How to read and speak Ancient Greek fluently 

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

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

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."

The Reading Greek series (it is four books, each covers a separate section. Grammar is one, the text is another, and it has an independent study guide as the third and cultural atlas of Ancient Athens is the fourth) is fantastic. It is published by the Cambridge Press.

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

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!

Solid, pragmatic, and helpful. Thanks.

Superb advice. Thank you.

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.

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 RU-vid again.

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

Fabulous. Concise and helpful :D

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.

Wonderful! Thanks! :)

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

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

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.

A lot of useful info here ,thank you.

Εύγε! An other great video!

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?

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.

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

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

the dark academic in me brought me here

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

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

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.

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

Superb video

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.

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

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?

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.

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!

What abridged Greek lexicon do you recommend?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

"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!

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?

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 :)

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

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 :)

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 !!

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!

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.

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

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?

6:40 That was unexpected man. 😂😂

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?

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

Очень интересно! Жду новые видео!

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

Classical languages are beautiful ;)

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. ☺

Merci pour les conseils !

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.

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.

Очередное отличное видео. Спасибо!

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

Βοήθειά σας...!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

NuMbeR FifteEn: HeLLeNic FooT LetTuCe

You've never read old english have you

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?

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

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".

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

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.

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. :)

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

Excellent

Age of Mythology anyone?

Lingua graeca certe mihi discenda est.

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 😅

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

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.

Anybody here after reading persey jacksom

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

La'in

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

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.

Greek is the best language

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

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.

I learned Latin first

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

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;

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

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