Kevin and James’s Ancient Greek Curriculum

I — What is this Document?

Sometime during early 2022, Kevin and James decided to take on the challenge of learning Ancient Greek. Along the way, Kevin chose to learn Modern Greek, too.

This is a living document of resources to learn Ancient and Modern Greek. I hope it’s helpful to you. If you have suggestions, chat with me on Twitter at @kevinpalbrecht or my website at KevinAlbrecht.com.

II — Greek: How to Start

II.1 — Starting Greek, Step 1: Which Greek?

Decide what variant of Greek you will learn. Here’s a very rough description of the phases:

• Homeric (or “Archaic”) Greek — for the oldest epic poems. Not many people learn this, but if you learn Attic/Koine, you can learn this pretty easily afterwards.
• Attic (or “Classical”) Greek (before ca. 300 BCE) — this is the Greek of most of the literary period of Greece.
• Koine (or “Biblical”) Greek (ca. 300 BCE - 400 CE) — this is the Greek of the New Testament and the Romans. Koine Greek is just a slightly simplified version of Attic Greek. If you learn Attic Greek, you can read Koine Greek.
• Byzantine Greek (ca. 400 CE - 1500 CE)
• Modern Greek (ca. 1500 CE - present) — you can always learn modern Greek with something like Duolingo, which will help you get a feel for Greek.

Most “Ancient Greek” courses teach a combination of Attic and Koine.

II.2 — Starting Greek, Step 2: How to approach Ancient Greek?

Options:

1. “Reverse chronological” approach — Learn Modern Greek first, then learn Ancient Greek. This has a huge advantage of learning using the huge amount of resources available to learn Modern Greek, plus you will be able to read the full range of Greek literature and speak to people in Greece.¹
   • See the sections on the Reverse Chronological Approach, below.
2. “I just want to read the Bible” approach — Learn just Koine.
3. “I want to read all of Ancient Greek literature” approach — Learn the combination of Attic/Koine that most Ancient Greek courses teach.

II.3 — Starting Greek, Step 3: Reverse Chronological Approach

Only follow this step if you follow the “Reverse Chronological” approach.

Why learn Modern Greek first?

• Very easy to learn and imitate
• Endless amount of high-quality resources to learn and to reach fluency quickly
• Once you know the Greek of one era well, learning an adjacent stage is easy²

How should you work your way backward?

1. Learn Modern Greek for 1-2 years and reach a comfortable level of fluency using modern methods:
   1. Find a conversation partner on the internet
   2. Watch Greek movies and documentaries and shows
   3. Listen to Greek radio
   4. Travel to Greece
2. Learn in reverse chronological order
   1. https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-how-to-pronounce-biblical-greek/

Some people who advocate for this approach:

• https://www.lingq.com/en/forum/open-forum/learning-languages-in-reverse-chronological-order/

See Guide to Learning Modern Greek.

II.4 — Starting Greek, Step 4: Learn an Ancient Greek pronunciation style

There’s a lot of options:

1. Modern Greek pronunciation — This is the way ancient Greek is taught in Greece to this day, and it facilitates learning Modern Greek later.³
   • Use Duolingo’s built in Greek letter pronunciation tab.
   • Why?
     1. Realize that Modern Greek and Ancient Greek are the same language: Modern Greek vs Ancient Greek (YouTube)
   • Additional resources & examples:
     2. Paul Nitz teaches ancient Greek using the Modern Greek Pronunciation
     3. Asier Mp
     4. This guy has the Athenaze vocab in Modern Greek pronunciation
     5. John 1  Modern Greek Pronunciation
     6. Mark 1 - Greek Scriptures (Textus Receptus).
   • See Guide to Learning Modern Greek
2. WORK IN PROGRESS

II.5 — Starting Greek, Step 5: Learn Ancient Greek

Buy a dictionary — start with Little Liddell (see Dictionaries)

Buy a method book — start with Athenaze Volume 1 (see Book Courses section)

Use Anki with the phrases and sentences you learn in Athenaze. See SigmaX’s comment on this Reddit thread for an explanation.

