Learning Ancient Greek

[RationalEgoistSG]

This summer, until August 17th (I started on June 7th), I am learning ancient Greek language. The program is intensive: it is said to be the equivalent of 4-6 college-level semesters in 10 weeks.

It's been quite an interesting experience so far, but quite a lot of work! I'm at the program from 9-4 every weekday and I have about 5-6 hours of homework/studying just about every night of the week!

Anyone here have any experiences learning ancient Greek?

[danielshrugged]

I have two years of a less intensive program as part of my college curriculum. I have translated large portions of Plato's Meno and of Sophocles' Antigone. Knowledge of Ancient Greek is a valuable asset, and I plan to continue studying the language on my own.

[scottkursk]

My top value was a classics major at Baylor. She did the Greek Institute. Her recolection bounces between smiling and sighing to shivering and crying nevermore. She basically lived ancient Greek and said the only that kept her sane was playing videogames. She spent so much time and energy focusing on Greek she had to do something to take a forced mental break.Even though it's been years she still has a good grasp of Greek and Latin.

All I can say from her recolections, I can only wish you the best of logic.

What's your major?

[danielshrugged]

I thought I would share my translation of the Ode to Man chorus from Antigone. I seem to have misplaced my typed up version, so this is straight from my notes:

Wonders are many, and none is more wondrous than man.

And this advances across the gray sea by the wintry south wind,

passing under engulfing waves.

And the eldest of gods, Earth,

Imperishable, unwearying, man wears her away,

The ploughs moving to and fro year after year,

Turning her up with mules.

The race of light-minded birds he carries off,

Having thrown around them and around flocks

Of wild beasts and watery brood of the sea

Netted coils,

Very thoughtful man.

He rules over, by his contrivances, the beast that dwells in the fields

And roams the mountains, and he tames the shaggy necked

Horse, putting the yoke around its neck,

And the untiring mountain bull.

Speech and high-soaring thought

And dispositions that rule cities, he taught himself,

And how to flee the inhospitable

Frost in clear weather as well as the missiles of a storm,

All-resourceful man.

Resourceless against nothing, he walks

Towards the future: from Hades alone he will devise no escape;

But even from impossible diseases he has contrived flights.

Having a thing clever beyond expectation,

His intentive craft,

He moves at one time to evil

And at another to good.

Honoring the laws of the earth and the binding

Justice of the gods, he is the citizen of a proud city.

But cityless is he who joins with the ignoble

Thanks to his recklessness.

May he never sit beside me at the hearth,

Never think like me, he who does these things.

[msb]

Are you doing that insane program at CUNY in Manhattan?

Edited June 26, 2004 by mattbateman

[RationalEgoistSG]

Daniel,

Nice translation.

Scott,

Right now I am a philosophy major, double minor in classical studies and history. If I do well enough in this program I am in I would have 12 credits to transfer over, so I may be able to switch to a double major in philosophy and classical studies. However, right now, the program is so insane that I'm struggling.

Matt,

Yes, I'm in that insane program at CUNY in Manhattan.

[Free Capitalist]

Can you let me know exactly what that program is and where? I'm coming back to Manhattan in a week or so, and was thinking I could eavesdrop.

[AshRyan]

Hi Steve,

I've done two semesters of Ancient Greek and will start another in the fall. I'm currently doing an intensive summer program in Russian, so I sympathize with the amount of work you're having to do!

[RationalEgoistSG]

Free Capitalist,

The CUNY Graduate Center is less than a block away from the Empire State Building so security is pretty tight. You can't get past the lobby without ID.

Ash,

Thanks! My main problem is not the total amount of work but the amount of memorization that has to be done. I'm definitely not used to memorizing so much in so little time.

I think what really makes ancient Greek hard is the amount of declension and conjugation that needs to be done. In only 15 days we've covered just about all of the different verb forms. We've covered active, middle, and passive voices; present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect, and pluperfect tenses, indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, and infinitive moods; all persons and numbers; most participles; and most of the noun declensions.

