One thing that I did not mention in the video is that Perseus also has English translations of Greek texts available for free on their website. They are older translations, but they are still very useful. You can find Perseus’ collection of Greek and Roman texts here, both in the original language and, where a translation is available, in English also: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection%3Fcollection%3DPerseus:collection:Greco-Roman A second thing that I should have mentioned is that the Loeb Classical Library is now available online - if you have access via your institution, then it is free, but if you do not have institutional access, then an annual subscription is required. Here is the link: www.loebclassics.com/ One last thing that I should have mentioned is that JACT’s _Reading Greek_ does culminate with Homer, and it does cover key features of Homeric Greek. However, I should have noted in the “Homer resources” section that the classic grammar of Homeric Greek is D. B. Monro’s _A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect_ - this is published by Bristol Classical Press as _Homeric Grammar_ and you can also find it online for free here: dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/monro/editors-note All the best!
As a freshmen student whos starting their Classics degree in 10 days, this video helped me more than you can imagine. Im also following your ancient greek course too and overall your videos are helping me a lot and making me less nervous about my degree. Thank you!!
This is great, I've just started actively studying ancient Greek about a month ago and I've found your channel so useful to accompany the book I already have.(From alpha to omega) But I've been looking for other books to pick up aswell so this is perfectly timed. I appreciate the work you're putting into your main course as well.
Excellent video! Orthodox priest and Bible scholar Fr. Stephen De Young highly recommends the full-size Liddell-Scott lexicon (the "Great Scott"). According to him, if you have that one, you'll never need another lexicon.
At my Alma mater St. John’s college Santa Fe we used luschnig which is very introductory and highly accessible. The college also comes highly recommended for those interested in the western canon
I like your videos, comprehensive and thorough. And also late congratulations on graduating from this great university with a classics degree, it must have been difficult.
This is a very useful and friendly introduction, thank you! Some part of the New Testament are very easy to read and approachable at an earlier point in one's learning such as 1John and John's gospel (I think Revelation also and the texts generally recognised as Pauline, Acts and Luke being seen as harder). Also one should mention the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Tetament and also texts of the Apocrypha) which is a very helpful resource if interested in the New Testament. I am focusing on reading the New Testament and parts of the Septuagint first and might read more specialist works thereafter. Thank you for the breadth of your suggestions and clear and logical presentation.
You're welcome; thank you for your comment :) I agree about the New Testament being accessible; the parts of it that I have read in Greek have been written in the nicest (i.e., easiest, clearest) Greek that I have ever read. It is a joy to read and I wish you luck with learning Greek in order to read it and the Septuagint. Thanks again for your comment. All the best! :)
The book that I am using to study Attic Greek is Reading Greek, but last week, I found something on the internet that is similar to Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, but for Ancient Greek. The name of the book is Logos. Lingua Graeca per se illustrata. It seems pretty interesting and easy in the first chapters if you already have some grammar knowledge. I think that Reading Greek is really good, but I can't say much about it because I use the Portuguese edition
That book is fine, but consult new chapter's vocabulary with a dictionary. Some of it is (not in just my opinion) introduced ambiguously, some word choices are odd/rare enough to stumble classics professors (The Patrologist/Seumas Macdonald has a detailed review), and there's just too much of it in certain chapters. LLPSI also has those 'vocab dump' lessons (e.g. cap XVI, the notorious deponent verbs chapter, is 150 lines of text introducing 66 new words), but they're practically the norm in Logos.
Thanks for doing this, it is very useful. There are also Reader's editions of the GNT which gloss the less common words and list the basic vocab as an appendix. I hope you are having a good career as a Classics Master somewhere.
A few of us have an on-going Greek book club in Berkeley on Friday mornings, if you would like to incorporate that into your curriculum We’re currently in Book 14 of the Iliad.
@@m.meaden-pratt7883 That’s good to hear! Thanks for the suggestion. I intend to start covering how to translate basic stories and eventually original Greek texts in my lessons, but only once I have taught a sufficient amount of grammar :) So stay tuned!
Thank you for posting this! I'm really enjoying your course online, and I'm excited to have some more exercises to do between your lessons. How do you use your knowledge of Greek? what sort of research are you doing?
