Author Description

A course in ancient Greek for beginners. The author writes "This [second edition] has been redesigned both to offer more help to the self-learner and to make the text usable not only as a beginning method but also as a review book for more advanced students... The material can easily be completed in a one-semester accelerated course meeting five hours per week..." Ruck uses the "horizontal approach": starting from very simple sentences he gradually introduces more complex structures. Lesson 1 introduces nominal sentences, with nouns and adjectives in the nominative case only and no verb (for instance: ho aner sophos, the man [is] wise). There are many well-thought-out exercises. Lesson 2 introduces simple sentences with a verb and nominative case only; there's a table of thematic and non-thematic verb endings for the present active tense. Lesson 3 introduces the accusative case and the three declensions, accusative case only. And so on. By Lesson 9, out of 23, we are translating a 16-line passage adapted from Apollodorus, and by the end we are translating large chunks of Plato. As someone who had 2 years of Greek at high school, a long time ago, I think it's very good. It explains fundamental principles clearly and logically. It's tough. But the exercises are imaginative and very helpful, and I like the approach.