I have had a little biblical Geek in the past, but now I have the three volume “Reading Greek” coming and I am very excited to dive in. However I wanted to ask this community if they have any tips or advice before i get started with this. I want to start with good habits. Thank you for your advice. 
Joshua Welbaum
The great thing about self-learning is that you can set your own pace, so there’s no pressure to finish the course within a certain time frame. Having said that, if I had to pick one piece of advice to give you, it would be to take it slow. Resist the temptation to hurry through the basics to get to the “good stuff”. Make sure you fully understand the material in one chapter before moving on to the next. Do the exercises, use the study guide to check your work and make sure to resolve any questions that arise from whatever mistakes you make and being human, you’re going to make them and we’re here to help as well. The goal here is not to learn and retain,say 90%, of the material. The goal is to achieve a sufficient understanding of the language so as to make your further reading enjoyable and efficient. If I’m preaching to the choir, I apologise in advance! From what I’ve read, Reading Greek is an excellent course, so enjoy the ride!
And welcome to Textkit!
You’ve been studying Greek for the past couple of years (after a bit of a break), Aetos? How would you describe your fluency level now?
I’m not personally sure that slow and plodding is guaranteed to pay off in language learning. In fact, I believe that it is a field of human endeavor that is especially well known for the many people who manage to put in years of serious effort without much to show for it.
Joshua,
I am pretty new to Greek myself, but I have studied a lot of languages. You don’t say anything about your background, but to the wisdom Aetos laid on you I can add that you should make sure to master the vocabulary. When you start reading real Greek the words will come pouring down, but in fact around 80% of most texts comes from the thousand or so most common words. Those are the ones you want to get first, and your textbook will probably guide you. I found a list for Anki that helped a lot.
If you are shaky on things like whether active is a voice or a mood and what a reflexive pronoun is, you could get something like the Student Handbook of Greek and English Grammar to help you with the concepts. It’s like having enough math to study science.
Last piece of advice from me: It’s true that you need to get a firm grasp on what you’re learning, not rush through. On the other hand you don’t need to feel like this is your only chance. When you start to work on texts you will probably identify holes is in your understanding of grammar, and it won’t be too late to go back and mend them.
It’s this concept of not rushing is that I’m interested in. I would think that it seems to go against the experience of immersion learners. Getting thrown in the deep end seems to do wonders there.
I’m poking back here because I’ve been both successful and a failure at languages over the years, and I’m at a point where I’m not at all sure that good scholastic study practice is rewarded in language learning nearly as much as good methodology and sustained enthusiasm.
I fully agree with that, Zembel. When it comes to Greek, I think we’re always reviewing some aspect of the language, especially when reading a new author, so yes if you don’t catch something the first time round, you’ll see it again. My personal philosophy is to try to master the basics as best I can, so as to have less holes to patch later on when I start to trying to read advanced material.
I think immersion works well with learning modern languages and then only up to a point. I think it depends a great deal on the environment. If you spend your summer learning how to get about town in another country, with no recourse to your native tongue, then you’ll probably get pretty proficient at manipulating everyday vocabulary in the new language and your learning will be augmented by constant stimulation of not only visual but aural senses. If however, you need to write a scholarly article in that language, I don’t think 3 or 6 months of immersion is going to prepare you for that. For Greek and Latin, immersion is only an option for time travellers. I know there are programs in the present day that try to provide an immersive experience, but there are just bare handful of them and they’re expensive. Most of us have to get by on audio recordings and videos.
I think sustained enthusiasm is essential to everything we do! If the methodology is good it will yield positive results and there should be measurable progress. If it is not, then it’s a tragic waste of time and effort and if the value of the methodology is unknown, then the participant is gambling with years of his time and effort for essentially the same result afforded by a systematic and comprehensive approach to learning. At the crux of the matter is the belief that ancient Greek and Latin or perhaps even Sanskrit can be learnt just like any other modern language, using the same methodology employed in learning modern languages. I’m afraid I don’t share that belief. The other belief I don’t share is that haste has any value whatsoever (unless you’re trying to get out of a burning building). Patience and attention to detail were survival skills in my line of work, and I think they are just as valuable in learning.
