How to read and speak Ancient Greek fluently

[@Leoptxr]

Finally a shining beacon of light in the world of classical languages! Your videos are pure gold, keep them comming o/

[@sidp5381]

Leonardo Teixeira really good

[@samuelleask5642]

0:00 and yet here I am, having never studied any language previously, and I'm starting Latin and Greek simultaneously at first year level lol

[@Smiley_Face0]

u still alive

[@gabriel.6965]

how are you?

[@NathanaelKuechenberg]

That helps. Latin is very similar to Greek .... so you're going to have a better time rather than worse. Studying more languages than 2 helps. I always like to make flash cards with Greek vocabulary words on one side and Latin vocabulary words on the other.

[@hmartin1761]

How's it going? I'm basically teaching myself classical studies because my school doesn't teach it. This is fun too

[@NathanaelKuechenberg]

@@hmartin1761 I've been self-taught basically my entire life being formerly homeschooled. Now, I'm 22 yrs old and am basically an "autodidactic polymath" if you want to classify me in an abstruse / erudite manner. This semester I've transferred Universities to study Classics for college credit. And so far, my professor says that he is impressed by how much I've learned by studying without formal training. He told me that no one really learns Greek on their own, but after discussing the future perfect Indicative and dual cases with me, he ended up saying that he's impressed by my understanding and that some 3rd year students aren't as advanced as I am right now. Unfortunately he wants me to start with Ancient Greek 101 and review the grammar again, which isn't too terrible. But yes, basically for me it was possible to teach myself a LOT of Greek. I can read the New Testamant, Septuagint, and Apology fairly well. But I'd say I am a rare exception and for most people it wouldn't have been possible. To be honest, out of all the people I've met who claim to have studied Greek, my professor is the only person whose Greek is superior to mine. That's wht I'm in his class and want to be his student. I hope this answers your question.

[@vladimirlukin8969]

Curiously enough, Heinrich Schliemann was also a proponent of modern pronunciation. This is from his Iliois: "I therefore strongly recommend all directors of colleges and schools to introduce the method I have followed ; to do away with the abominable English pronunciation of Greek, which has never been in use outside of England ; to let children first be taught modern Greek by native Greek professors, and only afterwards begin ancient Greek when they can speak and write the modern language with fluency, which it can hardly take them more than six months to do. The same professors can teach the ancient language, and by following my method they will enable intelligent boys to master all its difficulties in a year, so that they will not only learn it as a living language, but will also understand the ancient classics, and be able to write fluently on any subject they are acquainted with. This is no idle theory, but a stubborn fact, which therefore ought to be listened to. It is a cruel injustice to inflict for years upon an unhappy pupil a language of which, when he leaves college, as a general rule he knows hardly more than when he first began to learn it. The causes of this miserable result are, in the first place, the arbitrary and atrocious pronunciation of Greek usual in England ; and in the second place the erroneous method employed, according to which the pupils learn to disregard the accents entirely, and to consider them as mere impediments, whereas the accents constitute a most important auxiliary in learning the language. What a happy effect would be produced on general education, and what an enormous stimulus would be given to scientific pursuits, if intelligent youths could obtain in eighteen months a thorough knowledge of modern Greek, and of that most beautiful, most divine, and most sonorous language, which was spoken by Homer and Plato, and could learn the latter as a living tongue, so as never to forget it! And how easily, at how small an expense, could the change be made ! Greece abounds with highly-educated men, who have a thorough knowledge of the language of their ancestors, who are perfectly acquainted with all the classics, and who would gladly and at moderate salaries accept places in England or America. How greatly the knowledge of modern Greek assists the student in mastering ancient Greek I could not illustrate better than by the fact, that I have seen here in Athens office-clerks who, feeling no inclination for commerce, have left the counting-house, settled down to study, and been able in four months time to understand Homer, and even Thucydides."

[@iberius9937]

Beautiful quote. My sentiments, Exactly.

[@volimNestea]

Keep in mind that the "English pronunciation" he is refering to is not the same as classical/reconstructed/Erasmian. Not by a long shot. He is complaining about the fact that they were pronouncing Ancient Greek the same way they pronounced English. For example, Ἀλκιβιάδης would have been pronounced al-see-BUY-a-deez or something along those lines. In light of that, I really do think nobody can disagree with him. However, I strongly believe we need to adopt one fixed reconstructed system of pronunciation for Ancient Greek across the board, just like we've done with Latin. And it needs to be a proper reconstructed system, no F for Φ and H for Χ and similar nonsense. Because once you learn the proper pronunciation of Ancient Greek, it all suddenly starts to make sense. Without that, you're just learning what is really a nonsense language, and it's small wonder that you don't understand it. You wouldn't tell anyone that it's okay to pronounce the french R as an alveolar tap or a trill just because it's easier that way, why do something similar with Ancient Greek?

[@roby1211]

I've been teaching myself Ancient Greek for over a year now. Yes it is very challenging and will certainly test your memory, but provided you have excellent text books with lots of exercises and reading passages it is certainly learnable even if you are a beginner. I started out with 2 text books Greek to GCSE 1 and 2, which are designed for the GCSE curriculum in England. All the best.

[@definitely2defi]

I studied Latin for 7 years in school but was only able to read fluently until I started following your advice on classical languages a while back. Now that I'm starting Ancient Greek at university soon, it's good to see new content from you and your old videos. Keep giving great advice / praecepta!

[@rrealgr]

Hello! How is it going?

[@taylorbrian920]

θαυμάσια! Ευχαριστώ! Thanks so much for one of the more interesting series of KZbin videos I've heard in a long time!

[@dekaglossai]

I'm happy to hear it, thanks!

[@Cachoeira1986]

Now I speak five languages, including latin, and want to learn ancient greek. Thanks to your very helpful video I'm well informed about the available resources.

