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Davidius · #5 (**permalink**) 05-03-2008, 11:52 AM

I just finished my first year of classical Greek. We used Hansen & Quinn's text and I loved it. It reminded me a lot of Wheelock's Latin: no-nonsense grammar with lots of drills. H&Q is good because it focuses primarily on grammar and doesn't load the student down with too much vocabulary while also expecting him to remember hundreds of verb forms.

I couldn't agree more with everything Lane has said. In my opinion, the best thing a student can do is drill himself incessantly. At the end of every unit in H&Q are drills which contain short sentences, then a set of exercises with longer sentences. While we always were required to do the longer exercises for homework, I wish that our professor would have required us to do the shorter drills for homework, too. Nothing helps learn a new piece of syntax better than doing 30 drills which all repeat that piece of syntax with different words. Doing the longer exercises after doing all the unit drills was a piece of cake.

I also believe that there should be more emphasis on composition in beginning courses. This may seem difficult, and students may never be required to write a paper in Greek, but composition forces one to think in Greek. When a student can write a sentence with each kind of indirect statement without too much thought, he will be able to recognize it exponentially more easily than if he had no training in actively expressing himself in Greek.

The extra work pays off!

I'm sure this is true of any text, but H&Q includes passages from classical Greek literature at the end of each unit which the student should be able to read (with glossed vocab at the bottom) at that point. This provides some refreshment to the sometimes monotonous process of learning the language thoroughly.