Greek: An Intensive Course

by Hardy Hansen, Gerald M. Quinn

The first edition of this extremely popular two volume Greek text has been successfully adopted in many high schools and colleges; the organization and approach used by the authors, make it an equally effective tool for those who would enjoy learning the language on their own.

Genres: Language, Reference, Classics, Textbooks, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Academic

868 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1985

Reviews

[globulon]

Bought for class on ancient Greek. I have tried for a number of years now to learn ancient Greek on my own. I have made some limited progress. I found the Athenaze book to be pretty user friendly. The problem is that I would go through spurts where I would work on it pretty intensively for a while and then I would end up getting distracted. By the time I would get back to it I would basically need to start from scratch. I finally decided that with my last year as an undergrad ( I have already finished most of my degree requirements) that I would take classes on both Greek and Latin. So far this is going well and the time I have spent trying to teach myself has definitely made the work easier. I am quite excited to be learning these languages and the structured environment is definitely a good thing in terms of keeping me at it.

As far as this particular work goes, it is quite intensive. As opposed to many other books like Athenaze or Wheelock's, they hit you with a lot of material when they first introduce a topic. So you are expected to learn first and second (both -os and -on forms) declensions, the definite article in all it's many forms and some material about word order and translation, as well as three prepositions and their usage all in the first unit. The next unit on verbs is equally intense. They do break the material up some but my memory is definitely getting a work out.

In terms of recommendations, I think this is better for the classroom environment than for solo study as it is pretty dry. For solo study I definitely think that Athenaze is the better way to go.

[Matt Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hardy Hansen, the coauthor or this textbook, was my instructor for one semester of the Greek Courses at Brooklyn College. It was privilege and a delight to have an author teach from a textbook used in colleges around the nation. The approach to Ancient Greek in this text was not merely so learn declensions and conjugations of nouns and verbs, but also to show how the language works on a linguistic level. Learning Greek was useful, believe it or not, to not only gain insight into a lost world but also to see how our own language(s) have been influence. It's not a dead language by any means, since it is still present in some form in our daily lives today.

Greek does not translate directly into standardized English since the verb tenses were numerous and divergent from our own. However, a colleague of Hansen's who also taught Greek to me in Brooklyn College, once gave me an midterm in which it was easier to translate the Greek into Ebonic. I am not kidding. The translations come out a little smoother and more accurate.

[Briana Grenert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today is my last day of TNT Greek with Professor Sieglman and Rj.
It was been a year. An adventure. With Hansen and Quinn as our faithful companions. We kind of obsessed over this textbook - even dressing up as the authors and characters from example sentences for Halloween and the classics spooky story reading.
This textbook is intense, well organized - sometimes, it feels like important information is tucked away. The entire class was a whirlwind. We actually finished the textbook around spring break (finished = skipping the last three units) and began reading Tyrtaeus (for our OraliTEA performance), Plato (the Gorigias snippets in Unit 16), Apollodorus and Palaephatus (on centaurs), and selections from John and Luke. But Hansen and Quinn prepared us well, and guided us even as we waded through unfamiliar waters.
At first, this textbook feels like drowning and it would have been nice to have an answer key (though this site was helpful: https://atticgreek.wordpress.com/tag/...) - but I came to really appreciate the grueling nature of the course (even if we all started to lose steam second semester and stopped studying as much as we should).

[Alexander Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took ancient Greek in college and, several years after graduation, used this book as a refresher course.

+ It's written in a very no-nonsense style, which is helpful in that the explanations don't distract or get in the way of comprehension. There's also no bits about ancient Greek culture. It's all language, all the time.

+ "Intensive" in the title is not an exaggeration. You'll learn all the rules, all the exceptions to the rules, and all the weird anomalies of the language that you'd have to be an eighteenth-century German philologist to love.

- Ancient Greek's a difficult language, and this book doesn't provide any hand-holding. It's also brutal in doing the really hard stuff at the start. While it does offer exercises throughout, it doesn't provide an answer key.

If you have prior knowledge of ancient Greek or a really strong motivation to learn it, this book is pretty great. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who is learning on their own with no prior knowledge of ancient Greek.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

The amount of stars in my review is totally arbitrary; I've never read another forigen language textbook, so I have nothing to compare it to. Some of it was irritating: this book seemed to be composed of about %40 bare lists and charts, and its best advice seemed to be to memorize everthing. I've never wanted to be a computer so badly. And yet, I have no idea how else one is supposed to learn a dead language, so the irritation is, I suppose, a necessary one. And I'm now much closer to actual competence in another language than I ever have been before, so I should say nice things about this text.
καιρωμεν, I guess.
Also, if you study from this book, it's possible that your young daughter will think that the studious Greek figure on the cover represents Dada, and that is weirdly satisfying.