@@dustindavis55 You’re welcome! Thanks again for supporting the channel. I’m glad to hear that you find the videos useful! I am actually about to commence my PhD in Classics at Cambridge, and I currently intend for my research to focus on a particular passage of Plato’s _Phaedo_ in light of Plato’s other dialogues and other Greek texts. Plato is my specialism, which you may have been able to guess from some of the lessons :)
@@LearnAncientGreek That's wonderful! maybe after a few years of practice I'll be able to read Plato myself and have a better understanding of your scholarship. :)
I learned Greek on my own from Clyde Pharr's "Homeric Greek," which takes you quickly into Book I of the Iliad, supplemented with Cunliffe's "A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect." After finishing Pharr, I went straight on to M.M. Willcock's edition of the Iliad (which has useful linguistic and cultural notes), and a similar edition of the Odyssey. Pharr is great - I had tried starting with Attic Greek using the JACT books, but found them nowhere near as interesting as just going for Homer with Pharr. Once I'd been through Homer, the transition to Aeschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plato was not much trouble, but even if I'd only ever read Homer and never messed with other forms of Greek it would have been worth the effort.
I am doing the same thing right now. I am on about line 50 of the Iliad, currently. I would love to hear more about your experience. At what point did it start to get easier/faster to read Homer?
@@ryanwhite6381 For me it took going through Book I of the Iliad with Pharr a couple of times before it felt less like a struggle. It's certainly not easy. But by the time I'd gotten maybe to Book 6 I'd started to accelerate a bit. There's something in the preface to Cunliffe's lexicon about how great it is to be able to read Homer as fluently as Milton - even after many years, it never felt quite that easy, but Homer is so great that it was still worth it. Maybe starting with one of these newer oral methods would get you to the goal faster, I don't know, but even just struggling through and gradually working up speed is a lot of fun.
Sorry, but this is gonna be long. Listened to robin lane fox talk about the illiad. Got his book and watch some interviews. He said instead of getting a translation, take 2 years and learn homeeic Greek. At almost 70 I decided to try it. I have just started working on the alphabet. I just found your course and plan to follow it. Thank you. Before I found you: "A complete video course in ancient greek based on pharr's homeric Greek " by walter Melvin roberts iii phd. 80+videos, but he passed away and the pronunciation and other videos by "kostas" are gone. Homeric greek, a book for beginners by clyde pharr Greek grammer from harvard press. Herbert weir smyth Homer vocabularies - william bishop owen Writing the greek alphabet - carleton college classics There is also beautiful writing by "japanese calligrapher takumi" how to write greek alphabet. Hoping my old brain can process everything it needs
@@Peter-oh3hc Thank you for sharing that. I wish you the best of luck with the Greek and encourage you to keep up the good work! If you have any questions whilst following the course that I am making here, then post them in the comments, and I shall see what I can do to help :) All the best!
Thanks for your recommendations, very helpful! Smyth is a superb Grammar, but I would perhaps add W.W. Goodwin "Greek Grammar", J.D. Denniston "The Greek Particles", Adrian Hundhausen "The Pharos", A Thematic Guide to Ancient Greek Vocabulary and Set Phrases". Tyndale House "The New Greek/English Interlinear New Testament".
Dear sir, I am rather intrigued by your recommendation of the Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek and the A Primer of Greek Grammar. As one having almost completed the JACT textbooks, may I ask what exactly is present in the volumes you mention not already contained within the Reading Greek grammar/reference sections that would make of these a worthy purchase?
@@Allyouneedisablender I’m afraid that I cannot comment on it, as I had not heard of it before now. Thanks for making me aware of its existence! Having taken a look at their website, it seems that their courses are quite pricey, and so all I can currently advise is to be certain that you want to learn Greek with them before you commit to one of their courses, and to be certain that you wish to learn Greek in general, of course. You can determine if Greek is for you by beginning to learn it with textbooks like those of JACT’s _Reading Greek_, or even with a single textbook like John Taylor’s _Greek to GCSE Part 1_. If you then decide Greek is not for you, then at least you won’t have spent $850 to learn that fact! :) All the best!