[@dimitrisx2419]

If you learn ancient greek you can learn then modern greek very easily

[@PedroSotelo188]

Brasileiro?

[@staceycarras3815]

And go to Greek Church as often as you can, our Priests have the Ancient stuff sorted.

[@horatioredgreenblue2130]

thanks for the tip man, on my way.

[@connorhill3796]

Frrrrrr😂😂😂 δεν θα μπορούσα να το πω καλύτερα ο ίδιος😂

[@allenfrisch]

Lots of excellent advice in this video! But I’m surprised you didn’t mention the wealth of resources available by studying Koine via Biblical Greek materials! While Biblical Greek is certainly a niche branch of the language, it offers two awesome benefits: 1) Koine is a nice transitional point in the language evolution which links modern to classical Greek, and 2) it’s incredibly easy to find inexpensive source study materials. Also, while the vocabulary of the Bible is relatively simplified compared to Classical texts, the core of the Greek language is easier to spot since it’s far less cluttered with flowery terminology and rarely used poetic jargon.

[@flaviaa55]

the dark academic in me brought me here

[@grumposaurus]

Thanks once more! For this and the Sanskrit video (the others are just as welcome, but I've already commented on them). Do not forget to list URL references if you have the chance, although the books you've mentioned are not hard to find online, once the names are known. It's great you're posting on KZbin again.

[@dekaglossai]

Whoops, I forgot. I'll get up the links soon. Thanks for watching!

[@grumposaurus]

That will be great. Thanks! You may find interesting a series of 19th-century books that offer both free and phrase-by-phrase translations in French of the standard Greek and Roman classics alongside the original texts. They are good follow-ups to preparatory books. This page juxtas.pagesperso-orange.fr/ lists a selection online, for download. They are a little hard to find on the site. For an author you can go to "Les juxtas numérises), then the author's name on the left, click on a title and then on "Télécharger le juxta !" There are PDFs online, but I seem to have lost track of the index. Here is a Latin example: juxta.free.fr/IMG/pdf/bgalli.pdf

[@senorsmile]

Fantastic video. I wasn't aware of most of those resources. I might also recommend assimil's Greg ancien, which is perhaps the best assimil course ever written and has full audio.

[@dekaglossai]

Thank you! I meant to mention the assimil course, but I forgot.

[@iktunutki]

Conversely, their Modern Greek course has always seemed to me to be one of the most boring courses they've published. I'm surprised that Deka Glossai would say that Modern Greek has much better material: could you point to a list of good material for Modern Greek?

[@petermontgomery9217]

Totally agree: working through the Assmil Grec Ancien course after doing the first 8 chapters or so of Hanson and Quinn's Intensive Greek got me well on my way to reading real Greek. A absolutely fabulous course, I can't praise Assimil enough for it.

[@BernardoVasconcelos1]

These comments were helpful to me. By the way, do you know if there is any significant difference between the french and the italian assimil courses for ancient greek? I am also curious to know if anyone has tries the the Latin course.

[@CodyMSmith-oo5qd]

Bernardo C. D. A. Vasconcelos I have bought the Latin course from Assimil. I worked on it a bit during fall break, but I lost the time as I am working through Assimil’s Using French course and I also study Latin at school. The Latin Assimil course seems to be one of my favorite Assimil courses as it just allows one to hear the real language to be spoken. There is also some Latin from translation of modern books such as “Winnie Ille Pu.” Next, I do believe that the audio recordings are superbe. They have been re-recorded. This method has actually been republished as it is from the 1960’s. This method therefore tends to be longer than the others, but it allows one to analyze more sentences.

[@camerongreider6447]

I laughed out loud in recognition at your description of Hansen & Quinn, which I used in college in the eighties. I’ve taken up Greek again recently, doing a Zoom course with Schola Latina, which is excellent.

[@danaron3348]

Wowww thanks ! This really makes a lot of sense. I think instead of learning Ancient Greek I will begin with Modern Greek and then go on to Ancient. Thank you for this interesting advice, I appreciate it emensely. ☺

[@orvos1459]

How’s your progress going right now?

[@danaron3348]

@@orvos1459 I'm doing well Ty so much for asking @orvos1459. I'm enjoying learning the language very much. 🙂⚘🌼

[@orvos1459]

@@danaron3348 that’s good to hear. Have you started Ancient Greek yet? I’ve barely started modern Greek.

[@danaron3348]

@@orvos1459 No I have not started Ancient yet im only doing Modern for now but I'm still keen on eventually progressing to doing Ancient as well. It is my dream so I'm working toward fulfilling my dream, it's taking time but I'll get there eventually ☺🙃

[@orvos1459]

@@danaron3348 that’s good. It takes years to learn Ancient Greek though. Do you mind if I ask, are you learning it for college or just for fun?

[@scottgoodson8295]

Just a caveat about older Modern Greek resources (like the Cortina and Teach Yourself shown here): Before 1982, Modern Greek was written with a "polytonic" orthography, which indicated all the pitch accents of Ancient Greek. After 1982, a "monotonic" orthography was introduced, which represents the stress accent of Modern Greek less ambiguously, in a fashion almost identical to Spanish.

[@dekaglossai]

Yes, thanks for mentioning this.

[@XwpisONOMA]

With all due respect you are wrong. It there is an "orthography" that is the least ambiguous THAT is the "polytonic" one. Of course that is true ONLY if we are talking about ancient Greek which was natively a language written ONLY in capital letters and without any accents at all. You see the ancient Greek did know how to pronounce their language, it is during the and after "hellenistic" times that the wide spread of the Greek language necessitated the introduction of an accentuation system in order to facilitate learning by non Greek populations. In modern Greek most of the inflections have been dropped and the only accent is placed on (obviously vowels) to denote a slight but definite stress on and with a clear increase of loudness of that particular vowel. In short "polytonic" is more descriptive accents-wise while "monotonic" is a practical and somewhat successful attempt to depict how modern Greeks accentuate (pronounce with a raised volume and stress) their vowels.