You can learn Greek to fluency, using these steps:⁴

1. Learn the pronunciation
2. Accumulate words and phrases
3. Read as much as you can without worrying about understanding every word
4. Then tackle the grammar

III — Ancient Greek Resources

III.1 — Book Courses

Learn using a method that uses Comprehensible Input (CI) with Context, not a “decoding” technique or the old Grammar-Translation Approach. When looking for good approaches, look for people who mention “Stephen Krashen” or “Comprehensible Input”.

III.1.1 — Book Courses: Comprehensible Input Approach

Best at top.

Athenaze Series⁵

• Sources: Vol 1, Vol 2, Workbook 1 and Workbook 2
• Sometimes a repetitive and slow pace of introducing new concepts, but best complete course
• This guy has created a companion video course: Ancient Greek 101 | ThePatrologist
• Here is the first part of the book in Lego comic form: Legonium
• Transcribed Athenaze English texts
• Everyone says the Italian version is better than the English one, but the English one is still good. Someone took the Italian one in PDF form and changed the Italian to English: Italian Athenaze PDF with Translated English Gloss : r/AncientGreek
• Audio recordings of Athenaze: https://mobile.twitter.com/AncientGreekCI/status/1621222167521411072
• Recommended by Deko Glossa,⁶ and others

Polis Series

• Sources: Speaking Ancient Greek as a Living Language by Polis Institute Press
• Meant for a classroom, and not complete, so you’ll eventually have to graduate to another book. You need to know some Ancient Greek already, since it is meant to be taught by a teacher. Recommended after you’ve started with Athenaze.

Cambridge Reading Greek Series⁷ (AKA “JACT” or “Joint Association of Classical Teachers”)

• Sources: Reading Greek: An Independent Study Guide to Reading Greek, Reading Greek: Text and Vocabulary, and Reading Greek: Grammar and Exercises
• Skips ahead quite quickly, but has the best Greek texts with entertaining stories⁸
• Terrible pronunciation on the audio
• “Builds up your mastery of the language very much block-by-block, step-by-step. You feel very comfortable moving on to the next block or having it revealed to you what the next form is to learn because it’s not overwhelming in its detail.”⁹
• NOTE: YOU NEED ALL THREE BOOKS SIMULTANEOUSLY

Thrasymachus: Greek Through Reading by C. W. Peckett, A. D. Munday

• Sources: Thrasymachus - Anthony Munday, C W E Peckett - Häftad (9780862921392) | Bokus

III.1.2 — Book Courses: Grammar-Translation Approach

These use the old grammar-translation (G-T) approach to language acquisition, which is an older method and generally more difficult than the comprehensible input methods above.

Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald J. Mastronarde

• Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald J. Mastronarde (UC Press)
• Official website of Introduction to Attic Greek, by Donald J. Mastronarde
• “This is a really good option for people who have some previous experience with other languages that are not their first language.”¹⁰

From Alpha to Omega¹¹

• From Alpha to Omega: A Beginning Course in Classical Greek (English and Ancient Greek Edition): 9781585103911: Groton, Anne H.

Ancient Greek, Second Edition: A New Approach by Carl A. P. Ruck¹²

• Sources: http://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262680318/

An introduction to ancient Greek: a literary approach by C. A. E. Luschnig & Deborah Mitchell¹³

Greek Ollendorff by Asahel Clark Kendrik

• Sources:
  • Greek Ollendorff (Google Books)
  • Greek Ollendorff (Lulu)
  • Greek Ollendorff (Internet Archive)
• Resources:
  • Key to the exercises in Greek Ollendorff by Reddit user Bedwere
• Although it’s a traditional grammar-based course in many ways, it includes a lot of practice exercises, often in the form of dialogues.

