How to read and speak Ancient Greek fluently

[Leoptxr]

Finally a shining beacon of light in the world of classical languages! Your videos are pure gold, keep them comming o/

[samuelleask]

0:00 and yet here I am, having never studied any language previously, and I'm starting Latin and Greek simultaneously at first year level lol

[vladimirlukin]

Curiously enough, Heinrich Schliemann was also a proponent of modern pronunciation. This is from his Iliois:

"I therefore strongly recommend all directors of colleges and schools to introduce the method I have followed ; to do away with the abominable English pronunciation of Greek, which has never been in use outside of England ; to let children first be taught modern Greek by native Greek professors, and only afterwards begin ancient Greek when they can speak and write the modern language with fluency, which it can hardly take them more than six months to do. The same professors can teach the ancient language, and by following my method they will enable intelligent boys to master all its difficulties in a year, so that they will not only learn it as a living language, but will also understand the ancient classics, and be able to write fluently on any subject they are acquainted with.

This is no idle theory, but a stubborn fact, which therefore ought to be listened to. It is a cruel injustice to inflict for years upon an unhappy pupil a language of which, when he leaves college, as a general rule he knows hardly more than when he first began to learn it. The causes of this miserable result are, in the first place, the arbitrary and atrocious pronunciation of Greek usual in England ; and in the second place the erroneous method employed, according to which the pupils learn to disregard the accents entirely, and to consider them as mere impediments, whereas the accents constitute a most important auxiliary in learning the language. What a happy effect would be produced on general education, and what an enormous stimulus would be given to scientific pursuits, if intelligent youths could obtain in eighteen months a thorough knowledge of modern Greek, and of that most beautiful, most divine, and most sonorous language, which was spoken by Homer and Plato, and could learn the latter as a living tongue, so as never to forget it! And how easily, at how small an expense, could the change be made ! Greece abounds with highly-educated men, who have a thorough knowledge of the language of their ancestors, who are perfectly acquainted with all the classics, and who would gladly and at moderate salaries accept places in England or America. How greatly the knowledge of modern Greek assists the student in mastering ancient Greek I could not illustrate better than by the fact, that I have seen here in Athens office-clerks who, feeling no inclination for commerce, have left the counting-house, settled down to study, and been able in four months time to understand Homer, and even Thucydides."

[definitelydefi]

I studied Latin for 7 years in school but was only able to read fluently until I started following your advice on classical languages a while back. Now that I'm starting Ancient Greek at university soon, it's good to see new content from you and your old videos. Keep giving great advice / praecepta!

[taylorbrian]

θαυμάσια! Ευχαριστώ! Thanks so much for one of the more interesting series of YouTube videos I've heard in a long time!

[WowUrFcknHxC]

The Reading Greek series (it is four books, each covers a separate section. Grammar is one, the text is another, and it has an independent study guide as the third and cultural atlas of Ancient Athens is the fourth) is fantastic. It is published by the Cambridge Press.

[roby]

I've been teaching myself Ancient Greek for over a year now. Yes it is very challenging and will certainly test your memory, but provided you have excellent text books with lots of exercises and reading passages it is certainly learnable even if you are a beginner. I started out with 2 text books Greek to GCSE 1 and 2, which are designed for the GCSE curriculum in England. All the best.

[Cachoeira]

Now I speak five languages, including latin, and want to learn ancient greek. Thanks to your very helpful video I'm well informed about the available resources.

[staceycarras]

And go to Greek Church as often as you can, our Priests have the Ancient stuff sorted.

[senorsmile]

Fantastic video. I wasn't aware of most of those resources. I might also recommend assimil's Greg ancien, which is perhaps the best assimil course ever written and has full audio.

[grumposaurus]

Thanks once more! For this and the Sanskrit video (the others are just as welcome, but I've already commented on them). Do not forget to list URL references if you have the chance, although the books you've mentioned are not hard to find online, once the names are known. It's great you're posting on YouTube again.

