Greek for Reading | 
| Author: Gerda Seligson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $35.00
New (4) Used (9) from $17.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 1334826
Media: Paperback
Edition: Prl
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 350
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0472082663
Dewey Decimal Number: 477
EAN: 9780472082667
ASIN: 0472082663
Publication Date: November 1, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A highly innovative approach to Classical Greek for beginning students
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| Customer Reviews:
 A more natural approach June 15, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is rightly named. The first lesson begins with simple Greek sentences taken from actual Greek texts. The book focuses, not on memorization of grammatical charts, but on learning to understand real classical Greek sentences, and by the end moves on paragraphs and finally to several pages from Plato. Rather than doing endless grammatical drills, students are encouraged to dive into Greek sentences and make sense out of them. The book stresses the concept of sentence kernals (such as transitive, intransitive and factitive), teaching students to recongnize the core of the sentence and its type of structure. The main goal of most chapters is to be able to translate a list of sentences taken from classical Greek authors.I do have a couple complaints. There are a few (though not many) typos in the book in Greek (such as a soft breathing when there should be a rough breathing) that can be quite confusing to a student if there is not a teacher who can point out the typo. There are a couple times when one of the sentences at the end of a chapter that is too difficult for the student's current level and even include significant vocabulary that has not yet been learned. (My advice is just to ignore any sentences that are too difficult and go back and try them again after a few lessons.) The book on the whole divides information into managable units, but ch.15 (participles) tries to fit a lot into one chapter (I would recommend doing ch.15 in two segments). The methodology used in this book is terrific, in my opinion, for the average beginning Greek student because it encourages students to read from the start and is not overwhelming with jargon and grammar. Hopefully a revised edition will come out that is more polished. Until then, this is still a book that I would recommend for anyone willing to try a new technique for learning Greek.
 Excellent basic course to start reading quickly May 24, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Greek for Reading covers the basic grammar of Classical Greek in a fairly unusual way. Most texts have lengthy discussions of grammar and syntax and few reading exercises, and fewer with translations to guide you. This text, however, has you reading basic sentences as soon as possible, most of them drawn from classical sources like Plato or Menander. The quotes are often quite clever and, therefore, easier to remember than the dull drills one encounters in many other books. If you want a thorough grammar with everything you could want to know, try Hansen and Quinn's intensive course.The other reviewer here (April 2000) implies that this book is a course in modern Greek, which it is not. Classical and modern Greek are not mutually intelligible (a common mistake).
Greek for Reading. April 24, 2000
1 out of 8 found this review helpful
Well, the first thing I have to say is that my girlfriend is from Greece and I am from the Dominican Republic. We live in the United States and we'd like to go to Greece next year and I'm trying very hard to learn Greek. When my girlfriend saw the book, she said: "This is the one that I need for you." After that I have improved my reading, of course, because of the structure of this book. yeeahsou.
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