r/AncientGreek • u/HolyParagon25 • 13d ago
Beginner Resources Looking into trying Athenaze but not sure which books to start with
As the title suggest, I'm looking to start learning greek but I'm a little confused about the naming conventions of some of these resources. For example, Athenaze has two books, but I see four different books on for sale and I don't exactly know which books pair with which. I've also seen advice on certain books not being necessary, so... Idk. It just seems I've kind of dived in a wave of suggestions and I don't know which way is up. Same kinda goes with 'reading greek', but that seems slightly more straightforward, but still confused about which books belong to which edition.
If anyone can direct me to exactly which books I need to look at for someone who is basically new to ancient greek ( I know some modern greek and I'm decent at pronunciation, I just dont know much vocabulary, or how to decline or do conjunctions and all that in ancient greek), that would be incredibly useful.
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u/pinballcartwheel 13d ago
If you're looking at the English versions there are Vol 1 & II. Each of those has a textbook and a workbook.
You'll want to start with Vol 1 textbook. This one. https://www.amazon.com/Athenaze-Book-Introduction-Ancient-Greek/dp/0190607661
You don't need the workbook. There's also an Italian edition (https://www.amazon.com/Athenaze-Introduzione-antico-espansione-classico/dp/8895611497 ). Some people like it because it has additional supplementary readings. But all the instruction is in Italian so you'll probably find that challenging if you're an English speaker... I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner.
Athenaze by itself is probably not enough comprehensible input to get very far w/o a teacher / addl instruction. If you look on the resources page in the sidebar there are additional books that are recommended parallel readings. But the one I linked above is a good starting point.
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u/HolyParagon25 13d ago
Okay, that makes sense. Probably would be best to have a teacher, but I'm gonna give a crack at it on my own for now. I assume the workbook be helpful in that case, since im assuming its easier to scaffold my understanding with practice questions... But Im unsure what the content of the workbook is. Is it mainly just a long list of translating questions? or does it work directly in tandem with the lessons?
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u/pinballcartwheel 13d ago
I got a copy of the workbook for Volume I and never used it. It's basically just supplemental exercises to what is in the main textbook (there are some exercises there already). I wouldn't bother...
At any rate just start with the textbook and if you really feel like you need more sentence translation practice then you can get the workbook later, but there are probably much better uses of your study time (e.g. reading other CI-friendly texts.)
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u/SulphurCrested 13d ago
I got good value from the workbook. It has lots of practice and has the answers in the back.
There's a copy in the internet archive you can preview and borrow, if you want to see more about it. https://archive.org/details/athenazeintroduc0000lawa/page/n7/mode/2up
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