[pardieupopper]

Solid, pragmatic, and helpful. Thanks.

[hmartin]

Yes! Finally a reliable source. I can read ancient Greek pretty well and this gives me some extra understanding.
Thanks.

[DS-zdtk]

Well This was very I encouraging seeing as I have to take Ancient Greek for my major...I don’t have the time to learn a bunch of other languages first

[flaviaa]

the dark academic in me brought me here

[PaulNitz]

Δεκα Γλῶσσαι, χάριν ἔχω σοι. σύμφημι σοι. In the face of whatever expert advice you get, listen to Deka.

[uayninaduian]

Will you ever do grammar lessons on ancient Greek, Sir ?

[Glassandcandy]

"spend an hour or so reading Chaucer each day... after a few weeks you will be able to read him no problem"
eh, I guess this is possible, Chaucer's dialect came from east midlands dialect of middle english which is a direct ancestor for modern english today, so I could see this.

"then move backwards in time to Beowulf or any old english text and use the same method [...] after a few weeks of reading an hour each day you will have no problem reading old english"
this is BLATANTLY false. Old English is simply too far removed to be learned this way, even if one is versed well in chaucer, it doesn't mean they will be able to find their way around any old english, especially since Chaucer is LATE middle english from the EAST MIDLANDS dialect, the dialect that modern english is borne of. If one was to read a Mercian text in middle English (which i will leave a sample of below) they would have far more trouble and would desperately need a source to look up vocabulary that simply has dropped all together from modern english, on top of this, the syntax and grammar left from Old English that was replaced by Norse grammar would be extremely confusing. Then to go farther back towards Old English would be immensely more difficult than even this, for almost all Old English texts, including Beowulf and the Dream of the Rude, come from the Wessex dialect, a dialect that is not the direct ancestor of modern english, (the dialect modern english was borne of is Mercian) thus the language is seperated even further. I will leave beneath this comment a sample of old English as well to illustrate my point of its separation from modern english to be too great to simply learn through osmosis. (also if you're serious about learning old english and want to check out beowulf, DONT get the penguin copy, get the Seamus Heaney bi-lingual edition, it preserves the old english wonderfully with the rhythmic breaks in between each word indicating how to read it rhythmically like a true Saxon would and the translation is both accurate and beautiful.)

From: Layomon's Brut - early south midland dialect middle english (different dialect and much earlier than Chaucer, but not nearly as far removed as Beowulf's Wessex Dialect)

An preost wes on leoden; Laȝamon wes ihoten. 1
he wes Leouenaðes sone; liðe him beo Drihten. 2
He wonede at Ernleȝe; at æðelen are chirechen. 3
vppen Seuarne staþe; sel þar him þuhte. 4
on-fest Radestone; þer he bock radde. 5
Hit com him on mode; & on his mern þonke. 6
þet he wolde of Engle; þa æðelæn tellen. 7
wat heo ihoten weoren; & wonene heo comen. 8
þa Englene londe; ærest ahten. 9
æfter þan flode; þe from Drihtene com. 10

From: Beowulf - Wessex Dialect - Olde Aenglisc

HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!

[staceycarras]

The Greek-English ( Orthodox ) New Testament, "Nestle-Aland", The Ultimate Ancient Greek Book !

[belaghoulashi]

A good interlinear copy of the Septuagint is one of the most copious sources of fairly easy Koine Greek you can possibly find, aside from being great literature in its own right. Additionally a program like Bibleworks, although initially expensive, allows you to set interlinear versions of multiple translations of the text in multiple languages, many of which are classics in their right, such as the Latin Vulgate, Luther's German Bibel, the King James English version, etc. Would there was a similar resource available for Plato, Homer, the whole literature of Attic Greek, etc.! Anyway, not to push "The Bible" itself on anyone (I'm not a Christian myself) it does offer unsurpassed sources of world class culturally significant reading material for anyone studying almost any language, and many of the resources available are excellent "models" of what could made available eventually for other students of languages in general.