Dear Members,
My ten yr old son wants to learn Greek–I went thru all the major dialects with him this morning on the Where to Start section–we settled on Epic as a good place to start. He’s a huge fan of Homer. We will learn it together. Will Pharr’s book be the one we want to begin with? In addition does anyone have any tips, suggestions &c on how to start learning Greek with a young learner?
Thank you,
Roger in San Francisco
With a 10-year-old, I would–
Strike that. With anyone, I would run far away from any grammar-intensive methods. Use the C.S. Lewis method: http://notebookerie.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/c-s-lewis-on-learning-foreign-languages/
Also, if you’re near my office (close to the Powell BART), feel free to message me about study sessions.
Take my reply with a pinch of salt, because I have absolutely no real experience of teaching languages to children…
I agree with the above. You will probably need some book, and I don’t think there’s any other really worth considering except Pharr. But for a ten year old, I would use it more like a “teacher’s manual” rather than a textbook. I don’t think there are textbooks of Homeric Greek that are really suitable for 10-year-olds. What is good about Pharr is that you get to read real Homer very soon. The book actually guides you through the whole book 1 of the Iliad.
I think a 10-year-old is much more capable of learning a language intuitively, just by reading the target language, than an adult. At the same time, a 10-year-old is much less capable of understanding abstract grammatical concepts, let alone developing an interest for them. I was about that age when I started English at school, but school had very little to do with me learning English. Like many other kids I knew, I spent my time with computer games (which were more text-intensive in those days than they are now, I suppose – I don’t play any more…), and very soon we were years ahead of our school curriculum. We didn’t use text books or grammar books, we just played. Sometimes we looked something up in the dictionary or asked mum or dad about a word, but most of the time we didn’t even bother. Computer games were cool and that’s what mattered. If your son thinks Homer is cool, that’s a good start!
The non-profit I have recently founded (Detroit Greek and Latin) specializes in developing methods for teaching elementary age students Greek through Homer. Here is what I wrote to a parent who enquired a few months back:
Only a few of our teaching materials are online as of now; but I would be very pleased to work with you in an ongoing manner to help you expose your children to classical Greek, since this would very much aid me in building up my online offerings and developing my pedagogic methods. The first thing I need to know is HOW OLD are your children?
No matter what their ages the best way to get them interested in the language is to deliver to them a delight in the subject matter itself. This is best done by exposing them to children’s books on Greek themes. I attach a list.
http://www.detroitgreekandlatin.com/resources/Greek%20Myth%20for%20KIDS.pdf
To introduce the aspect of Greek Language into this English based exposure, the first thing required is that YOU YOURSELF become comfortable with the pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This may sound daunting but it is actually quite easy. A late scholar who specialized in the “restored pronunciation” has left to the world a marvelous web site:
http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Greek.htm
What you want to focus upon are the twenty practice words at the end of his articulation of the SOUNDS of Ancient Greek. Key is that these be pronounced with diligent awareness of the notion of PITCH (as opposed to stress) which is the essential feature of Ancient Greek. Likewise, you will want to grow into the awareness, native to Greek, of the alternation and difference between long and short syllables: the key features determining the character of Homer’s dactylic hexameter. Once you have acquired a sense of these - and we can easily meet online (Google Hangouts) for me to give you an hour or so of coaching -you will be ready to delight your children with the pronunciation of the Epithet + Name combinations that provide the basis of the sing-song of Homeric chant: “swift-footed Achilles”, “grey-eyed Athena”, “far-shooting Apollo”.
In early November I will be beginning a second iteration of our Elementary Homeric Greek course on Google Hangouts. It is scheduled to be offered at 7pm EST. We will meet twice a week for approximately 90 minutes. If the course is not full with persons signed up for the whole run of 12 weeks, I would gladly welcome your attendance for, say, the first two weeks. This would give you enough sense of Ancient Greek to introduce your children, if they are very young, to Ancient Greek with confidence. Alternatively, you and I could meet online privately.
The documents I have attached are self-explanatory. The audio piece is a 6 second long recording of an 9 year old girl reciting the first half-line of the Odyssey. In Greek the DGL Way see especially “On teaching the pitch accents to children.”
Be well. I look forward to hearing from you.
WMRIII