Ancient Greek : A New Approach

Carl Ruck has here attempted (and succeeded, refreshingly) to present Greek as a delight unto itself, "communication with genius" in his words.

Intended for the beginning student, Ancient Greek presents its selections grouped according to theme. Several similar readings are handled at one time, allowing the student to recognize the various modes of expression used by the selected authors (Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Homer, Plato, etc.) and the relative successes or failures of one mode over another. This recognition comes prior to rule-learning and results in a more thorough understanding of which particular syntax will create a certain effect. Rather than the familiar vocabulary tests, Carl Ruck follows these theme groupings with basic reading comprehension tests, allowing the student to keep the Greek in terms of Greek.

Cautioning against the use of traditional translation tests, which would serve only to reinforce the conversion learning process, the author warns the teacher that the student prepared by his method will not have the glib facility with translation exercises which the older method recognizes as the only test of excellence. He will have something far more lasting, more whole, more important: he will have Greek.

"Better than any other I know, this book makes the student aware of that most elusive subtlety of language, style" Vincent J. Cleary The Classical Outlook

"By far the most attractive of the books being examined is Ruck's Ancient Greek: A New Approach. It has had the advantage of revision, and of a beautiful design.... What impresses about the inside of the book is not so much the learning theories that it represents as the teacherly qualities that it exhibits. The book seems to proceed less from an abstract formulation of how one best learns a language than from the much more practical standpoint of what students need in order to learn Greek, and of what works in the classroom."Each of the twenty-seven chapters, as well as the introductory section, proceeds with this end in view: to read Greek as Greek. The method is inductive and always develops from a context before a rule of syntax is formulated or the morphological item appears in a paradigm. Frequent exercises are provided to test for understanding and to reinforce the form or rule. As more forms are introduced, readings in paragraph form from a number of authors appear. Vocabulary helps, 'Scholia,' are provided on the same or the facing page, and are usually glossed in Greek, English being used only when necessary. Composition exercises follow, with the theme to be expressed explained by means of a Greek instruction. Thus the student is encouraged and taught to think in Greek, not English. If he does require English as an intermediate step, he is not left with the English meaning, as in the grammar-translation approach, but again and again is forced to return to an understanding of the original in its own terms. Better than any other I know, this book makes the student aware of that most elusive subtlety of language, style." Vincent J. Cleary The Classical Outlook