Is it a good idea to learn Latin and Greek at the same time?

[ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin]

I was thinking of doing this but I'm not sure. Wouldn't I get everything mixed up?

[swtwentyman]

You mean to study them at the beginner's level concurrently? It's possible, but you're in for some hardcore memorization and it helps a lot to have a fairly sound knowledge of one to learn the grammar of the other (a number of the concepts that you'll learn have parallels in the other language, although there are enough differences both stark and subtle to make some of it more challenging). I'd recommend sticking with Latin until you're comfortable with it (your knowledge doesn't have to be great) and then giving Greek a try.

After a year and a half of Latin (independently) I started on Greek and I basically set it aside for a few months. I'm returning to my Latin reading today as well as starting a Greek text and it's not going to be very fun to see how rusty I am with it. Certainly if I had set Latin aside prematurely I'd have lost a lot of it.

[a reader of Homer]

I'd say it's a matter of time- do you and will you have the time to devote to both for the next few years? Learning any language requires persistence and consistency. If you have the time and the will, I respect you, otherwise, as the other poster said, start with Latin then move to Greek.

[Paul Derouda]

The usual advice is to start with Latin and move on to Greek later on. I've never understood why, although I understand that's the traditional way to do it. Start by which ever interests you more. Why do you want to learn Greek or Latin? If you want to read ancient authors, you'll notice that most interesting texts were written in Greek, not Latin. If you want to read Homer, Plato, the New Testament, Greek tragedy, Aristophanes, or Sappho, there's simply no need wasting your time with Latin. But again, it all depends on what you want.

[Paul Derouda]

I was joking, of course... As my last post suggests, I'm personally more enthusiastic about Greek than about Latin. If you really think you can commit yourself to beginning both at the same, why not. My main point was just that there's no fundamental Rule or Law telling you to start with Latin if in fact you really want to read Greek. (But for some reason, maybe because of your username, I suspect this is not the case )

[mwh]

I’m all for learning both together. Yes you do risk mix-ups, but it’s great to see what they have in common (which is basically everything) and the points where they differ. Each of them throws light on the other.

If you choose to do one before the other, then I’m with Paul, it makes more sense to start with Greek, the prior language. You can read Greek literature without Latin, but not Latin without Greek.

[ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin]

The usual advice is to start with Latin and move on to Greek later on. I've never understood why, although I understand that's the traditional way to do it. Start by which ever interests you more. Why do you want to learn Greek or Latin? If you want to read ancient authors, you'll notice that most interesting texts were written in Greek, not Latin. If you want to read Homer, Plato, the New Testament, Greek tragedy, Aristophanes, or Sappho, there's simply no need wasting your time with Latin. But again, it all depends on what you want.

I'd love to read Ancient authors in both.

[swtwentyman]

The usual advice is to start with Latin and move on to Greek later on. I've never understood why, although I understand that's the traditional way to do it.

English has a ton of Latin derivatives and few are misleading: having some familiar words can be helpful when you're getting used to the alien grammar. Also there are many Latin sayings and phrases used in English, some of which are helpful in learning ("ipso facto", for instance) while Greek is stuck with basically "hoi polloi" and, for the Cliven Bundy types, "molon labe". Add that to Latin's being very regular and the fact that it was historically the more important language in Western Europe, and you get that advice.

To me it's hard to think of a more ideal textbook introduction to the classics than Wheelock's Latin, which is very clear and well-paced and offers exercises upon exercises (most important for the autodidact) as well as a good number of supplementary readings after the lessons. All it's missing is an answer key, though there's one (not without errors) available online. I don't know if there's a comparable Greek book for the autodidact beginner but if you're planning to learn both (eventually) Wheelock's is an excellent course to start with.

No one cares but there wwas considerably less rust in reading Latin this morning than I had expected.

[Timothée]

If you are enthusiastic for it, why not. I did so in my first year at the university, and I took even Sanskrit. Not sure I would do it again, though, as it was rough (16 times 45 minutes a week in toto + homework).

