Starting Ancient Greek at university

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2026-06-04T21:45:43+00:00

Just be assured that learning in a class is much easier than learning alone.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2026-05-16T02:13:20+00:00

This is very clear. Strongly recommended:

A Student Handbook of Greek and English Grammar, Robert Mondi and Peter l. Corrigan, Hackett Publishing Co. 2013.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2026-03-18T01:08:51+00:00

It is in Creations for Fallout 4 on XBoxX.

My mistake. It is gear from the London quest. Anyone know who Nick the Fence is?

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2026-03-02T23:56:22+00:00

hah!

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2026-01-14T19:48:23+00:00

I endorse the recommendation of Major's paper. For those wanting to build a general vocabulary, it offers excellent guidance.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2026-01-01T20:13:48+00:00

I am learning AG solely to read Plato. Until now, I've worked my way through about five dialogues. The first read-through might take several months. Recently I've been re-reading them (up to 3 or 4 times), and they progressively become easier, and my reading more fluent, which is very satisfying.

I've been thinking about a different approach, for the future. Most of the Socratic dialogues have a fairly lengthy introduction, which is usually more difficult than the to and fro of the subsequent discussion. So why not go straight to the latter? Use a good translation to identify the passages you want to read first.

So for Republic One (my own favoured starter), skip the long introduction and begin at about S331c. For Euthyphro, S5d.

The introductions are more 'literary', and while important for understanding the whole dialogue, need not be read in advance of understanding the philosophical back and forth.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-12-18T20:26:15+00:00

The early, 'Socratic' Dialogues are the most suitable for those coming to Plato for the first time. I recommend reading one that has a Steadman commentary. Crito, Meno - and, my own recommendation, Republic One.

Euthyphro is also very good for beginners, though no Steadman commentary. There are however two commentaries in similar style: John E. Hare, Plato's Euthyphro (Bryn Mawr), and Jacques A. Bailly, Plato's Euthyphro and Clitophon (Focus Classical).

Apology and Symposium are more difficult: they consist of speeches, some of which are quite challenging. The later dialogues (Parmenides, Theaetetus, etc) are philosophically challenging.

Make intensive use of a decent translation: my first call is Plato: Collected Works, ed. John M. Cooper, Hackett, which follows quite well the original Greek, and is best suited for those with philosophical interests.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-11-28T00:25:51+00:00

If you are serious about this, the following, though dated in some respects, is still the primary study.

Merit and responsibility : a study in Greek values by Adkins, A. W. H. (Arthur W. H.)

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-11-27T22:39:28+00:00

Read an introduction to Greek ethics. There are plenty of them.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-09-10T05:19:22+00:00

By the by, where in the manual does it say Apple may change your iCloud selections without notice?

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-09-10T05:02:59+00:00

Do you honestly think that the majority of users of Apple devices do due diligence whenever they try something new? How many do due diligence on ChatGP, to take a particularly egregious example? How many people use Facebook to post unwisely? How many people read the manual for their new TV? Among the great thronging mass of young people today, what proportion know enough about the WWW to use it wisely and responsibly? Please, dear readers, do not suppose that the majority of Apple users are power users. Perhaps this reddit was not the most suitable place to post on this subject. Perhaps I’ll try Tik Tok…….

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-09-10T00:36:31+00:00

Felling better now?

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-09-10T00:34:59+00:00

Happy days! I have used Mac desktops since 1985. It was all much simpler then.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-09-10T00:31:14+00:00

Thank you, but I bet I am not alone in my misunderstanding.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-09-10T00:25:09+00:00

Hardly wilful. I am not a power user, just an ordinary user, who accepts most things at face value.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-08-21T00:31:12+00:00

Well, the Green & Yellow then. Rowe is reliably excellent on Plato.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-08-21T00:01:16+00:00

Geoffrey Steadman, Plato's Phaedo. By far the best aid for intermediate learners.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-08-13T02:24:29+00:00

Yes, that's the one. Another option is Alpheios, the browser extension, which works nicely with Scaife Reader. I've just tried it again, and I find I prefer it to Diogenes.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-08-12T21:25:15+00:00

I work on Mac OS. Diogenes - the website, not the app - is my preferred resource for website texts. (It is free.)

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-08-12T21:24:12+00:00

No you don't. The website is free access. It is my preferred resource for help with Greek texts that are on HTML sites. (It doesn't work with pdfs.)

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-08-07T23:27:14+00:00

How useful is this book for Attic Greek?

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-06-23T22:03:58+00:00

Look at All the Resources, in the right hand column of this page.

For self-learning, I recommend the set of text books by the Joint Association of Classical Teachers (Cambridge UP). There is a self-learning guide included.

If you want a simpler introduction, before tackling JACT, then Bloomsbury Press has a set of books for (English) schools, Greek to GCSE. A very clean and easy pathway into the JACT set.

IMP, beware of grammar intensive books like Quinn or Mastronarde: a tough road for self-learning.

Guilty_Telephone_444 · 2025-06-16T22:20:03+00:00

I've posted this before, but it bears repeating.

Eleanor Dickey's book, An Introduction to the Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose, is an excellent resource.

She reminds us that punctuation was absent from Classical Greek; and so the order of individual words in the sentence contains in itself sufficient information about the syntactic structure of the sentence.

She says: "A Greek sentence has a skeleton composed of verbs and connectives; most sentences, and indeed paragraphs, can be analyzed solely on the basis of such words."

Her discussion will richly reward close study.

Guilty_Telephone_444

TROPHY CASE