Ancient Greek Alive

• Amazon.com: Ancient Greek Alive - Paula Saffire
• The best of the grammar-translation approaches, and a good resource after you can read fluently¹⁴

Greek to GCSE Series by John Taylor

• Sources: Greek to GCSE: Part 1

The Greek Paradigm  Handbook by Erik Geannikis, Andrew Romiti and P.T. Wilford

Learn to Read Greek series by Keller & Russell

• Two parts: Amazon.com: Learn to Read Greek: Part 1, Textbook and Workbook Set and Amazon.com: Learn to Read Greek: Part 2, Textbook and Workbook Set: 9780300167726
• Don’t use this but better than Hansen & Quinn¹⁵

Greek: An Intensive Course by Hansen and Quinn

• Greek An Intensive Course by Hansen and Quinn
• Don’t use this, says ,¹⁶ and Deka Glossa¹⁷

Homeric Greek by Clyde Pharr

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/0806119373

Complete Ancient Greek: A Teach Yourself Guide (Teach Yourself (McGraw-Hill)) 3rd Edition

Learn Ancient Greek Paperback - Peter Jones¹⁸

Reading Koine Greek by Rodney J. Decker — Reading Koine Greek (Baker Publishing Group)

• Recommended by Lisa

III.2 — Readers

“Readers” are a broad category of texts written in modern times in Ancient Greek, with the goal of presenting a simpler form of the language to assist in learning.

How to use bilingual texts:¹⁹

1. Read the translation (English)
2. Use the translation as a crutch to understand the Greek
3. Reread the Greek, using the translation only when you forget a word or a construction
4. Continue rereading the Greek text until you can read it without difficulty

See also How to use a graded reader.

Why should you focus on reading? See Paul Nation’s Four Strands Model for Language Learning and Extensive reading to learn languages.

III.2.1 — Readers: Graded Readers

• A Greek Reader by Mark Jeong — ​​A Greek Reader: Companion to A Primer of Biblical Greek - EerdWord
  • One of the few true graded readers for Ancient Greek
  • Focuses on Biblical/Koine Greek
  • Reviews at:
    • Review at Daily Dose of Greek
    • https://twitter.com/AncientGreekCI/status/1605585850644971521
• Alexandros To Hellinikon Paidion — https://www.amazon.com/Alexandros-Hellenikon-Mario-D%C3%ADaz-%C3%81vila/dp/8493579874
  • A reworking of Rouse’s A Greek Boy in a more modern form
  • Recommended by Deko Glossa,²⁰ and others
• Rouse’s Greek Boy by W. H. D. Rouse
  • Rouse also published a reader: A Greek Reader by Rouse (Internet Archive) 
• A First Greek Reader, by Charles Melville Moss.
  • A First Greek Reader.
  • https://www.amazon.com/first-Greek-reader-notes-vocabulary/dp/B0100BL2TQ
  • Recommended by
• Attica: Intermediate Classical Greek: Readings, Review, and Exercises by Cynthia L. Claxton
  • Intermediate reader
  • https://www.amazon.com/dp/030017876X

Lucian’s A True Story: An Intermediate Greek Reader: Greek Text with Running Vocabulary and Commentary

Greek reader intended for second year AG students:

https://twitter.com/AncientGreekCI/status/1591461819603976198?t=i_TGYa9Lrt-TU5ShwHF0wQ&s=19

III.2.2 — Readers: Bilingual/Interlinear Texts

You can find interlinear/bilingual texts for many works, including both Greek and English.

Interlinear Septuagint

• “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.”²¹

Interlinear new testament

• Greek-English Interlinear CSB New Testament
  • https://www.amazon.se/Greek-English-Interlinear-CSB-Testament-Hardcover/dp/1087758203/ref=asc_df_1087758203/?tag=shpngadsglede-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=476465697749&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17901687655516603316&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1012228&hvtargid=pla-1721667580217&psc=1
  • Review here: https://twitter.com/AncientGreekCI/status/1625229783222067236?s=20&t=ddSouwCNoB1u8G15aETqsw

Loeb Classical series

III.2.3 — Readers: Annotated Texts

You can find annotated Greek texts for the major texts, which have annotations explaining difficult parts of the texts