So, after my 47 year hiatus (my second semester of Homeric Greek was Spring of 1970), what have the past two and a half years of study yielded? Well, I’ve read all of the Iliad, and understood every line (at least as well as most people can). Could I go back and reread it without a lexicon? Probably not, but my visits to the LSJ would certainly be much less frequent. I’ve read all nine books of Herodotus’ histories. I’ve just finished Book 5 of the Odyssey. Over the next two weeks, I’ll have completed reading Xenophon’s Anabasis. While reading Herodotus, I also read and successfully did all the exercises in Cynthia Claxton’s Intermediate Classical Greek in preparation for reading Attic Greek. Would I say I’m fluent? No. But what do we really mean by fluency in an ancient language? The ability to hold an intelligent conversation with Socrates? Or to be able to read and understand fully the extant works of classical literature? I’ll take door #2.
Now it’s time to go fold the laundry.
I wasn’t going to post on this thread as it raises issues which have been fully ventilated elsewhere but Aetos I found your post inspiring. I dont want to turn this into a heated discussion. People have different opinions on what works best for them. Thats how life is. We can only speak about what worked for us.
Nothing is “guaranteed to work” but slow and patient seems a good starting point. I think the comparisons with modern languages and immersion are misleading. I wonder how many people who learn French staying “en famille” in France ever manage to read Proust if they do not undertake further academic study? I am sure that the methods of learning a modern language have a place in learning Ancient Greek but as Aetos says the possibilities for most people are limited.
I am not sure I understand the difference between “good scholastic study practice” and " good methodology and sustained enthusiasm". As Aetos says enthusiasm is important in all the study we undertake. It’s the thing that sustains us through difficult and unrewarding tasks. Good methodology is surely the underlying principle of “good scholastic study practice”?
I learned Ancient Greek from scratch using “JACT Reading Greek Course” and although I had Latin from school, with four years part time study I managed to get a first class classics degree. I am not “naturally gifted” in languages and it was hard work.
How much you can achieve depends on many factors. Some people will be able to go faster than others. To jshwelbaum I would say that going at a pace you find comfortable and sustainable is important if you want an enjoyable experience. As Geoffrey Steadman says on his website good habits are essential. Although his advice is aimed at more advanced readers the principle applies at all levels. https://geoffreysteadman.com/5-lines-per-day/
Zembel’s advice on the “Student Handbook of Greek and English Grammar” is helpful, if you feel you need that kind of support.
Finally jshwelbaum I wouldn’t worry too much about how much you are progressing compared to anyone else. There are always going to people who have studied longer or are simply more able. Dont worry about making mistakes - it really is the only way to learn. Exercises are important. They are not simply a test of what you know - they are opportunities to improve your understanding.
We mean different things. For myself, I mostly notice the lack. When I try to read aloud to my daughters, and have to go back to the beginning of a sentence because I have badly expressed a word in context (it happens to me in English too, but far more rarely). When I translate for them along the way, and don’t quite understand something well enough to English it off the top of my head. When I try to express a complicated (or even simple) idea aloud in Greek, and don’t have the words for it, or more frequently, make a mockery of form and syntax. [EDIT: And of course, most importantly, when I simply fail to understand a sentence at all, even after a few re-reads.]
Zembel (and Senca) mistake my point on immersion learning as if I were advocating that for ancient languages. I’m not (of course). And I’m not even advocating or evaluating the “immersion-like” experiences where they exist. What I am saying is that the common experience of learning a modern language from being thrown in the deep end strikes me as an argument for pressing boundaries rather than shoring up basics, as Aetos has advocated.
Good methodology is surely the underlying principle of “good scholastic study practice”?
Not at all. People can (and do) invest themselves in the textbooks for years without developing fluency. They even get degrees. (Personally I’d be more impressed by some attempts at the unseens thread than a first, Seneca.) Anyone here who has interacted with many people in the field surely knows about this unevenness. Taking notes, doing assigned work, studying, etc., is all very good, but we’re talking about a subject where a very large number of people do all that and fail to be able to read a page of Greek on sight in some author they haven’t met before.
In addition to the well-known problems of dialect and chronological change, I think that some of the issues that make classical languages especially hard are related to the practice of making students run (translate) before they can walk, the ubiquity of text-specific gloss books (the LSJ) as opposed to more general-text type dictionaries (Webster’s), the availability of almost crib-like commentaries for everything, and translation-abuse. But that is personal opinion, and should not be mistaken for data. I’ve personally relied on all of them at different times, and will again, and I can only speak from the experience of one person who still has to read every line of Plato 2-3 times before I grok it.