[@mercygusman1023]

Scott Goodson you are awesome

[@Glassandcandy]

"spend an hour or so reading Chaucer each day... after a few weeks you will be able to read him no problem" eh, I guess this is possible, Chaucer's dialect came from east midlands dialect of middle english which is a direct ancestor for modern english today, so I could see this. "then move backwards in time to Beowulf or any old english text and use the same method [...] after a few weeks of reading an hour each day you will have no problem reading old english" this is BLATANTLY false. Old English is simply too far removed to be learned this way, even if one is versed well in chaucer, it doesn't mean they will be able to find their way around any old english, especially since Chaucer is LATE middle english from the EAST MIDLANDS dialect, the dialect that modern english is borne of. If one was to read a Mercian text in middle English (which i will leave a sample of below) they would have far more trouble and would desperately need a source to look up vocabulary that simply has dropped all together from modern english, on top of this, the syntax and grammar left from Old English that was replaced by Norse grammar would be extremely confusing. Then to go farther back towards Old English would be immensely more difficult than even this, for almost all Old English texts, including Beowulf and the Dream of the Rude, come from the Wessex dialect, a dialect that is not the direct ancestor of modern english, (the dialect modern english was borne of is Mercian) thus the language is seperated even further. I will leave beneath this comment a sample of old English as well to illustrate my point of its separation from modern english to be too great to simply learn through osmosis. (also if you're serious about learning old english and want to check out beowulf, DONT get the penguin copy, get the Seamus Heaney bi-lingual edition, it preserves the old english wonderfully with the rhythmic breaks in between each word indicating how to read it rhythmically like a true Saxon would and the translation is both accurate and beautiful.) From: Layomon's Brut - early south midland dialect middle english (different dialect and much earlier than Chaucer, but not nearly as far removed as Beowulf's Wessex Dialect) An preost wes on leoden; Laȝamon wes ihoten. 1 he wes Leouenaðes sone; liðe him beo Drihten. 2 He wonede at Ernleȝe; at æðelen are chirechen. 3 vppen Seuarne staþe; sel þar him þuhte. 4 on-fest Radestone; þer he bock radde. 5 Hit com him on mode; & on his mern þonke. 6 þet he wolde of Engle; þa æðelæn tellen. 7 wat heo ihoten weoren; & wonene heo comen. 8 þa Englene londe; ærest ahten. 9 æfter þan flode; þe from Drihtene com. 10 From: Beowulf - Wessex Dialect - Olde Aenglisc HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum, þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah, oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!

[@Hun_Uinaq]

big boss bob ross I find myself in the unique position of one who's actually tried something along these lines. So, I must agree with you. The only reason I was able to get as far as I was with old English is because I speak German. Without knowing German, modern English, and experience in six other languages, I would've been hopelessly lost. Old English had a case system that's very similar to modern German, and some of it's vocabulary is a lot more close to modern German that it is to modern English and someways. Yes, middle English is fairly similar to modern English, but, without knowing some French, you're pretty lost there too. Incidentally, I found middle English examples from the north of England far easier to understand than those from Southern England. I don't know why.Wes thu hal!

[@martingrimshaw4049]

Although going from Middle English to Anglo Saxon is quite a leap.A good knowledge of German would be useful for Beowulf whereas French is more helpful reading Chaucer.

[@Paulovocal]

Learn Icelandic instead

[@David-ud9ju]

@@martingrimshaw4049 If you're educated and have a good vocabulary, you should be able to get the gist of Chaucer without too much difficulty, although you won't be able to understand all the words, but Beowulf? Forget it. You would have to learn Old English as if it were a foreign language; it has a different alphabet and everything.

[@martinmichalek]

Not to sound like a snide, but learning to read Chaucer fluently is attainable after, like, four hours.

[@hmartin1761]

Yes! Finally a reliable source. I can read ancient Greek pretty well and this gives me some extra understanding. Thanks.

[@johnsanchez8029]

I recently learned to read, write and speak Arabic at home on my own in less than 6 months. With a decent fluency. It’s all about the motivation. It happened after being bed ridden after surgery. My motivating factor was Back in 2006 I went to the MidEast on deployment and became OBSESSED with the culture. Then after submitting to God years later and learning history to further understand the Bible, I realized how important the MidEast is. Even in today’s politics. So it Motivated me more. It’s a tough language for sure. But when you want something bad enough you’ll get it. And like this dude said, once I learned Arabic, my Spanish and even my English sharpened. In the future I would like to learn Greek or Aramaic.

[@meusisto]

How did you learn it?

[@RadicalPersonalFinance]

Can you tell us more about the techniques and materials that worked for you?

[@belaghoulashi]

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. Additionally a program like Bibleworks, although initially expensive, allows you to set interlinear versions of multiple translations of the text in multiple languages, many of which are classics in their right, such as the Latin Vulgate, Luther's German Bibel, the King James English version, etc. Would there was a similar resource available for Plato, Homer, the whole literature of Attic Greek, etc.! Anyway, not to push "The Bible" itself on anyone (I'm not a Christian myself) it does offer unsurpassed sources of world class culturally significant reading material for anyone studying almost any language, and many of the resources available are excellent "models" of what could made available eventually for other students of languages in general.

[@dekaglossai]

Definitely, the Septuaginta is a great resource for all learners of a Greek. I would love to see a resource like that for Plato!

[@NousChristou]

Is there a chance you will ever do a recital of the LXX? I know companies like LOGOS Bible Software probably would pay a good bit for someone who does so. I would imagine you would do as good or better than John Schwandt did for the New Testament.

