Immersion style book for beginners in Ancient Greek?

Greek Learning Greek
1

When I began learning Latin, I really really enjoyed “Lingua Latin Per Se Illustrada” by Hans Orberg. The book basically uses an immersion/deductive technique to teach Latin rather than simply teaching grammatical rules, in other words it tries to teach Latin as a child would actually pick up their first language.

So instead of teaching all the technicalities of the grammatical rules, it introduces simple forms of the grammatical rules within the text gradually with very simple vocabulary and repeats those simple forms over and over again. I am not saying that this is the best way to teach Latin, and I do think it should be used in conjunction with other more traditional “grammar first” books, but for me it proved invaluable in reading Latin more naturally and increasing my reading pace.

You can see the first few pages of the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/Lingua-Latina-Familia-Romana-Latin/dp/1585102385/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301325061&sr=1-1#reader_1585102385

As you can see the book begins very simple, almost as if it is aimed at a very small child, but the difficulty picks up gradually, and by the end of the book you are almost reading genuine Latin.

I was wondering if there is anything out there that uses a similar approach for Ancient Greek, preferably Koine, but I would be willing to try one for Attic too.

2

Hi, look here: http://spiphanies.blogspot.com/2009/05/greek-readers.html
There’s nothing exactly identical to Lingua Latina that I know of, but in the first part of my post I list a number of books which make use of similar methods (some more so, some less).

3

For Koine, Lasor has an inductive textbook just as you desire. You’ll need BOTH volumes, which are available cheaply at Amazon. It’s been out of print for a long time:

http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-New-Testament-Greek-Inductive/dp/B000S6NR38

4

This Lingua Latin Per Se Illustrada looks great. Thanks for bringing it to my attention tonyloco! I took Greek and Latin in school last year, and was planning on jumping back into it. A book like that is exactly the impetus I need.

5

Where to get the Italian Athenaze in the UK though?..

6

http://www.unilibro.it/find_buy/Scheda/libreria/autore-barbone_alessandro/sku-12852236/athenaze_i_cap_i_viii_quaderno_di_esercizi_per_le_scuole_superiori_.htm

7

That’s the exercise book surely? But thank you I shall check out the site. I’m not sure if I need to get another textbook, I read quite competently. I’m just feeling lazy…

8

http://www.unilibro.it/find_buy/Scheda/libreria/autore-balme_maurice_lawall_gilbert_miraglia_luigi/sku-12899635/athenaze_1__.htm

I use Italian google a fair bit, so I thought I could help out. Not sure if this is what you need. Haven’t even followed the thread. :smiley:

9

I’ve had success with the Italian Athenaze, although it’s not as immersive as Lingua Latina. For example, it glosses words into Italian occasionally and the grammar sections are in Italian and can be fairly involved. However, if you can read any Italian, it’s worth checking out. Search the forum for “Italian Athenaze” or “Miraglia Athenaze” and you should bring up some threads where its merits have been discussed.

As for where to get it, I got the first volume through Unilibro; the second was sent to me for free from a generous forum member here!