• Learning Greek with Plato by Frank Beetham
  • https://www.amazon.com/dp/1904675565
• This series of books by Geoffrey Steadman are great, and have vocab on the facing page: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AGeoffrey+D.+Steadman&s=relevancerank&text=Geoffrey+D.+Steadman&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1
  • Recommended by Deka Glossa²²

III.2.4 — Readers: Unorganized

https://greek-learner-texts.org/

• C.E. Freeman. A Greek Reader for Schools (reprint isbn 0865162670)
• Adolf Kaegi. Greek Readings for Review (reprint isbn 0865165491)
• Francis David Morice. Easy Stories in Attic Greek (updated by Anne Mahoney, isbn 1585101893)
• Evelyn Abbott. Easy Greek Reader.
• Frederic Jacobs. The Greek Reader.
• William George Rushbrooke. A First Greek Reader.
• John E. B. Mayor. First Greek Reader.
• Archibald Hamilton Bryce. First Greek Reader.
• Alexander Waugh Young. A Tutorial Greek Reader.
• Albert Harkness. First Greek Book. (The third part of this text includes reading selections)
• John Stuart Blackie. Greek and English Dialogues.

Advice:

• https://fivebooks.com/best-books/learning-ancient-greek-paul-mcmullen/
• Morice’s Stories in Attic Greek. You can download it from google books at https://books.google.se/books?id=IaoBAAAAYAAJ&dq=morice+attic&redir_esc=y.
• It’s also been reprinted by Focus Publishing if you prefer a hard copy.
• intended for beginners

III.3 — Text Courses

University of Texas’s Linguistics Research Center Course on New Testament (Koine) Greek

• Fully text-based
• https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/ntgol

University of Texas’s Linguistics Research Center Course on Classical Greek

• Fully text-based
• Provides an overview of Ancient Greek and 10 lessons based on famous Greek texts. It is all text-based.
• https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/grkol

III.4 — References: Grammars

• Classical Greek: A New Grammar by Juan Coderch
  • https://www.amazon.com/dp/0957138709

III.5 — References: Dictionaries

Start with the “Little Liddell” and get the other ones as your fluency increases.

“Little Liddell”

• Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon (Greek and English Edition) Paperback

“Middle Liddell”

• An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon: Founded Upon the Seventh Edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon Paperback

“Big Liddell”

• A Greek-English Lexicon - H. G. Liddell; R. Scott - Oxford University Press

III.6 — Online Classes & Video Courses

The Ancient Language Institute

• https://ancientlanguage.com/

The Great Courses Greek 101 by Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller

Introduction to Homeric Greek (Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies

• A series of 15 videos presented by The Center for Hellenic Studies, at Harvard University.
• YouTube

Learn Ancient Greek with Leonard Muellner & Belisi Gillespie

• Learn Ancient Greek, with Prof. Leonard Muellner (YouTube)
• 118 videos which present the content covered in two semesters of a college-level Introduction to Ancient Greek

Biblical Greek - Lessons in Order - YouTube

• Comprehensible input!

Alpha with Angela

• Alpha with Angela in Lucian - YouTube
• https://www.youtube.com/@AlphawithAngela/videos
• Comprehensible input!

Ancient Greek in Action [in ascending order] - YouTube

https://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/product/blc-online-living-koin-greek-introduction-levels-ac-beta/

• Focuses on CI²³

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/greek-101-learning-an-ancient-language

https://thepatrologist.com/shop/

• SeumasU : Online courses in Latin and Greek

https://www.triodos-trivium.com/online-classes/

OMIΛEIN Online Courses

• Teaches a communicative approach to Ancient Greek
• “Awesome approach”²⁴ ·

III.7 — Mobile & Web Apps

Biblingo — https://biblingo.org/

• See also https://twitter.com/biblingoapp

Memrise — https://app.memrise.com/courses/english-us/ancient-greek/²⁵

Utalk — https://utalk.com/en/plans/greek-ancient

Mango Languages: Ancient Greek — https://mangolanguages.com/available-languages/koine-greek/

• Uses the modern Greek pronunciation!