[@asicdathens]

New Testament Greek is almost identical to "Katharevousa" Greek , the official Greek until 1977

[@staceycarras3815]

The Greek-English ( Orthodox ) New Testament, "Nestle-Aland", The Ultimate Ancient Greek Book !

[@sibali8476]

What about the iliad bitch

[@DS-zd4tk]

Well This was very I encouraging seeing as I have to take Ancient Greek for my major...I don’t have the time to learn a bunch of other languages first

[@PaulNitz]

Δεκα Γλῶσσαι, χάριν ἔχω σοι. σύμφημι σοι. In the face of whatever expert advice you get, listen to Deka.

[@mladyavery9138]

Deka gl ssai, chárin échō soi. Súmfimi soi :)

[@greg_c23]

Its ironic that you are not greek and write ancient greek and Im greek and cant even understand what this means bruh

[@greg_c23]

If im not wrong you said something like "I know 10 languages" or something

[@uayninaduian4989]

Will you ever do grammar lessons on ancient Greek, Sir ?

[@someweirdo2573]

i take that as a challange, ive never fully learned any language yet but will learn this because of your words. Only the seeming flowing water can negate the path before me now into the strains of what is and what isnt.

[@highviewbarbell]

I found a 16th century copy of Thucydides on Archive which has the Peloponnesian war side by side in the same page in latin and ancient greek

[@phothar93]

So I have to learn modern Greek and Italian before actually start learning Ancient Greek?

[@ScorpioMartianus]

I'm trying to find that Spanish Lingua-Latina-style of Alexandros To Hellenikon Paidion but to now avail. Where did you find it?

[@meusisto]

Could you?

[@smashandburn1]

I found a PDF and have been working through it. It's pretty good and the exercises are easy enough to not be frustrating, but difficult enough to be interesting. Good as a companion to the oxford Athenaze.

[@pardieupopper339]

Solid, pragmatic, and helpful. Thanks.

[@magnet8185]

That method actually works. I read the popol vuh in spanish spain, even though I'm not very fluent I'm more used to the Mexican spanish, but after completing I was able to grasp when the "ais" at the end of several words are placed and I could begin to expect them.

[@savvasavraam8670]

Absolutely loved it and i respect the effort. One thing though, i am Greek i have studied both Greek(all my life) and latin and i also fluently speak German Russian English and some Spanish. Latin is 60%, or even more, Greek. Its like saying Greek gave birth to latin. If you know latin you will be able to understand many Greek words. Cyrillic languages used Greek as their constructing material as well. And many more. Greek is not that hard. Only if you love it, will you learn it. And yes if you do speak modern Greek (Cypriot Greek would be even better) its almost piece of cake to learn ancient Greek. Its the same language. Of course there are some differences mainly in the pronunciation. Thank you

[@alexandertoro-quinones9984]

The Hanson and Quinn hate is wild.

[@dr.phil.pepper3325]

I absolutely doubt that it takes longer to to read Ancient Greek texts fluently than it is to read texts in Japanese or Chinese. I've been studying Japanese for 6 years now and it means learning absolutely everything from zero. I'm still relying mostly on texts with furigana because otherwise I can't look up and learn unknown words. I've begun studying Ancient Greek two month ago and it feels like come home. I must admit that my native language is German, so I've already been familiar with the case system and conjugating every tiny piece of the sentence. But I'd still say remembering the vocab and looking up new words is so much easier in ancient Greek than it is in Japanese, even for native English speakers. I just can't imagine a scenario where a native English speaker learns written Japanese faster than Ancient Greek, if they use the same learning methods for the same amount of hours per day.

[@davidalen9279]

Superb advice. Thank you.

[@stevekon11]

A lot of useful info here ,thank you.

[@dekaglossai]

Thank you!

[@j.m.waterfordasxiphanex3738]

Fabulous. Concise and helpful :D

[@walterkiel552]

The Interlinear Translations on the Hamiltonian System Published by David McKay seem to be pretty good. Homer's Iliad and The Anabasis of Xenophon are the Greek Texts and there are four or five others in Latin.

[@stefanhansen5882]

Wonderful! Thanks! :)

[@savvassimitsis9090]

Εύγε! An other great video!

[@fleurpouvior2967]

Not fluent in any other languages, but I have been conversational in 3 languages besides my mother tongue

[@Eruptor1000]

Classical languages are beautiful ;)

[@ekoi1995]

Having learned Latin and the Grammar is just the same (yeah yeah prepositions + cases, declension and conjugation, genders... I get that). Except for Aorists and Middle voice. X'D

[@dr.corneliusq.cadbury6984]

All Cortina courses, including the audio, are now freely available online.

[@evanfont913]

About your comparison between Ancient and Modern Greek, would you say that the difference would between the two more similar to Middle English (Chaucer) and Modern English, or even Early Modern (Shakespear) and Modern English? I know that this is a bit of a loaded question because no two languages evolve in the same way, but my monolingual mind has trouble processing such things :)

[@dekaglossai]

I would say that Homer and Modern Greek are about as different as Old English and Modern English, while easy Attic and Koine Greek are about as different from Modern Greek as Middle English to Modern English. But of course it's not an exact comparison.

[@David-ud9ju]

@@dekaglossai When you say "as different" you mean totally different languages that have different alphabets and hardly share any words, because that's the difference between Old and Modern English and I don't think Ancient and Modern Greek are that dissimilar.

[@XenoZona]

What Pronounciation Scheme do you use? I try to pronounce θ, χ, and φ as aspirates, but after a while this becomes easy to do. What still seems difficult to pull off are the accents and vowel length. Most people I hear reading texts aloud seem to totally ignore these two, and most of the rest who try really overdo it. It seems difficult to find any good reference point to judge my own pronounciation against other than the Wikipedia page on Attic phonology.