Paul: Latin is still often taken first because of tradition (Graeca sunt, non leguntur). Of course nowadays one has not to be slave to this history, if one doesn't want to, and chronology is for Greek, as mwh stated. But a sad sign of this old history is that nowadays it is well nigh impossible to read Greek before university in both Finland and Sweden.

(Professor Bernhard Lewin of University of Gothenburg is said even in 1960's to have had outbursts of rage whenever it emerged that a student in his Arabic courses did not know Latin. 'Go downstairs and learn Latin and Greek before you come to study more difficult languages!' he used to say. Times have indeed changed!)

I would not think you would mix them up. Just be rigorous in your discipline. A few of my fellow students have taken Spanish and Portuguese and some even Spanish and Galego at the same time, although in my opinion they took a big risk, as those languages are so close to one another, yet have a good many differences in details.

One does get most out of everything if one takes both languages, and this is recommended within universities, but it may of course be different without. Summa summarum: do just like you feel is best for you.

[jeidsath]

1) Latin is easier. For one thing it's easier to pick up Latin by listening to Italians pronounce the Vulgate than to pick up Greek by listening to Greeks pronounce Koine.

2) Knowing Latin first, and also having learned how to learn a language, will speed your acquisition of Greek.

3) You can ignore 1 and 2, because the most important part of language learning is not the difficulty or how fast you're going. It's how much fun you're having.

Number 3 isn't one of those stupid inspirational quotes. If you are going to pick up the language, you have to maintain your enthusiasm at a high level for a period of years. That's the hardest part about it, actually, and why most people fail. If you enjoy Greek and Latin, and learning both at once increases your enjoyment, then go for it. When one becomes boring study the other. Use them as springboards for each other.

[Paul Derouda]

@swtwentyman: Well, in the end, it depends on what you want. That was my point, and my jab at Latin was just a joke. I confess I had rudiments of Latin before I started Greek (but really just rudiments), and probably that helped me a little. But although it's probably slightly easier to learn Greek after learning Latin, I think it's absurd and a huge detour to teach yourself Latin to be able to start Greek – unless you want to learn Latin for the sake of Latin, which is why I said that it depends on what you want. No one tells you to learn Spanish to be able to learn French, that would seem pointless, wouldn't it? Even if it's easier to learn French if you know Spanish. Why not also Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romanian and Romanian while we're at it? Knowing all these languages would certainly make learning French easy, but at what cost? I'm putting my point a bit strongly, but anyway...

Btw, I'm an autodidact, both for Greek and for what little Latin I have. I learnt Greek because I wanted to read Homer. My advice to the op is to do start by either or both, whichever suits want he wants. (And if he told us more about his ambitions, we might perhaps be able to advise him better...)

[swtwentyman]

Paul Derouda:

Sincere apologies if my post seemed snappish or that I took your jest too seriously -- I was just answering the question as to reasons for the tradition, and the bit about Wheelock's was a recommendation to one (such as the OP) who has ambitions to learn both. Certainly if one wants to learn Greek and just Greek it would be absurd to recommend a course in Latin, but for one who wants to learn both Wheelock's is very beginner-friendly. That's all I meant.

[ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin]

If you enjoy Greek and Latin, and learning both at once increases your enjoyment, then go for it. When one becomes boring study the other. Use them as springboards for each other.

This is actually really good advice!

[ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin]

@swtwentyman: Well, in the end, it depends on what you want. That was my point, and my jab at Latin was just a joke. I confess I had rudiments of Latin before I started Greek (but really just rudiments), and probably that helped me a little. But although it's probably slightly easier to learn Greek after learning Latin, I think it's absurd and a huge detour to teach yourself Latin to be able to start Greek – unless you want to learn Latin for the sake of Latin, which is why I said that it depends on what you want. No one tells you to learn Spanish to be able to learn French, that would seem pointless, wouldn't it? Even if it's easier to learn French if you know Spanish. Why not also Latin, Italian, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romanian and Romanian while we're at it? Knowing all these languages would certainly make learning French easy, but at what cost? I'm putting my point a bit strongly, but anyway...