Mango Languages: Ancient Greek — https://mangolanguages.com/available-languages/ancient-greek/

• Uses a reconstructed pronunciation

Ancient Greek in Action: Ancient Greek in Action! Ancient Greek Lessons: Koine, Classical Attic, Biblical - YouTube

III.8 — Podcasts

Biblical Languages Podcast from Biblingo

• High quality podcast about how to learn the biblical languages, including Greek
• https://biblingo.org/podcast/

III.9 — Other Resources

List of beginner resources: https://twitter.com/AncientGreekCI/status/1630962942328942594

Ancient Greek By The Ranieri-Dowling Method by Luke Ranieri

• https://luke-ranieri.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/ancient-greek-by-the-ranieri-dowling-method-latin-summary-of-forms-of-nouns-verbs-adjectives-pronouns-audio-grammar-tables

Textkit Greek and Latin Forums

https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientGreek/wiki/resources/

https://scholaeinterretiales.wordpress.com/teach-yourself-greek/

Ancient Greek Net

If you want to nerd out on how the pronunciation of Greek probably changed over time: Ranieri’s Greek Pronunciation Chronology

IV — Ancient Greek Literature

These are authentic texts from history.

IV.1 — Lists

• Summary of Greek literature from the Ancient Gree.

IV.2 — Intermediate Literature

Which texts should I start with?

• The Greek Prose Course for Post-Beginners — series of books 
• Gospel of John in New Testament ← easiest text to start with²⁶
• Eros at the Banquet by Louise Pratt
  • this intermediate-level textbook reinforces the first-year lessons and enables students to read Plato’s Symposium, one of the most engaging works in Attic Greek, the dialect taught in most first-year courses.
  • https://www.amazon.com/dp/0806141425
• A series of YouTube videos to Learn Greek with John’s Gospel - YouTube
• Plato ← more challenging
• Homer ← most challenging text
• Lucian’s The Ass — real greek texts with annotations and vocabulary
• Lucian’s The Ass: An Intermediate Greek Reader: Greek Text with Running Vocabulary and Commentary

IV.3 — Collections

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ - Incredible library of original texts where you can click on words and get the definitions. But be careful as it can be a crutch

IV.4 — Advanced Literature

Apology of Socrates by Plato

• “It’s excellent for many reasons but in terms of improving your Greek, it’s really good for two reasons. One, it’s not as hard as a lot of the other so-called seminal works of classical Greek literature. It’s no Thucydides for example, which is widely regarded as excellent Attic, which is the Athenian dialect, but also very highfalutin, quite sophisticated and often quite difficult. Plato writes and therefore we read him in the vernacular.”²⁷

The Clouds by Aristophanes

The Histories by Herodotus

Unorganized below

• UBS 5th Revised Edition - Greek New Testament: American Bible Society: 9783438051189: Amazon.com: Books
• Recommended by Lisa
• Lysias’ Orations 1 and 3 or Plato’s Apology
• New Testament (Koine)
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Koine)
• The Odyssey (Homeric)
• The Iliad (Homeric)

Neo-Greek literature?

IV.5 — “Modern” Ancient Greek Literature

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

• The Little Prince … in Ancient Greek by Juan Coderch
  • https://www.amazon.com/Juan-Coderch/e/B007SVUGCQ/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Ancient Greek) by J.K. Rowling
  • https://www.amazon.com/dp/1408866161

IV.6 — Audiobooks

• AncientGreek.eu’s Audiobooks in Ancient Greek

V — Books about the Ancient Greek world

• Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers 2nd Edition
  • Great if you want to learn about the history of the language
• Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen by Mary Norris
  • Story of an infatuation with Greece and the Ancient Greeks
  • https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393357864.

‌

Medieval and Modern Greek by Robert Browning

VI — Thanks and Acknowledgements

Thanks to the advice from the following people:

• Lisa — who is also learning Ancient Greek
• Jesse Weiner — Associate Professor of Classics at Hamilton College

VII — References