Even tho I do not Study ancient greek nor do i realisticly will be studing it I still found your Video to be enjoyable. Just as the other Videos on Ancient Greek. I will not learn that language because i have very limmited time but watching your Videos gives me some kind of Piece and I am very fond of that. Keep up the good work. Even if the amount of people that will try to learn ancient greek is growing thin i suggest that u keep on persuing your goal as to show more people this fine language. Its amazing have a nice day
What should I read to understand if I want to commit learning ancient Greek? Im mainly interested in philosophy so not sure should i study it for primary source...
@@adam_n_eva Thank you for mentioning that! I have heard of Athenaze but I have never used it, so I decided not to mention it in the video. I do say at the end of the “coursebooks” section that I know that there are other Greek courses out there, and I encourage viewers to share their opinions of these courses, so thank you very much for doing so with regard to Athenaze :) I am really glad that you have found it useful in combination with my lessons, and I may check it out in the future!
To your knowledge (I'm sorry if I missed you saying this in the video) are there any good resources on learning how to properly pronounce Ancient Greek words? Most of what I see is the modernized pronunciation and reading, and Vox Graeca is a little too complex for me. Also thank you for including specific Homeric resources!
@@UserName-oh3ke I didn’t know Windows had their own Polytonic Greek keyboard - thanks for mentioning that and sharing your experience with it! A Keyman Greek keyboard was recommended to us at Cambridge. I wonder if the Windows one has digamma etc.? I know that most of us don’t need to type such letters often, but if the Windows keyboard cannot do this, then this may highlight a perk of a Greek keyboard on Keyman! :)
I am very surprised that you did not have to learn accentuation for your degree. I got my B.A. in ancient greek in 2001 from a state university (USA) and accentuation rules were highly stressed and one had to know them, especially for the required greek composition. I am not being derogatory or speaking in the pejorative whatsoever. I guess that i always thought of Cambridge as being far superior to some state college. I did enjoy the video anyway.
One frustrating (for me) part of JACT is the declension order. Using other texts, dictionaries, lexicons and glossaries I got in the habit of learning and chanting Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc. JACTs Nom, Acc throws me off. I also found knowing the genitive when the word is learned valuable for predicting the overall declension. I have enrolled in an online introductory Oxford Ancient Greek course starting this fall so will I will get experience with JACT. BTW if anyone has taken this course and has any insight I would appreciate the feedback.
The pronunciation is debated. Some people say "low-ebb", some say "lerb" (as I do, which is apparently closer to the German word), and others pronounce it "lobe" (as in "earlobe"). See the different suggestions in this thread for example: www.reddit.com/r/classics/comments/1d4rty4/how_do_you_pronounce_loeb/
One thing that I did not mention in the video is that Perseus also has English translations of Greek texts available for free on their website. They are older translations, but they are still very useful. You can find Perseus’ collection of Greek and Roman texts here, both in the original language and, where a translation is available, in English also: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection%3Fcollection%3DPerseus:collection:Greco-Roman
A second thing that I should have mentioned is that the Loeb Classical Library is now available online - if you have access via your institution, then it is free, but if you do not have institutional access, then an annual subscription is required. Here is the link: www.loebclassics.com/
One last thing that I should have mentioned is that JACT’s _Reading Greek_ does culminate with Homer, and it does cover key features of Homeric Greek. However, I should have noted in the “Homer resources” section that the classic grammar of Homeric Greek is D. B. Monro’s _A Grammar of the Homeric Dialect_ - this is published by Bristol Classical Press as _Homeric Grammar_ and you can also find it online for free here: dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/monro/editors-note
All the best!
As a freshmen student whos starting their Classics degree in 10 days, this video helped me more than you can imagine. Im also following your ancient greek course too and overall your videos are helping me a lot and making me less nervous about my degree. Thank you!!
That’s great to hear! Thank you for your comment and you’re welcome! :) Keep up the good work!
Hey how's your degree going? I'm graduating from my classics degree in a few months, best of luck to you!