[@atouloupas]

XenoZona I recommend that you watch the videos of the youtube channel Podium Arts by Ioannis Stratakis. In my opinion, he has the best recordings of the reconstructed pronunciation I have found on the internet so far. He also has a couple of videos on the structure of syllables, which is basically vowel length and accent. Hope it helps

[@Greco1114]

Ηρθα εδω γιατι περιμενα πως θα μαθω να διαβαζω αρχαια Ελληνικα. :)

[@cfroi08]

μην, είναι γκαί πολύ, γυναίκες είναι "ΓKΟΥΝΑΙΚΑΣ"

[@olbiomoiros]

@@cfroi08ἡ νὺν προφορά τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς γλῶσσης ἀναπτύχθη κατὰ τὸ τέλος τοῦ μεσαίωνος.

[@jeffmclaughlin6612]

Thank you for this video. I have struggled not for 3 or 4 years but 15 years. Why I haven't given up is perhaps a sign of something wrong with me. I started with H&Q, which I actually enjoyed, but I agree it didn't teach me to read Greek. One thing that's particularly difficult about Greek is the wide variety of styles in the authors. I can read Xenophon and Herodotus fairly well, drama less well, and I can't even make it through a single sentence of Aristotle. It might as well be Chinese. Have you run into this problem and do you have any ideas on it?

[@leafes1644]

try reading the text in the italian edition of athenaze

[@jai_bartlett]

Aight the only reason I'm here is so I can have a bit of fun in my Classics exams lol

[@NewarkBay357]

How long did it take you to become fluent in Greek? In Greece a person on the street can read Homer in Ancient Greek. In England a person cannot comprehend Chaucer.

[@Philoglossos]

*In Greece a person on the street can read Homer in Ancient Greek* That's just utter nonsense. A Greek who has not studied ancient Greek will not be able to read Homer.

[@David-ud9ju]

@@Philoglossos They can definitely read The Odyssey a hell of a lot easier than an English speaker can read Beowulf.

[@Philoglossos]

@@David-ud9ju Only because most Greeks study ancient Greek in school. OE is much less different from Modern English than you'd expect, a ME speaker can learn to read it in a semester of university courses.

[@erwinmoss]

I suggest Phillips and Chase as a good Ancient Greek textbook.

[@russellfroggatt]

Superb video

[@entiretinofsweetcorn7025]

NuMbeR FifteEn: HeLLeNic FooT LetTuCe

[@Aditya-te7oo]

6:40 That was unexpected man. 😂😂

[@LiamPorterFilms]

Are you stuck with a length limit on videos? Welcome back, by the way. You inspired the creation of a video on my channel, just newly uploaded.

[@mauriciomachado7929]

Question: which greek authors do you find "easier" and "harder" to understand? I personally can read Plato and Greek Theater in general without a dictionary and getting close to fluency sometimes, whereas Thucydides is greek for me (you must be so tired of this kind of pun, I'm sorry). Also the New Testament and early Christian or Neo-Platonic authors are cristal-clear for me. What do you think? Great video, BTW, as always :)

[@TheKosmicGladiator]

Well, you have to remember that the New Testament was written so that "regular people" would be able to understand, whereas other writers of antiquity wrote for a more educated audience.

[@whydoplaythis574]

Or you could just go to that one village outside of Sparta

[@benjaminrobinson5552]

You've never read old english have you

[@mylatestobsession7453]

Where are the links to the books? Chaucer and Beowulf? Btw this was a cool video.

[@CodyMSmith-oo5qd]

Salve amice ! Have you used Assimil: Le Grec Ancien Sans Peine? I found that Assimil would be great for modern languages, and I am considering taking it up for Latin and perhaps one day, Ancient Greek!

[@hai-mel6815]

If anybody needs them, I can provide pdf files of both volumes of Athenaze (the italian version). :)

[@kimmitchell43]

I need them in English

[@hai-mel6815]

You can find them on libgen for free, together with the italian ones. I'm not sure I can post this link, but I'll do it anyway: gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=Athenaze&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

[@chrisjenkins5887]

I respectfully disagree with the first line. Ancient Greek is my second language; I progress quite well. Most of the inflectional morphology is related, and a verb may be very complex, but there are resources everywhere. They are online and there is a playlist called "Learn Ancient Greek with Prof. Leonard Muellner." It will give you a nice general Greek education.

[@sage7752]

i know a tiny bit of spanish and germen but I think I got this 🤷🏼

[@abbonent]

Hello! Regarding Athenaze, is it necessary to buy both volumes, if you've studied greek for a year with at grammar translation method? I have also read the english edition of Athenaze. They are expensive to buy from amazon, and I would hate to waste money on the first volume if it is unnecessary. Is the second volume much harder, like say Lingua Latina part 2 is compared to part 1?

[@john3_14-17]

Here’s the cortina courses with audio files. Scroll down to find Greek. fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/cortina.html. You will need an extractor like 7zip to extract the files.

[@markrhoads]

What abridged Greek lexicon do you recommend?

[@demyan919]

Очень интересно! Жду новые видео!

[@mladyavery9138]

"Ochen' interesno! Ždu novye video!" Is the transliteration, for those who are interested

[@ariefbudiman1544]

great explanation and suggestion.. but whats your opinion about JACT reading greek?

[@Lavidadeyari]

Mel Robbins told me that motivation is garbage, that you are never going to feel like it.

[@musical2]

Hi, can you help me with hopefully a simple query? I'm interested in Egyptian God names rendered into Ancient Greek - names generally. Take the names of Horus, Osiris, Anubis,, Ptolomy etc. Why do the names end in either is/us/os and are those endings pronounced? Why does Ptolemy become Ptolemais (I think it's spelled that way)? Alexander I believe should also have an 's' ending. Cleopatra not so?