[Tarek Zaher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The process of going through this book is painful and oftentimes feels impossible. However, it works. The vocabulary and grammar remain, miraculously, in your head long after you learn them. Hansen and Quinn's organization of the concepts at first seems confusing, but gradually makes more and more sense as you go along. Furthermore, the drills, exercises, and excerpts they produce for you to practice those concepts are helpful, cumulative (so you never forget earlier concepts you learned), and interesting to read. My favorite feature of their content is the often universal explanation of the grammatical concepts. In other words, I learned more about the English language reading this book than I did in all my years of traditional English classes.

Although I used the book in an academic setting, from my experience studying it alone I do believe it is possible for an amateur practitioner of Ancient Greek to learn the language effectively by themselves using this text. It is really a question of the individuals ability to devote several hours daily to the art, rather than their intellectual fortitude.

I now use the book as a grammar reference when translating full texts, and although I think there are better grammar references out there which are catered to that specific use, Hansen and Quinn works fine for me since I am familiar with its organizational structure and therefore can find what I'm looking for easily. For these reasons, this book is a great starting point for anyone interesting in learning Ancient Greek as its capable of lifting you from ground zero to an intermediate level all largely by itself.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This textbook is intensive indeed, but excellent. The instruction is presented with a great deal of care and precision, and the exercises are finely tailored to instill fundmentals. (The exercises are also fairly difficult, which leads to the common complaint about the lack of an answer key.) It's really a classroom textbook written with the assumption that a teacher will be available to correct students' mistakes, but taken slowly and carefully it can be used by the self-learner as well. That said, it's probably not the best place to start from scratch. But it was pretty effective for rubbing the rust off my old College Greek.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The grammar explanations in this book are extensive and great.

My only complaint is that they aren't any answers to the exercises in the book except for the unit self-exams. This makes it hard for those learning outside the classroom like myself.

Oh yea let me add that this book isn't really exciting unless you're really serious about learning Greek. It's a think volume without graphics, color or humor.

[Mitch]

Would like to learn Greek again.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd probably think that Ruck by MIT
and Hansen and Quinn by Fordham

might be the best two books for Ancient Greek

and for Latin
Moreland and Fleischer's book on Latin by the University of California

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As i understand it, both textbooks were meant for the needs of the City Univerity of New York for quick, deep and very thorough textbooks to get through the hurdles as cleanly as possible

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I'm going to add their Latin and Greek Readings below, so you can see where you can go beyond Moreland/Fleischer's Latin and Hansen/Quinn's Greek textbooks

My guess is that you burn 200 hours on your Latin or Greek textbook
and you burn another 200 hours on your Latin Advanced Readings

Upper Latin - 6 hrs a day - 15 days of classes and 19 days
so you're burning about 225 hours in 2.5 weeks

Advanced Greek - 7 weeks
and i can't even calculate the amount of work that one would take
I'll guess about 700 hours
at least triple the effort

It's amazing of what 10 weeks non-stop effort could do
if you have enough energy
and it doesn't break you

400 hours of Latin [400-500 hours]
900 hours of Greek [800-1000 hours]

And you could do all four phases in 90 days
if you're bonkers

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[For almost 50 years, the Latin/Greek Institute has been providing the world’s most rigorous and intensive instruction in Latin and Greek.]

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Brooklyn College/City Univerity of New York

The basic programs of the Latin/Greek Institute enable students with no previous training in either language to cover the material normally included in four to six semesters of college-level Latin or Greek in 10 weeks of instruction.

The textbooks for the basic programs—Moreland and Fleischer’s Latin: An Intensive Course and Hansen and Quinn’s Greek: An Intensive Course—were developed specifically for the institute and are now widely used in college classrooms across the country.

Every hour of each of the 50 instructional days has been carefully planned to give students, by the end of the 10th week, both a firm knowledge of the fundamentals of Latin or Greek and substantial experience in the close reading of original texts.

Previous students who have completed the program with a grade of B or better regularly pass graduate departmental translation examinations and have performed successfully in senior-level and graduate-level reading courses.

In the Upper-level Programs, the emphasis is on reading a substantial body of literature at a high level of grammatical precision. These programs are just as demanding as the Basic Programs and require the same level of commitment and focus.

The work of the institute is extremely demanding, with the equivalent of one week’s material in a normal college setting covered each day. Daily attendance is required and nightly assignments are substantial.

Classes begin at 9:30 a.m. and continue until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, with only a short break for lunch. Daily quizzes and weekly examinations help students continually to assess their progress. Optional review sessions are conducted throughout the week for students who seek extra help.

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Lower Division Readings

Required

Classical Prose: Cicero and Sallust—A close translation and comparative examination of the syntax, style, and rhetoric of Cicero’s complete First Oration Against Catiline and of selections from Sallust’s The Conspiracy of Catiline.

Augustan Epic: Vergil—Book IV of The Aeneid is read in its entirety with a view toward an appreciation of Vergilian style and poetic technique.

