Since some people have been talking about starting a thread for those going through the Italian Athenaze, I thought I would go ahead.
I am about to begin Chapter 6. It’s slow going for me, because I’m transcribing all (Greek to Greek) of the μελετήματα (exercises) into my Flashcard program (Anki).
As I am going along, I am adding my own notes. My goal is monolingual/pictorial instruction. I use the same symbols and methods of the book and Lingua Latina to try and make the experience more inductive than it already is.
These are the resources I have been using to try and figure out the meaning without using a Greek-English Lexicon:
For Greek-Greek meanings:
Lexicon of Four Languages (Λεξικὸν Τετράγλωσσον) - Definitely the most useful for me so far.
A Greek Boy at Home Vocabulary (very useful towards beginning, less useful after around chapter 3).
Online Suda - Ancient Greek Encyclopedia - Hard to search. Very helpful if you can find what you are looking for. Needs Unicode search option.
For finding synonyms:
Edwards, An English-Greek Lexicon
Woodhouse, English-Greek Dictionary
Louw-Nida (Koine, and I use BibleWorks)
Other:
Kalos for checking my declensions/conjugations (Careful, this one has some accent errors. But there is nothing else like it out there: it can conjugate or decline practically anything.)**
Diogenes - For when I’m comparing synonyms, or I just can’t figure out what a word means. Requires Unicode Greek input, I believe.
Polis - For Grammatical Terms in Greek Can also be ordered from Amazon.ca.
ֹAthenaze American - Occasionally, when I want to figure out what something means in the immediate context of Athenze, I check the American version.
Smyth - For Grammar (when I’m doing the μελετήματα)
My biggest complaint against Italian Athenaze (hereafter ItAth) is that it doesn’t teach grammar in Greek. I believe it was someone on here who said that Grammar is important for understanding a language, but the best way is to study the Grammar in the said language. Lingua Latina did it, I believe ItAth could have as well. Since it didn’t, I’m having to use all the sources above to do it myself, so to speak.
About myself: I have a background in Classical Greek with more emphasis on Koine. After seeing the rapid progress in actual reading ability I attained using Lingua Latina, I decided to go back to try and immerse myself in Greek. So, my notes in my book and my flashcard program may contain synonyms that are not used in Athenaze, but I recognize them. So please don’t ask for my notes or my flashcard deck unless you understand that caveat.
** http://www.kalos-software.com has been marked as a malicious website for some reason, so I have provided a direct link to the download above.