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< h1 > Ἡ τῆς ἀναβάσεως ἀρχή </ h1 >
< h3 > The Beginning of the Journey </ h3 >
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< p > Anyone who has known me for a while will know that I like learning languages and frequently learn those that most people — most < em > normal </ em > people at least — would not study . To those , it should come as no surprise that I have taken up the rather gargantuan ordeal of trying to learn the Ancient Greek language , and so as to better track my progress over time and perhaps share some useful resources with you , I decided to start a sort of “Online Language Diary” wherein I will be posting — irregularly — things regarding what I have learnt .</ p >
< p > Let us thus begin with the first post where I will be detailing the resources I have thus far found and which I am currently successfully using to study this fascinating language .</ p >
< p > Firstly , it was paramount , obviously , to find a decent textbook which was suitable for an autodidact study of the language ; something much easier said than done . After a lot of searching around and gathering advice , I finally settled on Hansen and Quinn & #39;s “Intensive Greek” — and was promptly staggered when it had arrived at my doorstep; for indeed, I had imagined it being intensive — it is, after all, in its title — but I did <em>not</em> expect to receive a book that weighed 3 pounds. I decided to simply go along with it and began studying the language using this book.<br></p>
< p > Shortly thereafter I realised wherefore they had called it < em > intensive </ em > Greek , as this is a book which does not wait for you and which introduces a large number of grammatical concepts — and the accompanying inflexions to learn — right from the start ; indeed , it introduces both the first and second declension plus the articles and < em > their </ em > declension in the first chapter and then continues by teaching basically all verb forms ( of which there are a myriad in Ancient Greek ) over the following chapters . < br ></ p >
< p > I am generally someone that can learn grammar without much trouble , but even I found this rather overwhelming . I have , thus far , finished Unit 1 — which took me roughly half a week to accomplish , including all the drills and exercises which are found at the end of each chapter — and am now slowly beginning to work my way through the second chapter ; therein you are introduced to verbs , tenses , moods , aspect , verb endings etc . I am honestly not sure whether or not I like this approach yet , but it seems to have worked when it comes to the declension of first - and second - declension nouns and the articles , for I am already rather good at declining those after merely half a week . < br ></ p >
< p > It is , generally speaking , my wont to learn a lot of grammar and , unfortunately , neglect vocabulary quite a lot ; this leads to me knowing how the language < em > works </ em > in detail , but this is of but little use if I only know of a few dozen words . To mitigate this problem , I thought of getting a Greek reader to accompany my rather grammatical book — and I believe to have found a few really good ones ; but one of them is absolutely amazing , namely < em > Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata </ em >. For those amongst you who know some Latin , this name may not be too unfamiliar , for indeed , there exists a book for learning Latin titled < em > Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata </ em > which aims at a rather < em > “natural” </ em > way of learning the language . It does so by it being written < em > entirely </ em > in Latin and beginning with very easy words and grammatical structures and slowly moving forward ; this is complemented by margin notes , grammatical explanations — in Latin ! — and some exercises .</ p >
< p > I found this to be a really good way of studying a language , especially with an accompanying book discussing the language & #39;s grammar more in-depth, and was delighted to find out that there exists a version of this book for Ancient Greek as well, albeit made by a student in their free-time. This book — also known as <em>Ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζομένη</em> — is currently being written by Seumas Macdonald and is open-source! It is by no means as extensive as the book it tries to imitate, but I believe it to be an invaluable resource. There are still a few mistakes — such as <em>“τὸ Α καὶ τὸ Β γράμματά ἐστιν.”</em> where the word <em>γράμματά</em> has two accents instead of one (γράμματα). I am still not entirely sure whether that is perhaps an accentuation quirk, but I shall be sending him an email regarding this soon, so as to clear this matter up — and it has neither margin-notes nor any exercises or explanations, but I still believe it is a great companion to my <em>Intensive Greek</em> book. <br></p>
< p > The latter problems are somewhat mitigated by two spin - off projects , namely < em > ὁ ἑταῖρος </ em > ( lit . < em > the companion </ em > ) which strives to provide some “extra practice and reinforcement” . Another is < em > Γραμματική καὶ μελετήματα εἰς Ἡ Ἑλληνικἠ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζόμενη </ em > ( Grammar and exercises for Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata ) which provides just what the title promises — grammar and exercises . Unfortunately , however , both of these projects do not appear to have seen any update for nearly a year , so they only have very limited use as companions to the original text . < br ></ p >
< p > Nevertheless , I am much indebted to their work , as this is going to make learning this language much more feasible than I had initially feared , as these will provide me with some more vocabulary to learn . < br ></ p >
< p > This is my current state : I have finished Unit 1 , have slowly started with Unit 2 — which I am planning on finishing by the end of next week — whilst using the above - mentioned — and some additional ones if I find any — resources to learn some more vocabulary on the way .</ p >
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