Survey of Latin Literature—Lectures and discussions on the development of Latin prose and poetry from Livius Andronicus through the Silver Age and into the medieval period and the Renaissance. Representative passages are translated and analyzed.

Latin Prose Composition—Simple and complex English sentences are translated into Latin with a threefold purpose: 1) to review basic rules of syntax, 2) to expand knowledge of Latin syntax by applying basic rules previously learned to more intricate constructions, and 3) to call attention to matters of word order, style, and prose rhythm in order to create a sensitive response to the art of Latin prose.

Classical Lyric Poetry—Selections from the four books of Horace’s Odes are read and analyzed in terms of themes, language, and metrics.

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Lower Division Readings

Electives

Each student will choose one two-week mini-course (18 class hours).
A minimum of three of the following will be offered.

Augustan Epic—Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Pastoral Poetry—Vergil’s Eclogues
Philosophical Epic—Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura
Religious Autobiography—Augustine’s Confessions
Roman Elegy—Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid
Roman Historiography—Tacitus or Livy
Satirical Prose Fiction—Petronius’ Satyricon

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Upper Division Readings

Caesar—De Bello Gallico
Cicero—Somnium Scipionis
Seneca—Apocolocyntosis, Thyestes
Augustine—Confessions
Suetonius—Da Vita Caesarum
Vergil—Aeneid

......
......


In the first six weeks of the summer, students work through the entirety of Hansen and Quinn’s Greek: An Intensive Course. During this time, students master the forms and syntax of the language while reading relatively simple selections of unadapted prose and poetry.

In the final four weeks of the course, students read longer texts in the morning and, in the afternoon, survey major authors and genres ranging from the Archaic through the Hellenistic periods. They also have two opportunities each day for additional readings at sight.

Core texts in the basic Greek program include Plato’s Ion and Euripides’ Medea. Supplementary lectures (e.g., on textual criticism, the history of the Greek language, meter, rhetoric) provide further enrichment. The program concludes with a two-week elective in which students choose an author to read and analyze in even greater depth.

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Greek
Lower Division Readings

Required of all students.

Attic Prose: Plato—A close translation and examination of the syntax, style, and rhetoric of Plato’s Ion.

Survey of Greek Prose and Poetry—Representative selections of Greek prose and poetry of the Archaic and classical periods will be studied with emphasis on rhetoric, metrics, the development of style and dialectical differences.

Greek Tragedy: Euripides—Extensive selections from Euripides’ Medea are read with a view toward an appreciation of Euripides’ style, rhetoric, meter, and poetic technique.

Greek Prose Composition—Simple and complex English sentences are translated into Greek with a threefold purpose:

1) to review basic rules of syntax

2) to expand knowledge of Greek syntax by applying basic rules previously learned to more intricate constructions

3) to call attention to matters of word order, style, and prose rhythm in order to create a sensitive response to the art of Greek prose

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Lower Division Readings
Greek Institute Electives

Each student will choose one two-week mini-course (18 class hours).
A minimum of three of the following will be offered.

Greek Epic—Homer
Greek Historiography—Thucydides
Greek Philosophy—Aristotle
New Testament Greek—Selections from one of the Gospels

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The Upper-Level programs run for seven weeks: during the first week, students intensively review basic morphology and syntax. For the remaining six weeks, the greatest effort is directed toward translating and analyzing texts. Daily quizzes, special tutorials, and frequent drills are included.

The large amount of reading is enriched by regular prose composition exercises. Throughout, there is emphasis on aspects of criticism that derive from a linguistic analysis of a text and that cannot be appreciated from a translation. We welcome students of all levels: undergraduate and graduate, students from nontraditional backgrounds, and advanced high school students. This is not for the faint of heart!

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Upper-Level Greek

Course readings include rhetorical prose, drama, history, and a Platonic dialogue as well as additional selections to be read at sight.

The curriculum may include:

Xenophon—Apology
Lysias 1—On the Murder of Eratosthenes
Plato—Phaedrus
Sophocles—Ajax
Thucydides—Book 2.1-65

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

🥵🎉

[Carla Ferris]

I rate this as difficult and rewarding literature. I enjoy learning the ancient Greek vocabulary.

[Brandon Neary · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good if you want to learn the language but can be pretty boring if you want to read casually

[Joshua Glucksman · Rating 3 out of 5]

LOL

[Grace Leber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the textbook for my summer intensive course in ancient Greek. Its primary focus is on grammar, and it did a wonderful job explaining grammar rules and structures that make Greek so challenging. I only wish there was a standard answer key to the drills and exercises.

[Hobie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ow!

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm teaching a friend Greek this summer using Hansen and Quinn. This is not the textbook I learned Greek with, but I decided to use it.

It does not waste any time - it jumps right into the subjunctive and optative! I've never taught someone a language before, so I might use this review as a running commentary on how it goes.

[Si · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intensive and it works

[Lydian · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT!!!!!!!!! Very detailed and useful.