Hello! I’ve been learning Greek for a while (using Reading Greek) and am at a point where I’d like to start having a go at translating/studying some more unadapted texts. I’ve decided to aim for translating 10 lines of Greek a day for the whole of April - ideally from as wide a range of texts as possible.
So my question is: what classical Greek texts (or extracts) would you recommend for this exercise? Based off difficulty (i.e. possible for an intermediate-level student to translate) and literary signficance etc.
I’ve been having a go at some Medea using the Steadman commentary so also if there are other similar resources out there that’d be a great help! I’ve still got a long way to go before I can read Greek without guidance but tinkering around with bits of actual texts - even if I do end up utterly confused and have to find a translation to untangle myself - is something I love (that also has increased my knowledge/skills a lot!) and so I thought I’d set myself the challenge of doing more of it
Ads you have used “reading Greek” Have you thought about looking at “A world of heroes” which has selections from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles? There is also “The Intellectual Revolution Selections from Euripides, Thucydides and Plato.” I haven’t ever used the latter but it also includes passages from Medea. These books are continuations of “Reading Greek” and if you have learned all the vocabulary you have been given you should be well placed to tackle either or both of these.
Medea is a wonderful introduction to Greek tragedy and should be on your list of things to read in their entirety.
After six months of climbing the grammar mountain I started to translate Plato’s Ion and listening to the audiobook narrated by Ioannis Stratakis. There are some tricky passages but over all I actually found it easier than Xenophon’s Anabasis or Lysias’ On the Murder of Eratosthenes.
Plato is a good choice for your first foray into reading continual text. I was advised to start with Euthyphro, using Charles Platter’s commentary. This was a good choice as it prepared me for reading the Apology.
Hi, the other book that comes to mind is JACT’s A Greek anthology. It seems to fit exactly what you’re after (“ideally from as wide a range of texts as possible.”) It contains unadapted extracts from Homer to Plutarch, with lots of help for someone at your level.
