Looking for a straight forward Greek textbook.

Greek Learning Greek
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After making considerable progress in my Latin, I have decided to start Greek. However, I am a bit disappointed with the pace of my textbook, Athenaze. It moves slowly introducing the morphology piecemeal. I’m not a fan of the gloss either since it distracts me from each passage and gives me little incentive to memorize certain phrases.

I read both Orberg’s Familia Romana and Roma Aeterna cover to cover with Gildersleeve and Lodge’s grammar for my initial phase of Latin with satisfying results.

Is there a good Greek textbook that doesn’t baby a learner who is already used to an inflected language?

Thanks, you beautiful people!!!

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Mastronarde “Introduction to Attic Greek”

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If you don’t need somebody to guide you through the learning, then start memorising the tables in:

Abbott & Mansfield, A Primer of Greek Grammar.

And the words from:

Baird, Greek-English Word-List.

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https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4161701;view=2up;seq=6;skin=mobile

Crosby and Schaeffer, linked above, is an old classic from the days when they expected you to have started with Latin first. There are probably some people on the boards who used it in school.

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There are probably some people on the boards who used it in school.

Me.

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And me. At the last school where I taught both Greek and Latin, i used C&S with Athenaze as a supplement. It worked very well, since all my students had already had Latin.

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I’m not really sure what you are asking for. Alas, there really is no Greek Orberg, (yet) but would you call such an animal a straight forward Greek textbook?

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C&S looks like a book that would fit me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-athenzae, but I would like to use a book that focuses on memorizing the morphology first with attendant exercises. Orberg was a great resource in getting a neophyte used to a highly inflected language plus both parts functioned as in depth readers so there was plenty of practice for all the cases/conjugations learned. Orberg wasn’t straightforward like Wheelock’s or TY Latin, but I think after getting enough experience with Latin I can survive the cold water jump into Greek grammar a little better.

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This is mostly about koine, so it doesn’t apply to classical Studies.

I agree with Marcos, it was not perfectly obvious what “a straight forward Greek textbook” would look like. The order of presentation in old traditional (koine greek) pedagogy moved in the direction:

morphology → basic clause syntax → advanced syntax → exegesis (koine greek)

In the last 50 years there’s been a lot of innovation. William LaSor Fuller seminary

… William LaSor’s Handbook of New Testament Greek, it combines reading lessons (vol. 1) with grammar, paradigms, and basic vocabulary (vol. 2). William LaSor uses the inductive method, studying directly from the text, rather than the conventional method of language study in which beginning students learn the rules of grammar and syntax and memorize vocabulary, often without reading the actual text. Instead of memorizing numerous forms that will never be encountered in actual reading, the student learns only what he or she encounters

.

Eugene V N Goetchius, Language of the New Testament was one-of-a-kind. The author was a linguist who taught New Testament an Episcopal seminary in Massachusetts. He was a colleague of Edward Hobbs who taught at Wellesley. Decades ago Hobbs told me he used copies of Goetchius’ class notes while teaching Greek to Wellesley students. Goetchius’ methodology is heavily indebted to transformational grammar (pre-Chomsky).

More recently, there’s been a lot of Greek instructors moving into second language acquisition. Markos can tell you more about that. The traditional pedagogy hasn’t died. Mounce-Wallace revival of J G Machen is showing a little fraying around the edges, with a lot of competition being published in the last two decades.

There’s nothing straightforward about learning ancient languages. If you attended public school in North America (not the UK!) the probability of ancient language study was pretty low. It was an elective in high school 60 years ago, not too many people were electing it. The idea of learning Latin structure terror in the hearts our students who are struggling with modern French or Spanish. Ancient Greek wasn’t even an option.

The classical school movement founded by Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho reintroduced classical languages into the curriculum at the primary level.

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Instead of memorizing numerous forms that will never be encountered in actual reading, the student learns only what he or she encounters

The idea that Greek verbs have three voices, three numbers, six tenses, four moods, infinitives, and declinable participles, is all clearly a vast conspiracy to sell textbooks. I’m happy that someone is finally fighting back.

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I meant that as a joke, but I honestly have trouble thinking what forms the author thinks are never encountered in reading.

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Depends on what you’re reading.
The single page four color (+ Black) verb chart copyright 1949 California Baptist Theological Seminary, has a note at the top right corner:

  • for the sake of completeness, many forms are given which did not occur in the New Testament.

Mounce published an entire hardback volume full of morphological tables with explanations. I don’t have it. Looked at it several times. Mounce’s presentation of the data was certainly a major improvement over James Hope Moluton & Wilbert Francis Howard, Accidence & Word Formation, T&T Clark,1928(?). Mounce is very good at what he does, traditional pedagogy first year greek.