Learn Ancient Greek (Greek and Latin Language)

Slow paced beginning Greek for all who have a desire to dip into classic authors who only very slowly made their way through translation into the West. Peter Jones popular starters in both Lain and Greek appeared in English weekend newspapers for years. Now available in economical paperback. After dipping in for a couple of weeks, I practiced and figured the alphabet and understood small groups of words. Best of all, along the way each chapter has entertaining comments on Greek words and ideas in clear, understandable plain English. The notes and short, helpful, and straight to the point. There's no bla bla bla or jabber jabber. As you make progress, exercises in reading a few sets of words (animals, plants, flowers, trees, politics, arts in chapter 2/Greek alphabet) surprises because they are the same as English. Greek words are not strange but more common in English that I ever imagined. Greek hugely influences our own English. Best of all, for a beginner, the pages in English on ancient Greek history and culture in all twenty chapters keep interest while making steady progress in the language, one gentle step at a time. Peter Jones is master popular instructor of languages. The short readings are brilliant selections: Socrates speech on trial for his life, highlights of drama, history, philosophy, military expeditions. Far more than an old fashioned vocab and grammar book, this is a shock course in the ancient roots of America and Europe.

Fantastic learning material for Ancient Greek. The author does an amazing job of presenting a vastly different language in an easy and enjoyable manner. Quite honestly, learning beginners Greek was easier than Spanish due to how well this was written. The short chapters are broken up into various sections such as: Presenting a verb form, irregularity, vocabulary, exercises and then a brief overview of some culture pertaining to Ancient Greece in addition to some quirky comic image. To make it even better once you get roughly half way through the author picks parts of plays, historical texts and more for you to translate with what you know. Unlike some other language-learning materials out there, there's answers at the back of every chapter so even though you should try your best to not look at them until you think you're nearly or completely correct, you are never left scratching your head wondering if your right or totally off. The author's sense of humor and thoughtful layout make this probably the absolute best option out there for Beginner-low intermediate Greek. The only bad thing is you have to go to someone else afterwards!

What will come in the mail is a real cheap looking and slim paper back if you order it. Your first thought will probably be, "Oh, more of the dumb down? How ticky tacky!" What you'll be holding is utterly John Milton. It's a conflict. Every internal alarm bell will be ringing that you bought "2005 garbage" and it is the exact opposite dating all the way back to John Milton and his letter on education. It's an itty handful of vocabulary, a skillful dodge around all that you do not need to know to read ancient Greek, and grammar in increments. That IS the John Milton educational formula. Peter Jones is a British man and oh is he a British man! Pure British. Nothing but British in entirety. There is "to be" and there is "to seem." He is "to be." One knows that upon opening his book and dating Peter Jones all the way back to John Milton and that letter on education. It is the 21st century and he does speak to the reader in light modern banter. This is it folks. John Milton in all his glory. Educational system O' John Milton, Jones University, 1644, England. (My Milton reference is a used copy of The Portable Milton, edited by Douglas Bush, the Viking Portable Library. In addition, I recommend Homer in the Loeb Classic series which has Greek on one page and an English translation on the other. )

The book reads really well; user friendly. While his mastery of the language is felt, he doesn't take himself too seriously. Reading grammar manuals is more often than not a bore and something one has to really sit down and do, however Dr. Jones makes learning rather interesting by adding variety to the subject matter and giving the reader a little bit of culture and history as well as fun and simple mechanical exercises that help to reinforce the grammar learned in the section. As an avid linguist and fellow language-collector I highly recommend this grammar to anyone seeking to add classical Greek to their repertoire.

I was looking for a good introduction to learning attic and koine Greek and selected Jones' book as my place to start. The good: It's a pretty gentle introduction, many other similar books I've looked at are more eager to hurl the student into the deep end. The book does not require previous knowledge of Latin, as some texts do. Jones supplies the answers to all of his exercises, so it is more appropriate for self-teaching than other books. The bad: Jones cuts some corners with the language to make it easier on the student. He also doesn't provide detailed explanations as to what's going on with the underpinnings of the language. For example, he doesn't explain how "middle" verbs are situated between active and passive forms, which I think would promote understanding. Also, some of the translations early in the book rely so heavily on vocabulary and forms not yet learned that they're not all that useful. This gets a bit better as the book progresses, but even at the end of the book the reader isn't equipped with everything they need to attack confidently most new testament passages and certainly not for most of the classics. The indifferent: As other reviewers have pointed out, some of the author's jokes are a bit ribald. I'd rate them as PG-13. If you're looking for a text to teach a ten year old, I could understand wanting to find a different text, but for anyone in the mid-teens, if they can't handle Jones' jokes, they need to get out more. Another reviewer was disappointed that Jones didn't provide translations of the biblical passages, but there are plenty of free sources online that will serve just fine. Jones doesn't explain the literary convention of accenting classic Greek. Can a Greek student manage without this knowledge? Yes. Except in specific cases which Jones points out, you can mostly get along fine without them. However, for various reasons accents are considered to be an integral part of classic Greek, so truly serious students will probably feel like they have a gap in their knowledge that needs to be filled. So, this is a decent, fairly gentle introduction to classic Greek that is suitable for self-learning. It's not sufficient to get to the point where the learner is really translating significant Greek passages, and such a student will have gaps, but it can be a reasonable starting point before students learning on their own transition to a more rigorous second beginning text.

After studying Greek for a year and buying a Lexicron, I found myself just scratching the surface. Of course just utilizing what I could find for free online may not be the best approach. I broke down and bought Peter Jone's book after running into a spot I just couldn't get past. His simple, comedic approach to learning ancient Greek has been helpful. He explains and simplifies the language and even a dummy like me is making progress. I'm really enjoying the challenge and hope I'll make it through the entire book and learn to read such classics as Anabasis and The Clouds ect, in the language they were written in. I love the humor and plan on buying his Learn Latin series too.

