Easy/Graded Attic Greek reader?

Greek Learning Greek
1

Can someone recommend one? One that starts somewhat easy and begins to get harder as time gets on, with a vocab list preferably. I prefer military/mythological themes rather than philosophy but would love anything that helps me build a working vocabulary.

Thank you.

2

I’ve been keeping a list of readers and similar resources here: http://spiphanies.blogspot.com/2009/05/greek-readers.html (note that some of the textbooks can also be used as readers). I haven’t used any of them except Rouse, so I can’t make specific recommendations.

3

I would suggest using any one (or more than one) of the contemporary reading-based Ancient Greek texts

Athenaze
Reading Greek
Thrasymachus
Ancient Greek Alive

as a graded reader. They all contain vocabulary lists (in Thrasymachus you have to hunt for them, but they’re there), along with more or less elaborate grammatical support, and all start out relatively easy (Athenaze introduces way too much vocabulary too early for my personal taste). Several have official or unofficial websites, audio recordings, and discussions here on Textkit that you may find helpful, so by all means do some online searches. As far as content goes, you’ll find the battle of Salamis and the Peloponesian Wars(Reading Greek), the story of Theseus and the Minotaur and of Odysseus and the Cyclops (Athenaze), and guest appearances of the Olympian gods themselves(Thrasymachus). Ancient Greek Alive is different from the others in that it contains mainly non-classical material (such as humorous stories about the Sufi wise man Nasruddin).

Among public domain materials, I would suggest one of the many books intended as an introduction to Xenophon’s account of the retreat of his band of Greek mercenaries from Persia, the Anabasis of Cyrus, beginning with White’s First Greek Book. White contains paragraph-length excerpts from Xenophon, with full vocabulary (though no translation). A next step could be directly to one of the bilingual editions of Xenophon (interlinear or on facing pages), or to something in between, such as the teaching edition of the first four chapters of the Anabasis downloadable from Textkit.

If you’d like more bibliographical information, or web links, to anything I’ve mentioned, please ask.

Lee

4

Scribo, if you have finished most of your ‘grammar’, I think the best option would be: Anne Mahoney, Morice’s Stories in Attic Greek, Focus Publishing 2005.
This book is actually a revision of stories adapted or written by Morice. According to the preface the stories are revised for ease of use, and helping the reader to get actual reading knowledge. It has a vocabulary in its back.

If you want an easy text with mainly political/military vocabulary I would also try:
Maurice W. Mather and Joseph William Hewitt, Xenophon’s Anabasis: Book 1-4, University of Oklahoma Press(paper back reprint). I think this is the best Xenophon with running line-by-line commentary and a thorough vocabulary, including etymologies and English cognates, which usually help in memorizing the vocabulary.

for a working vocabulary of circa 1500 words I would suggest:
Malcolm Campbell, Classical Greek Prose: A Basic Vocabulary by, 1998.
Because it is a bit expensive, I would suggest you obtain it from a public library.

5

This is a nice text, but be advised that Morice includes lots of very rare vocabulary that beginners won’t know, causing you to look up more words than you would in other Reader’s. The stories have not really been revised. Morice’s orgininal notes were sparse with not a lot of help, and Mahoney does not add much. The font is nice and large, though. For something easier and more progressive, I would go with Greek Boy at Home or Athenaze.

6

Maybe this one could help. It’s easy to read and delightful. Regards!

7

Since we’re talking about Morice’s stories…

I’m going to finish Athenaze II pretty soon, and I want to buy myself a little gift as a reward. From me to me!

I have been very interested in getting Morice’s stories, because it looks really entertaining and has big, good-looking text font. I have high myopia and I don’t want anything that requires a lot of eyestrain to read.

But my big concern is that, to my understanding, there are no translations in the book. I couldn’t find translations on the Internet either.

Can someone who has read the Morice book tell me if the lack of translations for the readings is a problem?

8

I myself am working throgh Athenaze (the Italian one) and now am about to begin second volume. If it’s of your help, I have recorded for my personal use some material from Athenaze and other sources which I’ve been publishing here. As for Morice’s book I can’t say anything but, anyway, congratulations for having gone so far with Athenaze!

P.S.: By the way, the Accademia Vivarium Novum has published some readers amongst which lectures are the Tabula Cebetis, the Romance of Alexander and some others in an excellent typography and illustrated with many drawings. Their web site seems to be down so far but they should fix it in a while, I guess.