I’m sure everyone agrees that learning Greek is not a sprint but a long-distance hike, and if you try to rush you will run out of steam. Despite my admiration for what Aetos has achieved, I don’t think it’s necessary to have complete mastery of the material before proceeding to new material. Personally I often choose to move on thinking “I don’t totally get this, but I’m not going to worry about it for now”. Sometimes I find myself looking up the definition of a word again and again, and I refuse to let that bother me. At some point when I’m ready the meaning will begin to sink in.
For me trying to memorize a “rule” is not productive. Learning for me depends on having the mental scaffolding already for fitting a concept into my knowledge of the language. My best learning happens when I’m reading and suddenly want to know what a word is, what the form is, how it differs from something else. How can ‘ἕω’ be an accusative?
My advice would be try to spend some time on the language every day. If what you’re working on is tedious, stop. You don’t want to damage your enthusiasm. Some days you’ll race ahead, not worrying about what you don’t understand. Some days you’ll spend most of your time on a part of a sentence. When you learn Greek for enjoyment, the critical thing is to make sure you’re enjoying yourself. Don’t push the river, let it flow by itself.
Interesting discussion. What I’m doing, and what works decently well this far for me, is I’m working through an intense course textbook (H&Q) at a decently fast pace. It’s just trick psychology: for me “doing a textbook” feels like work, but simply reading a book and looking up things in LSJ and Smyth feels more like leisure. And I want to get to that point of leisure as soon as possible without treating the textbook sloppily. So in a sense I think I’m doing the opposite of Aetos: slow and steady doesn’t work for me, but fast and focused does.
I started learning Greek 8 weeks ago and I’m on Unit 8, which I think is the “summer course pace” of H&Q. I think I spend about an hour - hour and a half per day on average, but because I have a full time job that time is of course more focused during weekends. Once I’m done with the textbook, the journey starts for real and then the learning will be much more effortless, even though it will of course be hairy and messy and frustrating in a different way.
Hello Joshua. I think Reading Greek is a great textbook, and you are going to have a lot of fun with it.
I don’t know how old you are, but assuming you have reached ‘adult’ status, I would say the difference between learning a language as a kid and as an adult is that you have a functioning brain . That is, you are goal-oriented and self-motivated, you have some worldly and intellectual knowledge, and you are curious. A possible result is, as Aetos puts it, an impatience to “get to the good stuff”. If that’s the case (and it may well not be), then I would second Aetos’s advice to be patient.
The only other thing I would add to the sound advice of others is this: Focus as consciously as you can on internalizing the Greek. Don’t read the Greek simply to absorb the grammatical lesson, do the exercises, and move on. Read and re-read the Greek and try right off the bat to think in the Greek. The Greek is the point. Everything else is a disposable aide to get you there.
As part of that, I highly recommend reading the Greek out loud. To do that requires a basic ability to pronounce it. If I recall correctly, Reading Greek is going to introduce you to the alphabet, to the rules of accent, and to the basics of restored classical pronunciation (when I used it, it had some cd’s to help with that). What is the “correct” pronunciation of ancient Greek can become a thorny issue (if you have questions about that, you will find an abundance of previous discussions in Textkit, and/or post your own questions). But for now keep it simple. Adopt a pronunciation style of your choice and practice it enough to support your reading out loud. In particular, get the accents right, simply meaning accent the right syllable (don’t worry about nuances) - good habits, as you say.
This is all good stuff! Thank you to everyone who responded! I have a strong desire to add to my tiny amount of Biblical Greek that i got in college. Unfortunately i also have the desire to be able to read Aristophanes, Xenophon and so on in their original language so… here i am, 44 and trying to learn a language. Thanks for the book recommendation, “Student Handbook of Greek and English Grammar.” I was excited to find that as a resource for Greek. I do not not know about any of you but the grammar did not come easy/ at all in school so this is really helpful.
Well! There certainly is a lot to talk about! Thanks to Joel, Seneca, Mark, and Bjrn (short for Bjørn?) for their contributions.
