🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <58nfl2$lqd@epx.cis.umn.edu> miga0003@maroon.tc.umn.edu
(Larisa Migachyov) writes:

>I've been trying to learn ancient Greek on my own for a long time, and have
>been having less success than I hoped for.  I was just wondering, is it
>possible to learn Greek at my age (21) and attain a reasonable level of
>accomplishment?  I know that those who learn the classical languages in
>childhood learn them well, but what about adult learners?  Are there any
>people here that have learned Greek at an adult age and know it well?

Well, I started my first Greek class in 1975, just before my 24th birthday.
Since I'm an Indo-Europeanist, my Greek has to be pretty good in order to do my
research.  I'm a little rusty with long pieces, but I'd be comfortable reading
Xenophon, Homer, Herodotos, Aristophanes, or Euripides with a Little Liddell at
hand.

I did a reading class in Herodotos at the Berkeley Extension to refresh those
habits after being away for almost 15 years; it came right back.  There was a
gentleman in the class who had first learned Greek in the earlier Homer-based
intro courses the previous year; he was in his mid-80's when we met.

Don't let age stop you.

>I'm just a bit discouraged, perhaps, since the other languages I know have
>been so easy to learn (French, English, Latin, Italian).  Can someone advise
>me as to which textbook is best (I'm using JACT's "Reading Greek"), and what
>strategies I should use to learn Greek on my own?

I've looked at the JACT text from time to time, but don't have a real opinion
to offer.  I happen to like _Athenadze_ (Lawall & Balme), which uses an on-
going story taken from Aristophanes (and in the last few chapters, simply takes
its text from _The Acharnians_).

What I *really* recommend is that you use both an intro reader like JACT or
_Athenadze_ *and* a good grammar textbook like Hansen & Quinn.  Because the
lessons in H&Q are complete expostions of concepts (like the aorist, or the
dative), it makes a pretty good reference without being as dense as a real
reference grammar like Smyth or Goodwin (or Goodwin & Gulick).

And ask questions on humanities.classics, to which I'm forwarding this message.
If you can't find that newsgroup on your news server, ask your news provider to
start carrying it.  Lots of folks there like to help out.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_