a few more chapters to go.

[gigas phoberos]

okay I'm about 4 chapters away from finishing Athenaze I, (now someone go make me a sammich!).
I like the Athenaze format and would like to continue with Athenaze II, but I have heard some less
than favorable comments about it. So for those of you who've been through Athenaze II, what do you think?

[jk0592]

Athenaze 2 is much more difficult than volume 1. The stories become more and more difficult to read, and there is much more stuff to remember. Somehow the stories seem artificially filled with "exotic" tenses, irregular verbs, and complex sentence constructions. Stories from Thukydides are not easy to read, and Herodotus at times even seems more difficult than the original (???). I find that my progress was much slower than for volume 1, which took more than a year. Sometimes I had to stop using Athenaze, spend much time on "Readers", and go back to Athenaze. I took two years + with Athenaze 2.

[Markos]

Athenaze II is certainly not bad, but what bothered me about it is that after all the work you put in, you wind up reading a bunch of Greek History which is boring and hard to follow because you have to figure out who is beseiging whom. I would switch to some other grammars with exercises--it does not matter which one. Actually, I would read get Christophe Rico's book Polis.

But again, Athenaze II is fine as far as it goes.

[Lina]

I am finishing my second pass through Athenaze II.

As stated by others here, it is much harder. It's almost like the authors ended Athenaze I, and went into a slight panic when they looked at what they had covered so far, and threw everything but the kitchen sink into the next book.

I have absolutely no regrets about going ahead with book II, but I did get discouraged and worried when I first started reading passages from Thucydides and Herodotus and struggled, especially since the book one readings seemed so smooth. A number of the stories were sort of odd (such as one about two sons who pulled their mother in a cart six miles to a festival) or complicated. Frankly, there were some that I only partially understood, but that got much better on my second pass through the book.

If you decide to go ahead, be sure to get the workbook along with the regular textbook. It is self-correcting, which is essential. As previously mentioned, you will need to plan that it will take longer per chapter. Even on my second pass, it took me two weeks or more weeks per chapter. Each textbook chapter will give you new vocabulary, multiple readings to go through, several grammar sections, exercises and at least one of those historical enrichment readings. The workbook will give you exercises and two readings from Cebes' tablet per chapter. At the end of the workbook, you will be presented with the additional gift of 10 supplemental grammar sections, plus exciting exercises for each.

[gigas phoberos]

thank you all for responding. Lina you mentioned going through Athenaze II twice, looking back
now would you recommend also going through Athenaze I twice?

Markos. Reading Greek history IS the reason why I want to learn Greek in the first place, so I certainly won't find it boring.

[Lina]

Hi gigas,

As far as going through Athenaze I twice. I initially purchased the Athenaze I book and started going through it, and not particularly carefully, by the way.

When I got to about chapter 8, my car was broken into, and lawless bandits robbed me of the backpack in which I kept the Athenaze book. Back at their lair, I'm sure they were disappointed to find a beginning Attic Greek book, a bunch of pens (part of my lefty collection of Energel pens) and two library books in the backpack. Doesn't everyone have a laptop in their backpack these days?

Not to be defeated in my pursuit of Greek, I reordered the Athenaze I book PLUS the corresponding workbook and started over, doing ALL the exercises and ALL workbook activities. Somehow I viewed this as sticking it to the people who stole the first book from me.

So I guess I did do a partial review pass over the first book, which was a blessing in disguise since I lacked real focus (and the workbook) the first time.

I think two passes through each book would be a good idea.

[gigas phoberos]

Lina,
Thanks, I'm glad to hear you were not discouraged from continuing with Greek. I too have a confession to make,
I have not been particularly careful either. However I now study more carefully, so I will take your advice and
go over Athenaze I again, and no doubt learn stuff I didn't the first time.


I remain your humble servant,
Gigas Phoberos