Hello again everyone! I have just one more (and probably last) small question. Recently I had the unexpected pleasure of coming across a textbook, “Lingua Latina”, by Hans Orberg, which uses the “natural method” of learning languages. Does anyone know of anything like this for Greek? While I am biased towards learning the Homeric dialect first for a myriad of reasons, if I could find anything on the Greek language equivalent to Lingua Latina it would be a godsend! Thank you all, again 
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If you know a little bit of Italian, this is whither to go
Hi, there have been a couple of threads on this topic – if you do a search in the “Learning greek” forum they should show up.
The consensus is that there isn’t much besides the Italian Athenaze. There are a few others that approximate the intuitive approach (“Thrasymachus” comes to mind), but these are generally traditionally courses just with larger reading sections.
The only problem with doing a search on this topic is that the searches are useless. The searches do not go back before the hack. The Italian Athenaze cannot be purchased in the States. It is an Italian book. This is the only website I can find where internationals can purchase the book. So, in the interest of producing a link post-hack…
http://www.unilibro.com/find_buy/product.asp?sku=12899635&idaff=0
Good Luck. I had to have a friend order it. It is Italian mail, so if it arrives by July I should be thankful.
For what it’s worth, I successfully ordered the second volume from this website (to the US), without incident. But the trans-Atlantic shipping fees and the Euro conversion rate… aye, there’s the rub!
Thesaurus,
Is the Italian Second Volume different than the English one? I assumed they were the same. I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that the 2nd volume of Athenaze was simply real Greek, and therefore there was no difference betweent he US and Italian. If I remember, the second volume was listed with the same editor as the English one (Balme I believe).
I just bought the Italian volumes 1&2 through abebooks. Shipping for two wasn’t much more than for one, so I got them both. It was fast, though - shipped 2/9, arrived 2/11 (definitely worth priority shipping costs). Expensive, but both volumes + shipping was still less than I paid for any one college text, so it’s all relative.
There is a difference - there seems to be a fair bit of Greek readings added to the Italian edition. While real Greek readings start pretty early, each chapter (except for a few of the last chapters) still includes several pages of Greek text written by Miraglia.
Have you guys seen this page?
Here is the Google-Translate version.
And if anyone cares, I got to the Wiki from this site:
Thank you both for the links. I like the Abebooks option better than the unolibro. I wish I had found them before. I ordered my book three weeks ago and still do not have it. KramerKram, those Greek exercises look helpful.
So a beginner just opens these books and is magically able to read them without first using the “unnatural method”?
My experience is that it takes a little bit of both methods. As far as what is natural and not, it depends on how much you can stretch. 
No. Learning a language requires hard work however you do it. What the natural method does is facilitate this process by introducing words and grammatical concepts within a meaningful context instead of in isolation.
I did post this elsewhere on this site…but but got no response…it was and old thread…
Has anyone seen this. It appears to be a sort of Greek orberg. See especially the review in English.. http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/2204087572/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=A1X6FK5RDHNB96&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0MWJSCGY1DEQ6G4HPZTN&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463375513&pf_rd_i=405320?
Yes I bought Christophe Rico’s Polis when it first came out last year, which was AFTER the last post on this thread. Rico fills a desperate need for a book and audio that teaches you Ancient Greek the way you would learn High School Spanish. He goes far beyond Athenaze in providing you with wonderful dialogues that are more “real” than any Ancient Greek I have every heard, plus a text with pictures, useful conversational phrases and lots of active writing exercises. The best $70.00 you can spend to improve your Ancient Greek.
I have read a comment that it is not ideal for absolute beginners. However I was toying with the idea of taking the Dowling-Orberg (though Orberg didn’t approve of Dowling’s half of the method Dowling definitely recommends Orberg’s.) of memorizing the paradigms - writing them out 200 times each which would take about 2 years I reckon - and then going to a Direct Reader - like Polis.
I am using the Dowling-Orberg approach to Latin and, with virtually no previous Latin education (2 years in 1974-5 at the beginning of senior school) I have got to Chapter 9 in 7 weeks with absolute ease. Though I know it will get more difficult. I reckon Dowling’s half of the method is like the solid rocket booster that gets the Space Shuttle almost into orbit.
Do you reckon it would be OK as a first book and if not on its own then as a follow on from memorizing Greek paradigms?
Regards
As you know, Rico’s book Polis is in French, so if you don’t know French I don’t think it would work for an absolute beginner. Even if you know French, there is always a quesion of how well a deductive, whole-language approach would work for an absolute beginner verus supplementing this with a more inductive, systematic appoach which covers the grammar and paradigms more analytically. On the other hand, people like Buth and Rico believe that a pure beginner WILL learn the language more quickly if they get used to HEARING it and USING it right from the beginning, and get trained in figuring things out the way we do when learning a modern language.
For me, Greek is so hard that I cannot imagine any one, a beginner or any one else, not using several methods.
I still would recommend Rico to anyone, and you do not sound to me like an absolute beginner. Rico does intend to come out with an English translation, but I would not wait that long.
Does anyone here have access to both Polis and the Italian Athenaze, enough to be able to make an educated comparison between the two methods? From what I’m reading, Polis seems strinkingly similar to Assimil’s Le Grec ancien as well. This has my definite curiosity, but I’d be very grateful for a bit more of information before I spend 50 euros on a book.
I haven’t seen or used the Italian Athenaze, but there’s a sample chapter of the Polis course on the website: http://poliskoine.com/site/?page_id=17
A sample page of the Assimil course is here: http://polyglotte.org/blog/2008/04/apprendre-le-grec-ancien-comme-une-langue-vivante/
Edit: it seems there is a preview of the Italian Athenaze at http://www.vivariumnovum.it/edizioni/index.php/Greco.html (click on the individual titles of the books and then the link: “Per sfogliare qualche pagina del libro”)
Since I’m travelling to Italy in a few days, I’d like to know where to get the italian Athenaze. I don’t suppose regular bookshops have it and it also doesn’t seem to have an isbn, so it might be a little difficult to order it.
So I’m asking you: Where do I get it?