Greek (Teach Yourself Books)

The old version of TEACH YOURSELF GREEK, written by F. Kinchin Smith and T. W. Melluish and dealing with Classical Greek, was first published in 1947. It proves a very different work from the later version by Gavin Betts that remains in print. Smith and Melluish wrote a book that was meant for those who wanted some basic knowledge of Greek to understand it's enormous influence on the English lexicon and who wanted to try at reading some simple prose before deciding on further study of the language. As a result, there are are no Greek composition exercises (= translation of English sentences into Greek), a hallmark of a rigorous introduction. Even accents have been left off the words to avoid burdening the learner. The tone throughout is humorous, though some of the jokes may now be difficult to get now that the British schooling tradition assumed in the book is no longer around. Of course, the book does have a daunting amount of paradigm tables, but these can hardly be avoided in the teaching of Classical Greek. It's curious that the publishers of Teach Yourself didn't have this book updated and reissued as TEACH YOURSELF BEGINNER'S ANCIENT GREEK, since it would make a fine companion volume to Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin. If you just want to see what Classical Greek is like without it being assumed that you're committed to reading real prose--and poetry and drama as well--then this book of Smith and Melluish may be worth searching out on the used market. If you are a serious student, however, Betts' book is the one to get.