Btw, I'm an autodidact, both for Greek and for what little Latin I have. I learnt Greek because I wanted to read Homer. My advice to the op is to do start by either or both, whichever suits want he wants. (And if he told us more about his ambitions, we might perhaps be able to advise him better...)

Well, my ambition is to read as much literature as I can possibly read in Ancient Greek and Latin (while loving every minute of it of course.)

[Paul Derouda]

Paul Derouda:

Sincere apologies if my post seemed snappish or that I took your jest too seriously -- I was just answering the question as to reasons for the tradition, and the bit about Wheelock's was a recommendation to one (such as the OP) who has ambitions to learn both. Certainly if one wants to learn Greek and just Greek it would be absurd to recommend a course in Latin, but for one who wants to learn both Wheelock's is very beginner-friendly. That's all I meant.

No need for apologies and I'm sorry if my post seems snappish to you. It's perfectly ok to disagree around here (politely, of course! But when you don't see the other guy's face, it's hard to tell when he's just jesting,), but I think in this case I don't think we disagree! But isn't it true that the attitude of the Arabic professor described by Timothée still exists, or at least some vestiges of it?

[swtwentyman]

Paul Derouda:

It's cool. I have a hard time (as I think most people do) telling jokes or tones of voice of people I don't know over the internet.

[cb]

hi, i think it's a good idea to try both at the same time if you're keen, as others have said. one reason is this: if you learn both G and L, it can help change your approach to memorising the grammar details of whichever one you're studying at any moment from passive recall to active recall.

here's what i mean: i remember when i first learnt the singular accusative ending in greek, right on day 1. the gist seemed, put a nu on the end, unless the letter before it was a consonant (which would make a clash of consonants that couldn't be pronounced), in which case the "fix" was to turn the nu into an alpha. drudgery, but fine.

but then i thought, how do they do it in latin? so i looked it up and saw that instead of whacking a nu on the end, they put a "m" on. but then, how did they deal with consonant clash? did they use the same fix as greek -- i.e. turning the "m" into a vowel? nope, instead they stuck an "e" before the "m", as a different "fix".

and then the broader pattern came out across both languages - form the acc sg (generally) by putting a nasal on the end (greeks prefer nu, romans "m") but when this results in a consonant clash, use a"fix" (greeks change the nasal into a vowel, romans put an extra vowel before the nasal).

this then gives you a hook on which to hang your memorisation of the many exceptions to the general pattern - i always asked myself, why does this one break the rule? and you look it up to find out its history, and this again is a type of active recall process, hammering the info into your brain.

the point of all this is not to find patterns across the languages - you can go to a book like sihler (a comparative grammar) that lists the real ones as well as the false ones. what i mean is that the actual process of comparing greek details that you've just learnt against latin, or vice versa, is a type of active recall which you wouldn't necesarily get if you just worked on one language and memorised passively.

of course, you can do active recall just studying one language in lots of other ways -- things like anki flashcards are great for this -- but this is one side benefit of learning both languages at the same time.

cheers, chad

[jeidsath]

Corpus Inscriptionurn Latinarum 6.33929:

Dalmatio filio dulcissimo totius ingeniositatis ac sapientiae puero quem plenis septem annis perfrui patri infelici non licuit qui studens litteras Graecas non monstratas sibi Latinas adripuit et in triduo ereptus est rebus humanis III Id(us) Fe(b)r(uarias) natus VIII Kal(endas) Apr(iles) Dalmatius pater fec(it).

[brainout]

I had learned Latin first in high school, four years of it. A year after graduation, I found my 'right pastor' who taught Bible in Hebrew and Greek. It was MUCH easier to understand his exegesis re case endings and syntax as a result of having the Latin first, especially since he was old-school (meaning, they converted Latin case meanings into Greek for convenience, since the latter has fewer cases).

It was easier still to learn Hebrew, due to the Latin first. You'd think it wouldn't be, but the 'things to look for' in sentence construction were so similar, learning Hebrew was easy.

If I learned both at the same time I'd go nuts. I learned Spanish and French nearly at the same time and confuse them every time I try to speak in one or the other.

YMMV.