Audio for Ancient Greek

Greek Learning Greek
21

So now I have made up my mind and will formally start studying Greek soon. I appreciate all the advice and guidance everyone has contributed!

I would love to commence with Homeric Greek, I will begin with Attic though, as audio support, which is indispensable for me to learn any language, dead or living, seems to be lacking for Epic. (If Stefan Hagel will record the whole Iliad…)

As for courses with audio materials, two cross my mind: Assimil’s Le grec ancien, and Athenaze in English and Italian. I have a few further questions about the them, and I would like your help.

  1. Do you find Assimil more suitable for intermediates? I am pretty sure Athenaze is for beginners, but I have no idea about the other.

  2. Athenaze teaches Attic mainly, but the second edition of its English version has quite some other things, such as excerpts from the New Testament. It is intended to make the course more enjoyable, but will it actually hinder the acquisition of the Attic dialect? As far as I know, it is better for beginners to treat each dialect as absolutely distinct constructs and focus on a single dialect.

22

As for courses with audio materials, two cross my mind: Assimil’s Le grec ancien, and Athenaze in English and Italian.

Assimil has its strengths, but I don’t think it is worth the money ($200.00 last time I checked) when you can get lots of Athenaze audio for free.

  1. Athenaze teaches Attic mainly, but the second edition of its English version has quite some other things, such as excerpts from the New Testament. It is intended to make the course more enjoyable, but will it actually hinder the acquisition of the Attic dialect? As far as I know, it is better for beginners to treat each dialect as absolutely distinct constructs and focus on a single dialect.

I see absolutely no reason why one cannot learn to read the Greek NT at the same time as one learns to read the adapted Attic found in the various textbooks.

23

Has anyone heard/seen? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Greek-Poetry-Tragedy-Comedy/dp/B00242VUWO/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1369953331&sr=8-18&keywords=greek+tragedies

24

It’s a reissue of a recording made in 1961, published by Smithsonian Folkways.
They have audio samples on their website. Traditional pronunciation, not reconstructed/pitch accents.
http://www.folkways.si.edu/ancient-greek-poetry-tragedy-comedy-lyric-elegiac-and-iambic-poetry-read-in-greek-by-john-fc-richards/album/smithsonian

25

Hello, has anyone saw, on podium-arts, also on youtube, the Odyssey reading by Ioannis Stratakis? It sounded better pronounced than previously onown materials to my beginner’s ears.

26

I think Stratakis is superb. Very nice and very natural.

Another favorite of mine is Stefan Hagel (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/). He sings Homer while playing the lyre, and makes an educated guess about what Homer just might have sounded like.

Both are extremely well informed and are probably as close to the original sound of ancient Greek as it’s possible over 2500 years later.