9

Hi Lina,

Morice’s syntax is very easy, so I would say to the extent that not having a translation is ever not a problem, it would not be one here. Of course, many people would advise you to avoid a translation even if there was one. I myself like to have a translation of any Greek I read, even if I don’t use it much, just to check my work. “Easy” is always a relative term, but I would say that if you don’t mind looking up a lot of words, you won’t really need a translation for Morice. And yes, Mahoney’s reprint has just about the biggest Greek font I have ever seen. Bottom line, I would recommend the book. As far as I know, none of these Reader’s have translations, though some may be available on line. One that does is Greek Proverbs by D.S. Baker, which has English and Modern Greek translations. I have not seen it, but I’m told that the Greek font is fairly large. This might be a good gift to get yourself, at less than $10.00.

10

A Greek Anthology: A reader is a great book I have recommended to students. It contains several readings from Homer to the NT. Every word outside a core vocabulary is glossed in every section, and there is a lexicon in the back.

11

Thanks for all your suggestions. Maybe I’ll buy more than one book…hmm.

12

Wow Gonzalo, thanks! There are many history textbooks there written in (light) puristic Greek! Using the “downthemall” extension for Firefox, I was able to automatically download all those PDFs instead of tediously clicking on them one at a time. Now I have to categorize them. Hopefully there are histories there in Modern Greek also. If you (or anyone else) has any links to Greek educational works, especially Grammar and History books, please post them. Hopefully some university level books will show up here, but already I count myself lucky indeed to have these books, elementary though they are.

I’ve just started looking them over, but this also is interesting to me:
Ancient Greek Grammar in Puristic Greek

Maybe a Modern Greek grammar of Ancient Greek will show up on this booklist…hopefully of the University level!

13

I’ve found A Greek Reader for Schools by Freeman and Lowe to be useful for short and relatively simple readings, if dated and brief in its notes. It includes a lexicon. With that said, I’ve found the copious readings in the Italian Athenaze to be most helpful.

14

Do you know anything more about this book? Is it an Ancient Greek reader for Greeks? I’ve just started look at it and it seems extremely useful. Like the Italian Athenaze but without the marginal aides. What are the notes on individual words? Are they just synonyms? Is all of the book Attic Greek or is modern mixed in there?

15

Hi,

Aloimonon, I’m glad that you liked that one. It’s very interesting the Grammar book you provided.

Thesaure, from what I’ve read hither and thither (I don’t remember the other place) it’s a traditional reading book used in Greece. Since I’m not Greek, I cannot say properly in which extent it’s been used but it’s very useful as supplementary reading stuff for those beginners like us. Anyway, I didn’t realised those notes at the end because I didn’t print them but I have taken a look and despite my Modern Greek (with my English) has gone definitely down by my idleness I can recognize without any doubt στὰ χαμενὰ (2,1) as Modern Greek (polytonic orthography) and ὲν ἀπόρῳ εἰμί = εὑρίσκομαι εἰς στενοχωρίαν (2,3) seems or Ancient Greek or Katharevousa. Here’s what I can say from my humble knowledge. Maybe any Greek more instructed might bring light.

Regards and happy to be back,
Gonzalo

16

It seems to be a Grade 7 high school text book from long ago in '64. In those times in official contexts, puristic Greek was used instead of Modern Greek, and, the notes seem to be in puristic Greek. Since sometime in the 1970s, puristic Greek ceased to be used in many of its previous contexts (the Patriarchate is an exception, but it is of course located in Constantinople, not Greece proper). I do believe that many works of non-fiction from the 1970s and earlier are written in puristic Greek, so it’s definitely a useful skill to be able to read it. I wonder if the younger generation in Greece can read puristic Greek. I would guess so. Since Modern Greek is my third language ( :blush: ) I’d welcome any native Greek speaker to shed any light on any of my comments.

Maybe somewhere in that list of books there is a Ancient Greek reader with Modern Greek notes so you could do a comparison.

EDIT1: Actually the reader has in section 2 (page 97 in the text, 101 in Adobe Reader) texts written entirely in puristic Greek. Honestly I’m not sure what the purpose of these texts are, as they are in an Ancient Greek reader. Section 3 has notes written in puristic Greek related to the Ancient Greek text in section 1. Section 2 is highly curious to me.

17

I believe the second section is for translation into Ancient Greek. At least that what the notes suggest to me, since they give hints for case usage and give ancient equivalents to modern words.

18

Of course, makes sense. In any case, the reader is good for me considering my low beginner status. So far I’m enjoying reading it.

19

Xairete,

We have four readers we are going to read after JACT and before Xenophon and Homer. In what order do you think we should work?

20

Woah. Serious necropost!

I have this in hardcover. It’s a nice little book.