[@XwpisONOMA]

Because most male Greek names end in -ης, -ος and -ας. Of course there are also -ωρ, -ευς, -υς etc. to name a few. But in modern Greek most end in the 3 first. And yes the ending ARE pronounced, in the Greek language EVERY written letter is pronounced. So Ptolemy is PtolemEos=Πτολεμαίος and alexxander is AlExandros=Αλέξανδρος (upper case means accented). Cleopatra, is also a Greek name which is pronounced KleopAtra=Κλεοπάτρα.

[@mikilavush]

Can anybody here give me proper and unbiased answer regarding different translations of Rom.1:20 in the Bible? In most translations of Rom.1:20 from Ancient Greek to English, it reads that the invisible things of God are being perceived through "the things that are made". However, in Weymouth New Testament it reads that the invisible things of God are being perceived through "his works", and also in the Swedish official Bible of 1917 it reads "hans verk" (that is "his works" in English). This translation difference is significant, because "the things that are made" can only mean material things in the Creation whereas "his works" can also mean God's spiritual workings within humans, and my question is: which of the two different translations of Rom.1:20 is the literal one? "Things made" may be a possible definition of the Ancient Greek word "poiemasin", but I have good reasons to suspect that the primary definition of "poiemasin" is "workings" or "doings" rather than "things made".

[@dekaglossai]

check out this resource: biblehub.com/interlinear/romans/1-20.htm The translations here are very literal.

[@mikilavush]

+deka glossai In the resource you recommended, the word "poiemasin" is translated "things made", but from Rom.1:20 in Weymouth New Testament and my Swedish Bible follows that "poiemasin" means "works". "Things made" may be a possible definition of "poiemasin", but I have reasons to suspect that "poiemasin" primarily suggests the definition "workings" or "doings" rather than the definition "things made".

[@practorVouVou]

@@mikilavush I am not expert in ancient Greek, but since we use the word in modern Greek as well, I will try to give you the explanation. "Poiemasin" is the dative plural form of the noun "poiema", from the verb "poio" which means "I make". There is not exact noun for this in English, but the most accurate translation would be "poiema = something that is made" and "poiemasin = things that are made". But the word "things" is not really there! They just use it in English to make the adjective "made" noun. So the Greek noun is not necessarily for material things. We use the verb "poio" for non-material things as well, like they use in English the verb "to make". You can make music for example. I didn't mention for no reason the singular nominative case of this noun. The word "poiema" means also "poem", and it is of course, the origin of the English word! So "poem" in Greek literally means "something that is made". That means that someone has made this story, it's fictional not (necessarily) real. The point is that as you can see, this word is not used for material things only! I hope I helped :-)

[@mikilavush]

practorVouVou / What you are saying does not make much sense to me. The issue is whether the word poiemasin can be translated to modern languages in such a way that it pertains to God’s spiritual workings in humans rather than to God’s material creations, so I want to have clear Yes or No answers to the following: Besides meaning “things that are made” or “what is made”, can the word poiemasin mean A) works, B) workings, C) deeds, D) doings, E) things that are done, and F) what is done?

[@practorVouVou]

​@@mikilavush So finally I didn't help after all... sorry... as I said I'm not a language professor... I just answered because I saw that the question had remained unanswered for 1 year... To the best of my understanding, if you want a short answer, the short answer will be No. There is reason that the verbs "to work" and "to do" are different from the verb "to make" in English, and so does in Greek. Another accurate translation for the verb "poio" would be "I create", but again, it refers to both spiritual and material creations. I don't know for sure, if in English the verb "to create" is used also for non-material creations, that's why I prefer to translate the verb "poio" as "to make" which I know for sure that they use it for non-material things as well. I find it wrong to assume that "poiemasin" pertains to God’s spiritual workings in humans RATHER THAN to God’s material creations. It can be BOTH! But again I don't like the word "workings" there. It is more accurate to say that "poiemasin" pertains to God’s Spiritual and Material Creations. Also I don't see why the spiritual creations should be related only to humans, it doesn't detail the word human at all. I believe it speaks about absolutely all the God's creations, spiritual and material. Another good reference is in Nicene Creed. "MAKER of heaven and earth, of all things VISIBLE and INVISIBLE". The original Greek word for "Maker" is "poieten - ποιητὴν", from the verb "poio - I make" again, and the words visible and invisible refer to all the material and non-material/spiritual things. I found this source that contains both the Greek and the English texts. earlychurchtexts.com/public/nicene_creed.htm So once again I conclude that the word "poiemasin" means "creations" or "things that are made", and could be material or non-material/spiritual or both. I hope someone more expert from me will answer to you as well :-)

[@ericdyn]

Great video. Also, I was wondering, are you familiar with the Reading Greek books from the Joint Associations of Classical Teachers? If so, what is your opinion on it?

[@mcchang1032]

Do you tutor on Skype privately, or through similar channels?

[@gaetanoalessi3746]

Could anyone recommend me the best books you know to learn ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Akkadian language? I really need it. Congratulations for your channel, deka glossai, the most useful I found about ancient languages!

[@ХристоМартунковграфЛозенски]

There was a book by Bill Manley and another guy, "How to Read Hieroglyphs", if I recall correctly. Another book would be Gardiner's grammar of Middle Egyptian or J.P. Allen's grammar, again of Middle Egyptian (i.e. the classical language). It should be noted that, if you're interested to Allen's book (which contains exercises as well, like Manley's book) you should consider the 2nd edition, not the 3rd one. There are a few good grammars in German as well - Wolfgang Schenkel's, Hanna Jenni's (more lignuistically inclined) or Boyo Ockinga's "Mittelägyptische Grammatik".

[@gaetanoalessi3746]

@@ХристоМартунковграфЛозенски Thank you so much!

[@ХристоМартунковграфЛозенски]

@@gaetanoalessi3746 Oh, you're welcome, these are from memory. I can't help you for Akkadian though, I'm just an Egyptology student!

