Some places are very RTFM - “Read The Fucking Manual.” Other communities don’t mind you asking pretty much any question, no matter how basic it is, or how often they’ve heard it. I joined Textkit 7mos ago, then work got crazy & bills came first. Now things’ve calmed down a bit, and I can’t for the life of me remember what kind of ethos to bring to this place. I’m going over my old Greek notes from 2022 and I swear I can’t decipher anything - not what my study plan was, how far along I got, nada. (Doesn’t help that my handwriting has had people recommend me a career in medicine…)
So lemme know how best to interact with this group, and how dumb my questions can be.
Welcome to Textkit! I think you’ll find we welcome questions here. I’ve learned a lot (and still am learning) from the folks in the community here. I hope you will find it so, as well.
What have you studied in Greek so far, and what are your learning interests?
Far as I can tell, my plan in 2022 was to follow this, with some changes. As an intro, I would’ve gone though Harris’ work, and maybe used Thrasymachus as an extra graded reader before diving into the texts recommended by the guide.
So far, I’ve read a few of the Harris articles, enough to be really curious about his take on what the spoken language should sound like, and how it should be approached. Wondering what people think about it, and whether or not there are any resources that lay things out a bit more. Maybe Anki decks or something.
I think that you need to find a core thing about the study that you enjoy. For me it’s reading. Others have their own interests that keep them going through the long slog of learning. Some people like the grammar books. And some have the bent of using the language communicatively as a primary focus. I like the Harris articles, having read them years ago, and don’t think he’s a bad guide. But you have to find what you enjoy doing every day and what adds to your life.
The communicative bent is one I’d probably share, assuming we can fit reading into it! But I gotta start somewhere, and Harris + JACT seem like the way to go, for a self-learner. And it’s why I specifically chose those two resources - Harris, to my uneducated self, seems to really stress proper historical speech, and the JACT approach gets me reading the texts ASAP.
I’ll write more at length later, but here are a couple of notes.
First, thanks for sharing the Harris material. I may have read or browsed his guide to learning Latin, not sure. Have not seen the Greek articles, so am glad to find those. Homer is definitely on my want to read list in Greek. I’ve read the Illiad and Odyssey in English, in a prose version of each. I want to learn more Attic first, then will try Homer.
Joel has some great advice in what he wrote.
Yes, Anki has several decks with Ancient Greek materials, including some tied to textbooks such as Mastronarde and JACT. Here’s a link to that page in the shared decks archive : https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/ancient%20Greek,
I would recommend getting into reading Greek as soon as you can. Grammar is important, but interacting with the language itself is more valuable than leaning about it via grammar and vocabulary lists in isolation. Also, I recommend using the language as actively as possible, including adding a little spoken Greek and writing in Greek.
There is an article on my blog about ancient Greek letter writing greetings for use in electronic messaging. While pitched toward writing in Koine, the examples are mostly from Attic. In fact, there is a lot of overlap. Koine is basically Attic simplified.
Nope, I was replying to my man jeidsath. Should have specified I was especially curious about what people thought of Harris’ take on what the spoken language should sound like, and how it should be learned/practiced. And if there were already well-thought-out articles, posts, blogs, etc., and Anki decks on that specific subject. I’ll go through that Anki archive you mentioned, definitely can’t hurt!
