Product Description

Based on the same principles that lay behind the book "Learn Latin", this book provides the chance to read real ancient Greek. It teaches the reader enough Greek in 20 chapters to be able to read selected passages from the New Testament and from Classical Greek literature such as Plato, Aristophanes and Euripides. Each chapter also comes with sections on ancient Greek history and culture and on the influence of the ancient language on ours.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26558 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 222 pages

Customer Reviews

Adults start here
This is a very cunningly constructed text. The author is very clear about what he wants you to achieve: to get a sense of achievement from reading short classical texts and short sections from the New Testament.No time is diverted into learning noun endings: emphasis is on the all important definite article. You will be led by the nose through active and passive verbs and participles. Every exercise is linked to a translation key. It hardly sounds exciting but it might just hook you.
The book can be unreservedly recommended as a first text to adult beginners working completely on their own. If you do not get past the grammar of chapter three there is still plenty of interesting reading in the background pages on Greek language and culture ahead of you in the remaing 17 chapters.
By the time you reach chpt 19 you might feel the need to refer to a more formal text on grammar.Personally I found J.Taylor's "Greek to GCSE,Part 1" an ideal complement to LAG. Do not attempt JT's book on your own unless you have first worked through LAG: there is no key to translations in JT; it is after all intended to be used in schools.
Ironic perhaps that ancient Greek,dying out as a school subject ,is served so well by these recently written texts. To repeat : if you are an adult( with some interest in languages, and with a fair bit of time available) get yourself a copy of LAG - it is a thoroughly entertaining introduction which eschews any attempt to get kudos
from appearing to be only for the aristoi.

Surely it can't be this easy?
As a member of the hoi polloi (sorry Peter), I was always far more interested in ancient history than I was in the modern stuff. It was really depressing for me at school when those evil teachers dragged me away from shields, swords and Rex Harrison as Caesar, and forced me to learn all that nonsense about Bismarck, Real-Politik and the dreaded 'Too Little, Too Late' essay about one of those Russian Alexander blokes.

And I was always terrible at languages too. The best I could ever manage was 'je ne comprende pas' or 'ich verstehe nicht ganz'. Hardly scintillating, especially in two awful French and German oral exams. But after a lifetime of speaking only chip-shop English, a friend got me to read Alan Massie's 'Augustus' which I loved (it helped explain why Richard Burton was so defiant to that fella from Planet of the Apes in Egypt), which in turn persuaded me to read Virgil's 'Aeniad', which then arrowed me into Homer's 'Illiad'. Marvellous, but wouldn't it be even better to read it all in the original? You must be joking I thought, as I slipped Peter Jones book over the bookshop counter to a smirking assistant.

But it has been a revelation. Simple, fun and quite simply the best language book I have ever read. I'm only up to Chapter three but I know I will finish it. Okay, so all I'm able to read is 'God is in man, and man is within God said Paul to the crowd', but it's in ancient greek lettering, from the original New Testament, and I actually understand it on the page. I cannot wait to finish the book, and then get onto the Latin one too. Marvellous.

My only question is, why can't all language books be as simple as this? Why did an extremely dry Xavier always have to be helping his dreadfully dull mother buy boring sausages at the charcuterie (or whatever)? And why did some of those smug modern language teachers speak to me like I'd just crawled out of a drain because I couldn't remember the third participle of the second noun declension of the imperfect tense of the dative nominative gobbledegook. Was it me who could not learn languages, or was it them who could not teach? I had always thought the former, now I'm inclined to believe the latter (yes, OK, I may be just a little bit bitter and twisted).

Witty, fun, and easy to read (while remaining disciplined) Peter Jones should be made to write books on French and German. And then perhaps some of those Johnny Foreigners might actually direct me to a nearby toilet rather than avoiding me dans la rue oder am Strasse. Top work.

Just wonderful.
As other reviewers have already asked, 'Why can't all language books be written like this????' Greek isn't a particularly easy language, but by the time you get through this little book, you'll be hooked, and well equipped to face some of the more complex aspects - and you'll probably still have enough enthusiasm to see you through the hard times.

This book makes it seem easy. It certainly makes it all a lot of fun. Very highly recommended.