First off, let me expand somewhat on what I mean by “take it slow”. My chief concern is not so much purposely going slowly through the material, because as Seneca2008 points out, in the end, we each find what works for us; rather, I advise going slowly enough that critical points are not missed and this is easy to do. I’d say I miss points with amazing regularity, mostly because I tend to read too quickly and knowing this about myself, I take the extra time to make however many read throughs necessary to fully understand what I’m reading, not just with Greek, but in modern languages as well; for that matter, I apply that approach to any complex learning activity. That process of reading, rereading, and revising will naturally vary in length according to the complexity of the material, the time we have available and our own abilities. In respect to available time, markcmueller makes a very good point: frequency is vital to retention of what you’ve learnt. Better 45 minutes a day for 7 days, rather than 3 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday.
By elaborating on my question about fluency, Joel (jeidsath) is leading us to a further question: is the level of fluency achievable in modern languages possible in ancient Greek? Is it even desirable? I think at some point, we have to respect the limitations of memory and here I agree with markcmueller that rote learning of rules and paradigms is not only tedious, but non-productive. Learning the application, however, of rules or observations, say those of tense formation enable us to reproduce or recognise the various principal parts of a verb. Learning personal endings allow us to reproduce the eight different forms (1,2,3 singular & plural, dual)of a verb for each mood and voice and their associated tenses. I suggest that fluency is relative and should reflect one’s personal goals. Do you want to be the next Martin L. West? Do you have a specific need for learning the language (e.g. bible study, historical research, individual areas of interest)? Do you want to pass along your hard earned knowledge and teach? Or, as in my case and I think for many of us here the goal is to read with enjoyment and efficiency. Each of these goals require a certain level of fluency. Martin L. West could never have been as prolific as he was without having achieved a high level of fluency. If you have a specific area of interest, you may not need to achieve the same level of fluency as say a philologist. A teacher or professor is going to find it difficult to hold onto his or her class if he or she is making frequent trips to the dictionary, so he needs to be able to recall more than those of us in the last category, who are reading for personal pleasure and enlightenment.
For those of us reading for fun and profit, what may be a slog to one person may be perfectly acceptable to another who is engaged in close reading(and will be making many more visits to Liddell, Scott & Jones), so there too it’s possible to distinguish levels of fluency.
As to the discussion of methodology, my understanding is that the term signifies the overall strategy developed to achieve a result by the employment of various methods; in our case, the result is the acquisition of an ancient language. As such it could include for example, the grammar-translation method, direct method, oral method, etc.. All have been tried with varying levels of success. Good scholastic study practice is just that-a practice or behaviour that requires establishing habit patterns and attitudes conducive to efficient learning. I think the point Joel is making is that the onus for successful learning lies with those who formulate the methodology and that selection of a “good” method is more effective than simply “working harder”. It’s a variation on the old saw “work smarter, not harder”. Thanks to advancements in behavioural psychology, we are constantly improving the methods by which we learn efficiently and as conscientious learners, we should avail ourselves of whatever method we determine is best for us. Having selected the tools, it’s up to us to use them and use them well. That involves discipline and good study habits. I think that also involves periodically assessing whether the tools or methods we choose are still helping us reach our goal.
Finally, in regard to lexica and commentaries, you’ll find that there are at least two camps on their relative value. I happen to reside in the camp that favours their use, primarily because the individual words have changed their meaning over time and from author to author. Having spoken modern Greek for most of my life, it’s easier for me to mistakenly take the modern meaning of a given word as appropriate in context and generally I like to confirm my guessing from context, so I perhaps spend more time than most in the LSJ. I find commentaries useful, not so much for grammatical help (although I confess I sometimes use them for that purpose), but mostly to learn background information as well as suggestions for further reading on questions that arise during my reading. At this stage in your learning, Joshua, this really isn’t an issue.
Again, welcome to Textkit, Joshua! You’re going to see a lot of discussions like this, and different points of view, presented sometimes passionately, depending on the topic. As with many questions and issues, ultimately it will be up to you to choose what seems to make the most sense to you.
Above all, have fun!
EDIT: I just saw Randy Gibbon’s post-Thank you, Randy! I agree completely with your thoughts on internalisation.
Much shorter post-
Randy’s suggestion about reading out loud is an excellent one. Another benefit to reading aloud with the pronunciation of your choice, is that it helps in remembering the spelling of the word and the placement of breathing and accent marks, which are really there to help you pronounce the word in the first place.
You mean the course by Keller and Russell? If so, make sure to get the answer keys from them. They are available for self taught learners.