Ancient Greek I

For students engaged in a thorough classical education, Greek must be engaged to develop a refined sense of aesthetics in thought and speech. This year long course uses the Course In Attic Greek I textbook to acquaint the diligent student with the Greek of fifth century Athens – the language of such writers as Plato, Sophocles, and Thucydides.

If this is not wonderful enough, learning Attic Greek has the additional benefit (via frequent excerpts from the Gospels) of enabling one, by stages (completed in Greek II), to read the Greek New Testament, written in the simpler Koine dialect. The course lasts for 32 weeks, and includes weekly vocabulary and translation work, vocabulary and / or grammar quizzes, four quarterly exams, and a weekly 1.5 hour live recitation time. As this course is essentially a college-level one, students should expect to spend approximately 2 hours per week on vocabulary mastery and at least 4-5 on grammar and mechanics via translation and reading.

Course Objectives:

1. To learn and recall around 400 Greek nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.
2. To be able to recognize Greek verbs in Tense, Voice, Mood, Person, and Number as they appear in Present, Imperfect, Future, 1st Aorist, 2nd Aorist, Perfect, and Pluperfect varieties.
3. To recognize Greek participles in Present, Future, 1st Aorist, 2nd Aorist, and Perfect varieties.
4. To recognize and correctly translate Greek verbs in the Active, Middle, and Passive Voices.
5. To gain the ability to sight-read extended passages of Attic and Koine (biblical) Greek.

Texts:

• Frank J. Groten, Jr., James K. Finn, and Patrick G. Lake: A Course in Attic Greek, I - ISBN-13: 978-1-300-05112-1

• Anne H. Groton and James A. May: 46 Stories in Classical Greek ISBN-10: 1585106313