This is great, I've just started actively studying ancient Greek about a month ago and I've found your channel so useful to accompany the book I already have.(From alpha to omega) But I've been looking for other books to pick up aswell so this is perfectly timed. I appreciate the work you're putting into your main course as well.
@@Red-in1xe Thank you very much for your comment, and keep up the good work with the Greek! :)
Excellent video! Orthodox priest and Bible scholar Fr. Stephen De Young highly recommends the full-size Liddell-Scott lexicon (the "Great Scott"). According to him, if you have that one, you'll never need another lexicon.
When my Dad and I met Emily Wilson after a book talk , we asked her textbook recommendations and Reading Greek is what she said
Informative. Thank you so much. It's a huge help.
At my Alma mater St. John’s college Santa Fe we used luschnig which is very introductory and highly accessible. The college also comes highly recommended for those interested in the western canon
Very useful, thank you! Will check out your other videos.
@@dqan7372 You’re welcome! I hope you find them useful :) Thanks for your comment!
I like your videos, comprehensive and thorough. And also late congratulations on graduating from this great university with a classics degree, it must have been difficult.
This is a very useful and friendly introduction, thank you!
Some part of the New Testament are very easy to read and approachable at an earlier point in one's learning such as 1John and John's gospel (I think Revelation also and the texts generally recognised as Pauline, Acts and Luke being seen as harder).
Also one should mention the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Tetament and also texts of the Apocrypha) which is a very helpful resource if interested in the New Testament.
I am focusing on reading the New Testament and parts of the Septuagint first and might read more specialist works thereafter.
Thank you for the breadth of your suggestions and clear and logical presentation.
You're welcome; thank you for your comment :) I agree about the New Testament being accessible; the parts of it that I have read in Greek have been written in the nicest (i.e., easiest, clearest) Greek that I have ever read. It is a joy to read and I wish you luck with learning Greek in order to read it and the Septuagint. Thanks again for your comment. All the best! :)
Thank you so much!! ☺️☺️☺️
@@Ana11037-m You’re welcome! :)
you are the best, thanks a lot
@@Natureisinorder Thanks for that and you’re welcome! :)
¡Very helpful! Greetings from Bolivia. 👋
@@WahtYouLookingFor That’s good to hear :) Greetings from England!
Great video! 😊❤🎉
The book that I am using to study Attic Greek is Reading Greek, but last week, I found something on the internet that is similar to Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, but for Ancient Greek. The name of the book is Logos. Lingua Graeca per se illustrata. It seems pretty interesting and easy in the first chapters if you already have some grammar knowledge.
I think that Reading Greek is really good, but I can't say much about it because I use the Portuguese edition
That book is fine, but consult new chapter's vocabulary with a dictionary. Some of it is (not in just my opinion) introduced ambiguously, some word choices are odd/rare enough to stumble classics professors (The Patrologist/Seumas Macdonald has a detailed review), and there's just too much of it in certain chapters. LLPSI also has those 'vocab dump' lessons (e.g. cap XVI, the notorious deponent verbs chapter, is 150 lines of text introducing 66 new words), but they're practically the norm in Logos.
@@JanusAlmight Thank you for sharing that! :)
@@dylutant Thank you for sharing that too :)
Thanks for doing this, it is very useful. There are also Reader's editions of the GNT which gloss the less common words and list the basic vocab as an appendix. I hope you are having a good career as a Classics Master somewhere.
A few of us have an on-going Greek book club in Berkeley on Friday mornings, if you would like to incorporate that into your curriculum
We’re currently in Book 14 of the Iliad.
Such a useful session. If you could create a session on how a beginner would start to translate a basic Ancient Greek text that would be very helpful.
@@m.meaden-pratt7883 That’s good to hear! Thanks for the suggestion. I intend to start covering how to translate basic stories and eventually original Greek texts in my lessons, but only once I have taught a sufficient amount of grammar :) So stay tuned!
Thank you for posting this! I'm really enjoying your course online, and I'm excited to have some more exercises to do between your lessons.
How do you use your knowledge of Greek? what sort of research are you doing?