[@klaus-heinzmorales4448]

The good thing is that, thanks God, I already dominate a decent level of Latin, and I'm fluent in four or five living languages

[@julissaonfleek3136]

What is the difference between modern Greek and Ancient Greek? Can I use Ancient Greek right now and would they understand?

[@vasiolast6824]

Julissaonfleek Modern greek language has evolved from the ancient greek, so they have the same roots, (reading them is no different as they have the same alphabet), so in terms of vocabulary and stucture they have many similarities... However there are tons of differencies that makes the understanding of ancient greek really difficult even for native greek speakers. In reality, learning ancient greek can be useful if you want to read ancient philosophers or history and if you want to deeply understand the greek language as in the way it is shaped as it is now. But you should keep in mind that if you talk to greeks in ancient greek they will hardly understand half of the things you say...

[@mintusaren895]

I am tallying my book of mind.so many languages referred but not sanskrit or pali.Alexander the great, which way he came to India,Persans were not convinced,death occurred in Alexandria.Herodotus perhaps unknown to khorasta,now eventually route to Grice is very near to Misrr.language beloved but expressing not ashtoadhyaya.is The BIBLE first written in GREEK?

[@yuriloyola3496]

Χάριν σοι οἶδα τοῦ σαφοῦς θεάματος, δεκάγλωττε! Ὡς αὐτὸς ἔφησθα, ὑπερβληθέντων τῶν πρώτων καμάτων, τῶν γε περὶ τὸ μαθεῖν, μέγιστον ἄρα πρόκειται πρᾶγμα καὶ δὴ καὶ χαλεπώτατον, τὸ γοῦν ἑταίρους πρὸς τὸ ἀληθῶς ἑλληνιστὶ λαλεῖν εὑρεῖν! Τί δὴ συμβουλεύεις ἐπὶ τῷδε, ὦ τάν; Ἆρα τυγχάνεις ἐγνωκὼς ἑταιρίαν τινὰ ἑλληνιζόντων ἢ σύλλογόν που;

[@mladyavery9138]

Chárin soi o da to safo s theámatos dekáglōtte! Ō's aútòs é'fistha, u'pervlithéntōn t n prótōs kamátōn, t n ge perí tò mathe n, mégiston á'ra prókeitai pr gma kaì dí kaì chalepótaton tò go n e'taipous pròs tò a'lith s e'llinistì lale n eu're n! Tí dì sumvouleúeis e'pì t de, tán, ra tugcháneis e'gnōkō's e'tairían tinà e'llinizóntōn ì' súllogón pou; Thank me later for the transliteration

[@atouloupas]

TUNA Time!! You've transliterated it in a very strange way. It's a mix of modern and ancient Greek. Khárin soi oîda toû saphoûs theámatos, dekáglōtte! Hōs autòs éphēstha, hyperblēthéntōn tōn prōtōn kamátōn, tōn ge perì to matheîn, mégiston ára prókeitai prâgma kaì dē kaì khalepōtaton, tò goûn hetaírous pròs tò alēthōs hellēnistì laleîn heureîn! Tì dē symbouleúeis epì tōide, ō tán? Ára tynkháneis egnōkōs hetairían tinà hellēnizóntōn ē sýllogón pou?

[@mladyavery9138]

Απόστολος Τουλούπας I was on my phone, My Unicode is limiting factor

[@marcocisneros8966]

I just wanna learn Koine Greek to read the Gospel(Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), In its original language What if I buy the new testament in Koine Greek and then study each of those words till I can read the Gospel, I reiterate my goal is to read the Gospel in its original language

[@alkantre]

Lingua graeca certe mihi discenda est.

[@dekaglossai]

Sine dubio est discenda!

[@alkantre]

Tamen ut dicis, primum graeca moderna.

[@caiorolando8330]

Aliquem tandem inveni qui latine scribit! Ego quoque graecas litteras discere cupio.

[@mythologic]

Si Latine scis, Graecam linquam tibi facilissime licet discere.

[@Glassandcandy]

Linga graeca antiqua certe dificilis alicuius est. Grammatica sua te oblitterabit. Sed utilis et enim gaudium esse posset! Illam linguam pulcherimam pro anno quinque in universita studebam, tamen nomen mihi in literris graecis vix legere possum! (Post Scriptum: lingua latina mea quoque robignosa est! sed melior tam graece pro certo! haha)

[@jeanenviedapprendre]

Merci pour les conseils !

[@jamesdebearn4362]

are you really saying that I can learn how to read Beowulf fluently or dream of the rood or something simply by reading middle English and thencontinuing to read old English without the use of vocabulary chart or even learning the difference between a strong verb and a weak verb? Really?

[@joshuapray]

It's an utterly absurd notion. I'm not sure why anyone would say that and expect to be taken seriously.

[@guynsly1210]

How do we pronounce or spell the greek gods in the ancient greek language? Like zeus diana etc.?

[@maxihurra]

אהיה Ban Lawya The Name of the olympic Gods get pronounced in Ancient Greek this way: - Zeus - Zevs (Probably from “zevgnymi” which means translated “to unite” and “to subjugate”) - Hermes - Ermis (Probably from “erminevo” which means translated “to interpret”) - Apollo - Apollon (Probably from “apollymi” which means translated “to destroy”) - Poseidon - Posidon (Probably from the combination of “Posis” and “Davón” which means translated “Master” and “of Waters”) - Hephaestus - Iphaestos (Probably from “phaestos” which means translated “bright one”) - Ares - Aris (Probably from “ari” which means translated “curse”) - Hera - Ira (Probably a feminin version of “Iros” which means “Hero”) - Athena - Athina (From “Athana” which is the Doric version of “Athena” and probably a short version of “Athanati” which means translated “immortal”) - Aphrodite - Afroditi (Probably from the combination of “aphros” and “deato” which means translated “foam” as much as “appear”. This has something to do with the emergence of Aphrodite) - Hestia - Estia (From “estia” which means translated “hearth”) - Demeter - Dimitir (From “Di” (Attic: “Gi) and “Mitir” which means translated “Earth” and “Mother”. - Artemis - Artemis (Probably from “artemos” which means translated “butcher”)

[@maxihurra]

אהיה Ban Lawya In modern Greek they get pronounced this way: - Zeus - Dias Hermes - Ermis Apollo - Apollonas Poseidon - Posidonas Hephaestus - Iphaestos Ares - Aris Hera - Ira Athena - Athina Aphrodite - Afroditi Hestia - Estia Demeter - Dimitra Artemis - Artemis - Generally, most of the Nouns of modern Greek, are the Plural-Accusatives of the nouns of Ancient Greek.

