latin before I gave it up as useless, but never in ancient Greek.

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

Now that I look, mwh is correct on διὰ τί. It is common in the New Testament. However in this context, I have the feeling that Rouse actually means διά τι, "on account of." In addition to the context, which doesn't really accept διὰ τί, Rouse glosses διά τι in his vocabulary in English rather than Greek, which he only does for early usages, so I think that he is referring to this one.
Incidentally, on the accents, two consecutive accents cannot both be acute, even though you’ll often find them printed so, as here.
Apollonius says that ἀκώλυτον τὸ ἐπάλληλον τῆς ὀξείας in the case of side by side enclitics. Chandler criticizes Kühner for the modern viewpoint.
Though this rule regarding the accentuation of a succession of enclitics is enunciated by all the native grammarians, from Apollonius downwards, several modern writers reject it as absurd...Kühner further urges that manuscripts and old editions of the Bible also depart from the ancient rule. Even if all these statements were strictly accurate, I fail to see how the practice of a scribe of the eleventh century can be evidence against the clear and express words of Apollonius and Herodian. The writer of Codex B was as far from Apollonius as we are from King Canute.
I suppose one could make a linguistic argument based on the lack of glide, but it would also argue against the accentuation of interrogative "τί" preceding a word accented on the first syllable.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by Hylander »

Now that I look, mwh is correct on διὰ τί. It is common in the New Testament. However in this context, I have the feeling that Rouse actually means διά τι, "on account of." In addition to the context, which doesn't really accept διὰ τί, Rouse glosses διά τι in his vocabulary in English rather than Greek, which he only does for early usages, so I think that he is referring to this one.
?????
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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by Timothée »

mwh wrote:Incidentally, on the accents, two consecutive accents cannot both be acute, even though you’ll often find them printed so, as here.
I can approve of this, but why, I wonder, might Apollonius Dyscolus and Herodian say that there can be consecutive acute syllables when enclitics follow one another? And why do modern editors, even West, follow this rule? Only by force of tradition? Here is mentioned as an example Iliad 5,812, which West edits

ἤ νύ σέ που δέος ἴσχει ἀκήριον. οὐ σύ γ’ ἔπειτα

West mentions this ancient duo and refers to his praefatio of Aeschylus (I don’t have it but shall be in library tomorrow). Is this somehow similar to the case of ἄλλός τις (also ἔστί τις), where ἄλ- (and ἔσ-) basically works as a properispomenon?

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Re: Rouse's First Greek Course

Post by jeidsath »

Hylander wrote:
Now that I look, mwh is correct on διὰ τί. It is common in the New Testament. However in this context, I have the feeling that Rouse actually means διά τι, "on account of." In addition to the context, which doesn't really accept διὰ τί, Rouse glosses διά τι in his vocabulary in English rather than Greek, which he only does for early usages, so I think that he is referring to this one.
?????
Looking up the various usages on Perseus, it appears that I'm wrong on this as well.

Here is Rouse's vocabulary for Greek boy.

Image

I came across this when I was first learning Greek, looking up this passage, and assumed at the time that Rouse was saying that διά τι and διότι were equivalent. That stuck with me unfortunately. Looking up the examples on Perseus now, I can't find any example of that. It's clear that Rouse actually means by the above is "διά + acc. = on account of." In the Perseus texts, "διὰ τί" always means "because of what?" and "διά τι" always means "because of something."

mwh is 100% correct about the meaning here.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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