@@dustindavis55 You’re welcome! Thanks again for supporting the channel. I’m glad to hear that you find the videos useful! I am actually about to commence my PhD in Classics at Cambridge, and I currently intend for my research to focus on a particular passage of Plato’s _Phaedo_ in light of Plato’s other dialogues and other Greek texts. Plato is my specialism, which you may have been able to guess from some of the lessons :)
@@LearnAncientGreek That's wonderful! maybe after a few years of practice I'll be able to read Plato myself and have a better understanding of your scholarship. :)
I learned Greek on my own from Clyde Pharr's "Homeric Greek," which takes you quickly into Book I of the Iliad, supplemented with Cunliffe's "A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect." After finishing Pharr, I went straight on to M.M. Willcock's edition of the Iliad (which has useful linguistic and cultural notes), and a similar edition of the Odyssey. Pharr is great - I had tried starting with Attic Greek using the JACT books, but found them nowhere near as interesting as just going for Homer with Pharr. Once I'd been through Homer, the transition to Aeschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plato was not much trouble, but even if I'd only ever read Homer and never messed with other forms of Greek it would have been worth the effort.
I am doing the same thing right now. I am on about line 50 of the Iliad, currently. I would love to hear more about your experience. At what point did it start to get easier/faster to read Homer?
@@ryanwhite6381 For me it took going through Book I of the Iliad with Pharr a couple of times before it felt less like a struggle. It's certainly not easy. But by the time I'd gotten maybe to Book 6 I'd started to accelerate a bit. There's something in the preface to Cunliffe's lexicon about how great it is to be able to read Homer as fluently as Milton - even after many years, it never felt quite that easy, but Homer is so great that it was still worth it. Maybe starting with one of these newer oral methods would get you to the goal faster, I don't know, but even just struggling through and gradually working up speed is a lot of fun.
Sorry, but this is gonna be long. Listened to robin lane fox talk about the illiad. Got his book and watch some interviews. He said instead of getting a translation, take 2 years and learn homeeic Greek. At almost 70 I decided to try it. I have just started working on the alphabet. I just found your course and plan to follow it. Thank you.
Before I found you:
"A complete video course in ancient greek based on pharr's homeric Greek " by walter Melvin roberts iii phd. 80+videos, but he passed away and the pronunciation and other videos by "kostas" are gone.
Homeric greek, a book for beginners by clyde pharr
Greek grammer from harvard press. Herbert weir smyth
Homer vocabularies - william bishop owen
Writing the greek alphabet - carleton college classics
There is also beautiful writing by "japanese calligrapher takumi" how to write greek alphabet.
Hoping my old brain can process everything it needs
@@Peter-oh3hc Thank you for sharing that. I wish you the best of luck with the Greek and encourage you to keep up the good work! If you have any questions whilst following the course that I am making here, then post them in the comments, and I shall see what I can do to help :) All the best!
@@LearnAncientGreek thanks I appreciate that
Thanks for your recommendations, very helpful! Smyth is a superb Grammar, but I would perhaps add W.W. Goodwin "Greek Grammar", J.D. Denniston "The Greek Particles", Adrian Hundhausen "The Pharos", A Thematic Guide to Ancient Greek Vocabulary and Set Phrases". Tyndale House "The New Greek/English Interlinear New Testament".
I prefer this book : Logos : lingua graeca per se illustrata. Have you ever seen this book ? And how do you think about it ?
And I also read some about the Athénaze of Italian Edition, but I think it is difficult for beginners with zero foundation.
Dear sir, I am rather intrigued by your recommendation of the Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek and the A Primer of Greek Grammar. As one having almost completed the JACT textbooks, may I ask what exactly is present in the volumes you mention not already contained within the Reading Greek grammar/reference sections that would make of these a worthy purchase?
Really helpful video! Just one question, would the Greek writings of the Christian Church Fathers count as Koine Greek or regular Ancient Greek?
Apostolic fathers writings are in koine Greek, so far as I am aware.
Smyth is excellent.
@@gnostie Agreed! :)
Thoughts on the Ancient Language Institute?
