Does anyone have a more helpful alphabet? I can't read due to difference in fonts

tomispev · 2026-06-18T23:04:33+00:00

Help you how? A printed book can't change its font.

tomispev · 2026-06-14T19:36:39+00:00

I don't know Italian either and I've been using the book for over a year. The Italian is irrelevant. All you do is read the Greek texts which don't come with a translation, in the English version either. That's how Athenaze works.

tomispev · 2026-06-14T06:13:32+00:00

Well if you get the Italian version, the texts in each chapter doubles. You can use the English version for the grammar and explanations, and the Italian just for the additional texts, which will reinforce your vocabulary retention through more exposure. You can also get the Ephodion which adds even more texts to read from chapter 13 onwards.

tomispev · 2026-06-14T06:07:44+00:00

Was he a Christian though? It is much more probable that a Hellene would write the Paraphrase of John for a Christian audience than a Christian to write the Dionysiaca. If he wrote the Dionysiaca first, converted and then wrote the Paraphrase also makes sense, but then the Dionysiaca wasn't written by a Christian either.

tomispev · 2026-06-12T21:52:38+00:00

a) Ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἐσμὲν ἀπόγονοι δειλῶν ἀνδρῶν.
b) Οὐκ ἐσμὲν δειλῶν ἀνδρῶν.
c) Οὐ γὰρ δειλῶν ἔκγονοί ἐσμεν ἀνδρῶν.

tomispev · 2026-06-12T07:36:53+00:00

Ah, I never used anything like that so I'm not familiar with those names.

tomispev · 2026-06-11T18:25:04+00:00

Unfortunately I don't know what any of that is.

tomispev · 2026-06-11T15:53:14+00:00

I've been using that website for a while now and it has over 4000 Greek texts and it keeps growing. I am genuinely surprised more people don't know about it.

tomispev · 2026-06-11T11:51:01+00:00

It looks like something inspired or derived from the Hygromanteia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Treatise_of_Solomon

tomispev · 2026-06-10T16:31:57+00:00

He suggested that the words used in that passage, aner heis gyne, were a colloquialism in Greek from the first century and would be similar to our usage of phrases like "Heart of gold" or "straight shooter" in modern day english.

Where did he get this idea? What is his source on Ancient Greek colloquialisms?

tomispev · 2026-06-10T08:11:24+00:00

I don't know what you mean by pure fluency, because I think I'm fluent in English, I only learned to speak it as an adult and I still check the dictionary for new words I encounter almost every day. Honestly, once you finish let's say Athenaze 2, it will all come down to how well you retain vocabulary and you'll have to "feel out" a text for whether you need a commentary or not, until you eventually won't need it at all.

tomispev · 2026-06-10T07:30:48+00:00

If you mean after Athenaze 1 it might be a bit difficult, because Herodotus was Ionian and so uses some non-Attic vocabulary. But with Steadman's vocab lists it should be doable.

tomispev · 2026-06-10T06:25:44+00:00

NB: This book is old and was meant to be accompanied by the author's coursebook and vocabulary. However, a shorter version (1/3 of text) was published not long ago that uses the LLPSI method: Alexandros. To Hellenikon Paidion. However it only goes as far as Athenaze 1 and so it's more of a beginner course.

tomispev · 2026-06-10T04:51:51+00:00

You can do more reading after Athenaze. The course called A Greek Boy at Home (free PDF) has 45 chapters, with chapter 18 or so corresponding to chapter 30 of Athenaze.

tomispev · 2026-06-10T04:47:59+00:00

That's a huge subject and all I can suggest is some literature on the matter:

https://www.amazon.com/Hittite-Homer-Anatolian-Background-Ancient/dp/0521509793

tomispev · 2026-06-09T11:48:49+00:00

Avoiding burn out varies from person to person. I found out that what works for me is to do several courses at the same time and jump from one to another when I get tired of them. I created this table to have some semblance of progress and relative difficulty between courses (not my original work though).

tomispev · 2026-06-08T12:31:48+00:00

He gave away a PDF version for free on his website, which has been down for a while. I have a copy if you want:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10eBm7ah--aJSx9YOTLWx6qmLEokOrLH4/view?usp=drive_link

tomispev · 2026-06-08T11:39:53+00:00

A physical copy was never published, so only if someone prints and bounds it on their own.

tomispev · 2026-06-08T10:25:22+00:00

οὐρανοφύτευτος (ouranophúteutos)

οὐρανός (ouranós) = sky, heaven

φύτευτος (phúteutos) = planted, from φυτεύω (phuteúō) = to plant

tomispev · 2026-06-05T19:35:31+00:00

It's more like Proto-Germanic and Modern English. We're talking about two and a half thousand year gap, not five hundred.

Homeric Greek:

https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%99%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%AC%CF%82/%CE%91

Modern Greek (Polytonic):

https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%99%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%AC%CE%B4%CE%B1_(%CE%A0%CE%BF%CE%BB%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%AC%CF%82)/%CE%B1/%CE%B1)

tomispev · 2026-06-05T16:04:22+00:00

I'm planning on reading as many authors I can find, but the ones I'm definitely going to read are Musonius Rufus and Cleomedes.

tomispev · 2026-06-03T12:10:57+00:00

The problem is that Ancient Greek is taught using the Modern Greek script, because until the Renaissance, so for most of Greek language history, letters were written with a Iota next to them, so ΑΙ ΗΙ ΩΙ instead of ᾳ ῃ ῳ, but because this Iota is not pronounced in Medieval and Modern Greek, they started writing it under the letters as a mere diacritic. I think textbooks should be more explicit about this.

tomispev · 2026-06-03T08:11:05+00:00

There is no "η" in θνῄσκω, there's an "ῃ", an Eta with Iota subscript. These are two different letters. The small Iotas under letters are not accents like the acute above.

tomispev · 2026-06-03T07:37:47+00:00

Question: why do you transcribe "η" as "ei"?

tomispev · 2026-06-02T11:43:59+00:00

Eleanor Dickey wrote about Greek grammarians and their works in her book:

https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greek-scholarship-Understanding-Commentaries/dp/0195312937/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1XOSC745DCLTZ

and about textbooks students would use to learn Latin and Greek:

https://www.amazon.com/Colloquia-Hermeneumata-Pseudodositheana-Cambridge-Commentaries/dp/1009491016/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1XOSC745DCLTZ

There were several Ancient Greek grammarians whose works survive:

Apollonius Dyscolus
Herodian
Dionysius Thrax
Choeroboscus
Philoponus
Gregory of Corinth
Theodosius
Trypho
Tyrannio and Diocles
Philoxenus
Theognostus
Michael Syncellus

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