Every monday we have the equivalent of a midterm from 8:30 - 12:30 followed by a 3 hour lecture from 1-4!

We have 3 more weeks of grammar, and then 4 weeks of reading. We'll be reading Euripides' Medea, parts of Plato's Ion, and I signed up for an elective course at the end of the program in reading Aristotle.

How is the intensive Russian course going?

[AshRyan]

How is the intensive Russian course going?

Good, thanks. It's not quite as intensive as yours--it's only two or three semesters worth of Russian in eight weeks, rather than the four to six semester of Greek you're doing in not much more time. We have a test about every three or four days, but just one midterm and one final. I have a test on Tuesday and a midterm on Friday.

I don't mind grammar so much. I agree that it's the memorization that is the worst part. Plus, in Russian you have to focus a lot more on listening and speaking and writing skills in addition to the reading skills you need for ancient Greek.

Anyway, good luck with your course. I hope you're having a great summer, even though it might be stressful sometimes.

[Free Capitalist]

Well, what is the program called, where is it taught, and how much does it cost?

[RationalEgoistSG]

The program is called the Latin/Greek Institute. It is officially a part of the Brooklyn College of CUNY but it is held at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan.

It costs $4,320 for non-New York State residents, something like $2,300 for New York State residents that have been living there for a minimum of 1 year.

There is no online brochure, but you can call Rita Fleischer at 1-212-817-2081 for information or to receive a brochure.

[MinorityOfOne]

So when you're done with the course, what reading level do you expect to be at? Are you basically going to be fluent in the language? (I guess one way to ask this is: what's the usual comparative reading speed in Greek/Latin for a graduate of that program as against their native language?)

[danielshrugged]

Reading speed, heh. After two years, it still takes me five minutes to translate a sentence.

[RationalEgoistSG]

Every morning for 2 hours we translate about 20 sentences in a group setting (however, individuals are called on to give translations and others are only used if the person called on is having trouble).

I'm not entirely sure what kind of reading rate their will be in terms of speed. However, I do know that with the amount of work that they give us I imagine that once we get to the reading section we will have 30-40 vocab words a night plus about 25-50 lines of Greek to translate per night.

In 15 days we have learned 45 verbs (all 6 principle parts for each) and an average of 20-30 other words per night.

I'll get a better understanding of just how well we will be able to read once we get into the reading section of the course.

That's of course, if I make it that far. Right now I'm really struggling in this program, it's so much to memorize. We started out with 38 people in the Greek program, we are now down to about 28-30. They intentionally hire an additional professor for the first 3 weeks, expecting that many people will drop out within that time. It's quite intense!

[walsh]

I've got a question for all you Greek-learners. I picked up four semesters worth of Latin for my degree, but stopped short of the four semesters of Greek necessary for the major in Classics. I am however studying oratory, and it will probably be necessary to know some Greek for On Rhetoric, if for nothing else than doing my own translations for the thesis. So the two part question: Do you find your Greek of value, and would it be possible to self-guide learning into Greek to the point where marginal Aristotle translations would be possible?

[RationalEgoistSG]

Walsh,

I'm sure that you've experienced how difficult and complex Latin can be. Greek is even more complex. There are about 350 different verb forms (as opposed to something like 180 or so with Latin?), more inflection, 6 principal parts to verbs instead of 4, etc.

Since you have learned a good deal of Latin, I am sure that conceptually you would not have that much difficulty learning Greek.

However, it is somewhat difficult for me to judge because this summer course was my first exposure to a heavily inflected language (We did more verb and noun conjugation in the first 5 days of the Greek program that I ever experienced in 4 years of learning Spanish in high school).

I'm sure that you can pick up a good deal of it on your own, but it's definitely not easy.

In terms of resources, the Greek program I am in uses Greek: An Intensive Course by Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn (Hardy Hansen is the head of the program). It's very well organized with a ton of exercises and explanations. I don't have any basis for comparison but I've heard that it's widely used for 1-year college courses.

