Product Description

An ideal introduction to the language and culture of Greece, Greek Language and People is an integrated multi-media course for beginners. As well as teaching the skills necessary to communicate in and understand basic Greek, it provides an accessible introduction to the written language, and enables you to read Greek with ease. Language practice is mixed with fascinating insights into contemporary Greece and traditional Greek customs.Whether learning at home or in a class, Greek Language and People can help you to reach the equivalent level of a first qualification, such as GCSE.

• Dialogues and language notes combine with cultural information, introducing new language in a relevant context
• Exercises and activities, drawn mainly from authentic Greek sources, allow you to practise new language and reinforce learning

256-page course book

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #128178 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

BLUE
I've been learning Greek using the old edition for a while now and yes, the old book was well out of date with references to Drachmas instead of Euros and to film stars that no-one these days will have heard of (well ok, maybe you've heard of TZHN XAKMAN?). The treatment of grammar was also pretty poor.

But, the book had a lot of charm and described all the old ways and traditions that have survived in Greece even to the present day. This was backed up by lots of photos of people taking part in the things described in the book - relevant places, religious and family gatherings - basically showing the people in the book's title.

This new edition by contrast is bang up-to-date in terms of language and grammar and the visual style is smart and contemporary (though strangely, everything including the photographs is BLUE), but it seems to lack a lot of the charm and most of the photos of the old edition - the people part of the title appears to have gone missing - and the text seems to have become politically correct (see the bit describing Kafeneios).

Let's be clear: like all the BBC language courses, this is a book for beginners and is aimed at people who go on holiday to Greece, who want a first (and probably no further) step into the Greek language, either at evening class or by learning a little Greek for themselves. Consequently, in what appears to be quite a wide, mixed and variable quality of 'Greek self learning books' this book and it's accompanying CDs (bought separately) are more than adequate for the average person to get to grips with a few basics of the Greek language. If you want a more in depth language course or want to study for exams, you will have to look elsewhere.

As a basic starting point, this book does the job nicely and the new edition's general dumbing down (and also assuming that the current wave of film stars like TOM XANKS are still remembered) will probably mean that it will last another 23 years before needing another new edition. So on balance (and despite my minor grumbles :) I'll give it 5 stars, as I think it is still by far and away the best introduction to the Greek language you'll find.

Welcome new edition
I have had the old book for a while and was just starting to refresh my knowledge of Greek when I noticed the new edition. The thing that I would add to other reviews is the excellent cross referencing of the exercises to cd tracks. Instead of just having one track per chapter as a lot of other books do - meaning that you have to do a lot of fast forward and rewinding to get to the exercise/dialogue that you want, this has been split down into a large number of tracks, one for each exercise and dialogue. Each exercise in the book then has the track number inside. This is exactly what I was hoping for.

This is an excellent book but I would also recommend using "beginner's greek" by Aristarhos Matsukas because this has translitteration i.e. the greek alphabet words spelled out as you would say them in English. This really helped me to get to grips with the alphabet.

This is just some exercises -- not a Greek course.
Groan! After ordering and receiving this product from Amazon, I discover that it's not a Greek course at all -- it's two CDs of exercises for the course book, sold separately.

Nowhere on the Amazon product information page does it say that this is not a Greek course, and even worse, that page is full of reviews of the book, which presumably have ended up on the wrong page altogether.

Let me make this clear -- this is two CDs containing exercises for the coursebook, without which, this product is pretty much useless. You cannot use this product on its own.