@@Allyouneedisablender I’m afraid that I cannot comment on it, as I had not heard of it before now. Thanks for making me aware of its existence! Having taken a look at their website, it seems that their courses are quite pricey, and so all I can currently advise is to be certain that you want to learn Greek with them before you commit to one of their courses, and to be certain that you wish to learn Greek in general, of course. You can determine if Greek is for you by beginning to learn it with textbooks like those of JACT’s _Reading Greek_, or even with a single textbook like John Taylor’s _Greek to GCSE Part 1_. If you then decide Greek is not for you, then at least you won’t have spent $850 to learn that fact! :) All the best!
@@LearnAncientGreek Much appreciated, friend :)
What are your thoughts on Λόγος (lingua graeca per se illustrata)?
🙂
Even tho I do not Study ancient greek nor do i realisticly will be studing it I still found your Video to be enjoyable. Just as the other Videos on Ancient Greek. I will not learn that language because i have very limmited time but watching your Videos gives me some kind of Piece and I am very fond of that. Keep up the good work. Even if the amount of people that will try to learn ancient greek is growing thin i suggest that u keep on persuing your goal as to show more people this fine language. Its amazing have a nice day
@@PolakenLP Thank you very much for your nice and encouraging comment! I’m glad that you still enjoy the videos :) All the best!
What should I read to understand if I want to commit learning ancient Greek? Im mainly interested in philosophy so not sure should i study it for primary source...
What about Athenaze? I use it to learn grammar in combination with your online lessons and it's really effective!
@@adam_n_eva Thank you for mentioning that! I have heard of Athenaze but I have never used it, so I decided not to mention it in the video. I do say at the end of the “coursebooks” section that I know that there are other Greek courses out there, and I encourage viewers to share their opinions of these courses, so thank you very much for doing so with regard to Athenaze :) I am really glad that you have found it useful in combination with my lessons, and I may check it out in the future!
@LearnAncientGreek It's a really interesting topic, so thank you so much for all your recommendations! ❤️
@@LearnAncientGreek Thank you, it's very refreshing to hear someone recommend books besides Athenaze.
The Italian Athenaze is really good with extended readings the English version does not have.
To your knowledge (I'm sorry if I missed you saying this in the video) are there any good resources on learning how to properly pronounce Ancient Greek words? Most of what I see is the modernized pronunciation and reading, and Vox Graeca is a little too complex for me. Also thank you for including specific Homeric resources!
Philomen probert book on accentuation
For Homeric Greek, how about Clyde Pharr’s book revised by John Wright?
The standard Windows 10 Greek Polytonic keyboard layout works fine on my machine.
@@UserName-oh3ke I didn’t know Windows had their own Polytonic Greek keyboard - thanks for mentioning that and sharing your experience with it! A Keyman Greek keyboard was recommended to us at Cambridge. I wonder if the Windows one has digamma etc.? I know that most of us don’t need to type such letters often, but if the Windows keyboard cannot do this, then this may highlight a perk of a Greek keyboard on Keyman! :)
Took me a minute to realize who this Heimer fellow is.
I am very surprised that you did not have to learn accentuation for your degree. I got my B.A. in ancient greek in 2001 from a state university (USA) and accentuation rules were highly stressed and one had to know them, especially for the required greek composition.
I am not being derogatory or speaking in the pejorative whatsoever. I guess that i always thought of Cambridge as being far superior to some state college. I did enjoy the video anyway.
One frustrating (for me) part of JACT is the declension order. Using other texts, dictionaries, lexicons and glossaries I got in the habit of learning and chanting Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc. JACTs Nom, Acc throws me off. I also found knowing the genitive when the word is learned valuable for predicting the overall declension. I have enrolled in an online introductory Oxford Ancient Greek course starting this fall so will I will get experience with JACT. BTW if anyone has taken this course and has any insight I would appreciate the feedback.
Hello
Please in which museum or website it's possible to find original copy of greek book ?
Goated
its not lerb .. its lo-eb
The pronunciation is debated. Some people say "low-ebb", some say "lerb" (as I do, which is apparently closer to the German word), and others pronounce it "lobe" (as in "earlobe"). See the different suggestions in this thread for example: www.reddit.com/r/classics/comments/1d4rty4/how_do_you_pronounce_loeb/
Now recommend me native american and aborginal Australian languges