The only major fault that I've found with the book is that there is no answer key for the exercises. However, we go over all the exercises for 2 hours every day at class so that isn't much of a problem for me. For you however, I'd imagine that it could be difficult to gauge your progress without an answer key.

Best of luck.

[walsh]

It seems as though every Greek teacher writes their own book. But thanks for the help.

[MinorityOfOne]

For what it's worth, I was thinking of taking an intro Greek class at Rutgers, and I noticed that they use the same book here. So it's not something he sells only to his own students. (And, from my limited experience with it, the Classics department at Rutgers seems to be composed of people who know what they're doing.)

[Free Capitalist]

I'm now taking a Greek 101 here at Binghamton University. We are using Athenaze (2nd edition) as our textbook, and I have to give it full credit as an excellent textbook. I also have an excellent professor, who teaches two other Greek classes this semester simultaneously...

A funny thing here is that the Director of Classics here is providing a "tuition incentive" ($650) for anyone who takes an Ancient Greek course after the 101 one. So in a nutshell, he has to pay people to take Ancient Greek. I wonder what the Enlightenment men would feel if they heard that. And so I am torn between rejecting it, out of sheer protest against the ignorance of today's world, and accepting it because it's ... money.

[streetlightmanifesto]

I'm using Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald Mastronarde and Philosophical Greek by Francis Fobes to teach myself. I really recommend Mastronarde's book for anyone who either wants to learn Greek. The Philosophical Greek book is weak in the explainations of grammatical points. I've only recently started learning Greek, and I was wondering if anyone here had any advice about learning Greek on my own. Also, I have had the hardest time finding books in Ancient Greek. I can find books with an English translation of the Greek on the facing page (Loeb Series), but I would really like to find books, particularly by Aristotle, in Greek and with a commentary at the end. Thanks.

[BurgessLau]

I'm now taking a Greek 101 here at Binghamton University.

...

A funny thing here is that the Director of Classics here is providing a "tuition incentive" ($650) for anyone who takes an Ancient Greek course after the 101 one. So in a nutshell, he has to pay people to take Ancient Greek.

...

I am torn between rejecting it, out of sheer protest against the ignorance of today's world, and accepting it because it's ... money.

How about another alternative: Make your decision based on long-term rational self-interest. In other words, how does studying ancient Greek language support your life-time goals, particularly your central purpose in life?

[BurgessLau]

...

I was wondering if anyone here had any advice about learning Greek on my own.

...

I can find books with an English translation of the Greek on the facing page (Loeb Series), but I would really like to find books, particularly by Aristotle, in Greek and with a commentary at the end. Thanks.

First, what you are attempting is extraordinarily difficult unless you are a language genius, one who easily absorbs new languages. Consider as an alternative: studying Greek through one of the "distance learning" (a.ka. independent learning) programs from one of the major universities such as the University of Wisconsin. They are set up for people who want to learn languages at their own pace. The instructors assigned to grade your exercises and exams (if any of the latter) can usually answer your questions by mail, email, or in some cases by phone.

An advantage of the independent learning programs is that they provide audiotapes to help you with pronunciation, a key to learning.

Second, perhaps I have misunderstood your question, but what's wrong with using the Loeb books for Greek text -- unless you are looking for the very latest edition of the Greek text with the latest scholarly suggestions for emendations?

You may be much more likely to find commentaries as separate, English-language texts. They are tied to the Greek (and its translations) through standard reference numbers (Bekker numbers). There are many such around. Go through your local university or other librarian, once you have a particular work -- such as Aristotle's Poetics -- in mind.

[Free Capitalist]

I'm torn about taking the money, not attending the course which I will do regardless.

[BurgessLau]

I'm torn about taking the money, not attending the course which I will do regardless.

Why are you torn about taking the money? (I assume you mean the "tuition incentive.")

How is it in your selfish interest to turn away money freely offered to you in trade for helping the school reach its academic goals of expanding the Classics program?

Do you refuse to buy groceries when they are on sale?

I don't understand your original explanation. Could you elaborate?