[@witcherpie]

Bro 6:05 , you know modern and ancient Greek, but you say alexAndros instead of alExandros?.. Disappointed

[@LeoBloom-kc4iv]

Well, as a Greek native speaker and after studying Ancient Greek for 6 years it still takes about an hour and a half to read a complete page 😅

[@alphadelta7725]

Βοήθειά σας...!

[@joshuapray]

I believe this presenter is a polyglot (and that's extremely impressive), but the method prescribed for learning Middle English and (especially!) Old English simply by 'reading' an hour every day is utterly absurd. Simply staring at these languages will not teach you anything, and staring at one of them will certainly not teach you how to read/speak the other. I don't know why someone who professes to have learned so many languages would say something so bizarre.

[@meusisto]

If Homer is the Ancient Greek, what would you recommend as a Middle Greek, stp, to read after learning Modern Greek?

[@drgeorgek]

The bible is medieval / middle ie Byzantine Greek Any Greek mass on a Sunday is in the language (the holy liturgy) grab a Greek English translation of that and sign away. It’s beautiful even if you’re not religious

[@apartofspeech]

Очередное отличное видео. Спасибо!

[@dekaglossai]

Спасибо Вам!

[@mladyavery9138]

Ocherednoe otlichnoe video. Spacibo!

[@dolfanmike2k11]

Hello I was wondering if anybody could help me with a translation, I am wanting to get a tattoo of the Socrates quote “i know that i know nothing”, but I dont want it to be in Modern Greek cause that would be inaccurate, so if anyone could help me with the correct grammar and spelling of said quote in Attic, spoken by Plato if im not mistaken, would be much appreciated !!

[@Dimitris.Papastamatis]

ἕν οἶδα, ὅτι οὐδέν οἶδα that's the original quote

[@visualfiguers3265]

Anybody here after reading persey jacksom

[@ruralsquirrel5158]

Can a modern Greek read and understand the Nestle-Aland NT with no guidance? What about the liturgy in the Greek Orthodox Church?

[@ghostofathens6600]

Greek is the best language

[@Matthew-cw3gn]

The fact that you said moving from Modern English to Middle English to Old English should only take a few weeks makes you lose all credibility in my view. Old English is a completely different beast from either of the other two periods. For those reading the comments, here is an excerpt from Old English Beowulf: "Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas" You're a liar is you claim people could learn to read that by practicing from Middle English's Canterbury Tales: "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour."

[@travelsinchinese640]

Have you tried? It doesn't seem likely, but ....have you tried?

[@hmartin1761]

Ok. This may be harder than I thought.

[@ХристоМартунковграфЛозенски]

The problem is that Old English is a "proper" Germanic language, whereas Middle English contains many French/Latin words. There's the barrier you have to overcome; instead, if you try this in another language, like French, you shouldn't have that many problems IMHO. Trying to read Chrétien de Troyes' novels or "La Chanson de Roland" should still give you a challenge, albeit a far smaller one IMHO.

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

Age of Mythology anyone?

[@allenOMG]

You get good at reading by practising reading, not by studying grammar or doing translations. That's where your method failed and why it took you so long.

[@whutitdew435]

really cool video, but if im being honest, it sounds like he's about to laugh really hard right after he says something, but then doesnt. lol not being mean, just an observation. :)

[@alkantre]

Lo que dices sobre la utilizacion de textos bilingues es la verdad. Constituyen una de las mejores herramientas de que disponemos. Gracias a textos bilingues, he podido disfrutar de montones de textos poeticos en persa y arabe en su lenguaje original, sin tener que perder incontables horas batallando con patrones sintacticos desfamilares o acudiendo cada rato al diccionario.

[@dekaglossai]

estoy totalmente de acuerdo contigo, mi amigo. es una lastima que muchos clasicistas enseñan a sus alumnos que usarlos es deshonesto.

[@alkantre]

Es una tonteria de esos clasicistas.

[@apuntes8883]

But ancient greek seems to be a language which was lost and then its meanings were reconstructed based on interpretations , comparisons and by indirect techniques. In fact the original meanings for its particles are still lost

[@solobano570]

Ok, how did it sound??? Misleading video.

[@artema.]

you say that reading ancient greek fluently is really hard, but I don't think so myself. I'm 14 and did ancient Greek for 1.5 years now and it's not that hard to read. Speaking is another thing though XD

[@Silahtar357]

Purple Nazli Mörhabâ bayan, tanişalımmı.

[@meusisto]

Very good! How did you study it?

[@whiteblueman3804]

meusisto All Greeks can read ancient Greek fluently but not with the exact same pronouncement

[@alpkaanaksu9326]

Hi, I'm recently starting out with Ancient Greek and I'm around your age (15-16). Do you have any recommendations?

[@volimNestea]

Are you Greek though? Because this video is not aimed at native Greek speakers. If you're native, you're obviously going to have a far easier time reading ancient Greek than most anyone else, especially for your age.

[@isaacsommers141]

Excellent