Through one my students in another class I teach, I've been made aware of this little Greek text book some years ago. I've used it since with individual Greek students whom I teach in various settings. I've found, it works fine in smaller groups or one-on-one mentoring or private lessons, but I would be hesitant to use it in class, since the structure of grammar is sketchy, incomplete and sometimes confusing to the student. A big draw-back is also the absence of accents, which are very important in ancient Greek. While it is no problem to add them in smaller class settings, it would be somewhat of a challenge to do it in class -- as I believe that accents must be used in order to properly learn the language. Another, though minor draw-back of the book is that answers to the exercises and texts are given right after each chapter which only entices the student to look them up instead of working on it harder. Despite modern-day enthusiasm of doing one's own thing, I would not recommend attempting to learn a foreign language on one's own, let alone classical languages. It may seem to be fun at first, but nothing in-depth will be accomplished in the end, ranging from proper pronunciation to grammar comprehension. All good things take time; and nothing serious can be mastered without a competent teacher! M. Fajian MelChiZedek Classics

In his Learn Ancient Greek, P.V. Jones has succeeded in offering both an enjoyable read and an effective self-teaching tool. Those looking for a 1930s discussion of adverbial phrases should save their money as this book actually does what it purports to do--it allows the dedicated reader to learn ancient Greek in an enjoyable, interesting and relaxed manner while, most importantly, promoting understanding and retention. I have a dozen Greek grammars and none is better than this. Rather than providing long lists to memorize, Jones promotes the only truly effective manner of learning any language--written exercise and repetition. Buy this book. You will not regret the choice.

I bought this book two years ago after struggling with Teach Yourself Ancient Greek. (I’m a big fan of the TY series and my failure to get beyond Chapter 9 of TYAG is more a reflection of my incompetence than of the book itself). When I bought this book I went through it at a slow pace, making notes and flash cards and found it helpful in getting me back on track with my learning. However, I then went off in a new direction. Instead of returning to TYAG, I moved on to Christophe Rico’s Polis. This is an excellent introduction to Koine, but really needs a teacher as the whole text is in Koine, as are the very useful audio/podcasts and YouTube videos (useful for pronunciation and for bringing the language to life). However, I found that lots of words in the Polis course are either not in my Ancient Greek dictionary, or the meanings given there don’t equate to the meanings they seem to have on the Polis course. Also Polis is designed for listening and speaking so it’s presented like a modern language course. In other words, you have conversations between the prof and his students rather than analysis of Plato and Aristotle. So, as I have no one with whom to speak Koine, I’ve put Polis back on the shelf for the time being and reached for Peter Jones’s book for a second run though. Let me get the irritations out of the way first: • The author’s jaunty style can be annoying, especially the schoolboy humour • He assumes his readers are practicing Christians (and have a copy of the New Testament to hand) • He doesn’t do accents, although he does – briefly – explain what they are If you can handle those irritations, what you get in this book is an excellent introduction to a kind of hybrid Greek (5th Century BCE Attic, Koine, New Testament, prose and poetry) and that’s exactly what you need if you want to be able to read a range of Ancient Greek literature in the original. The author goes easy on the grammar, introducing just enough to enable you to make progress, and you soon realise you are moving at a fairly brisk pace. By the time you’re half way through the book you’ve covered the present indicative and imperative of regular, middle and contracted verbs; masculine, feminine and neuter nouns; present participles; present subjunctive of the above verbs and aorist (past). I’m halfway through the book now, in about a week, and I know what to expect in the second half. We’ll have more on the aorist, the imperfect, the passive; adjectives; and we’ll get some poetry, with useful notes on metre. As well as biblical passages, there are excerpts from Plato and the dramatists. These are either simplified or have the difficult bits glossed, but knowing you’re getting close to reading some “real” Ancient Greek is immensely satisfying. At the end of each chapter there’s a section on Ancient Greek language and culture. Throughout the author shows how many modern English words derive directly or indirectly from Ancient Greek. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a gentle introduction to Ancient Greek. If you try this book first, and then move on to TYAG or Polis, you’ll have a great head start when you’re grappling with noun declensions and verb forms (which come at you with a rapid pace in TYAG) or with the demands of Polis (recognising the difference between indicative and imperative).

単語リスト３００ほどなので、軽量級の入門です。 ギリシャ語を、初めから読みながら、単語と文法をマスターします。 はじめは、「きみがペトロスなら、ぼくはパウロスだ」とかいう簡単な文で始まる のですが、１５０ページごろには、クセノフォンなどがでてくるので、そんなに 易しくはない。 前書きで著者Peter Jonesは、ギリシャ語というと、学生から必ず質問が出る。 Ancient Greek? What use is that?と。 こう答えることにしている、と。 Being a joie de vivre man myself,I can think of few things more useful than pleasure,--- 楽しいからだよ、と。 いずこも同じようである。 イギリスの学習は、単語と文法だけではなく、ギリシャ語を学びながら、ギリシャの 歴史、社会、経済、文化、を学ぶことになっているようだ。 ２００ページの小型のペーパバックながら、ゆっくり学べば、得るものは大きい本の ようです。

L'ho comprato da autodidatta. Ho frequentato il liceo scientifico e quindi il greco mi mancava. Il libro è ottimo, si impara in maniera semplice ed abbastanza divertente. Consigliato!

This book is an excellent primer to ancient greek. Starts with focussing on the alphabet then moves you into sentences and so forth. Would recommend for a beginner like myself.

Un libro de griego clásico " original ". Una lástima que Peter Jones o la editorial no acentuara las palabras griegas.