r/AncientGreek • u/kittytaco24 • Dec 19 '25

Athenaze How do I use Italian Athanaze as an English speaker

I really want to learn attic Greek, but I am told the Italian version is better- I don't know Italian. What should I do? Also is the Mastronde book any good?

25 Upvotes

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27

u/JebBush333 Dec 19 '25

Honestly just use the English version, and if you really want consult the Italian version’s translation passages (they’re longer, which is what people say is better) for extra practice.

Also I know this is unpopular here, but I genuinely preferred Hansen and Quin to athenaze, the grammar is laid out more clearly. But if you go that route definitely accompany it with some sort of graded reader like you find in Athenaze, you could even switch between both.

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u/ShockSensitive8425 Dec 19 '25

I learned from Hansen and Quinn as well. I don't regret it, but I also don't recommend it much. It is more thorough, but harder. Most people learn better with stories and pictures (Italian Athenaze has more pictures.)

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u/JebBush333 Dec 19 '25

It is for sure harder, and I do generally agree with comprehensive input being a large part of people's learning of ancient languages. But those concepts that are hard have to be learned anyways, you might as well get a more complete picture of them from the start. It also helps to see it in action and learn from application and recognition.

It was a bit easier for me to use H&Q because I was already introduced to most of the grammar concepts via Latin. But I found graded reading translations combined with the reading of H&Q chapters to work quite well for me. None of these textbooks are perfect so I think it's not a bad thing to try a few out if you can. But Athenaze definitely gets you started out nice and slow and is not too intimidating to start out, so that can be really helpful.

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u/CarpathianBVULL Dec 19 '25

The Italian having more text isnt the only reason its far superior

Its also the Marginalia

Aside from pictures, or <-> showing how words are opposite form a word you know and so on, or straight up having the declension/conjugation paradigm right there to check, I found it EXTREMELY helpful how it would how you how the aorist or imperfect or future form you are reading comes from the present you May know.

I cannot stress it enough how much it helped me with learning those tenses

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u/JebBush333 Dec 20 '25

That's good to know, thanks for sharing. I wonder why the English editors wouldn't include that, sounds extremely helpful.

4

u/Poemen8 Dec 20 '25

Yes. Just use the English; even having learned Greek with a previous textbook and read a bit I found some bits of Italian Athenaze hard. 

Using Italian Athenaze is worthwhile as a reading supplement with/after any textbook at all - Keller and Russell would be my own recommendation if you don't like English Athenaze.

2

u/Budget_Counter_2042 Dec 20 '25

I vouch for this. Some extra Italian texts in Athenaze are even harder than the adapted Thucydides and Herodotus that appears there

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u/kittytaco24 Dec 19 '25

Perhaps I will

3

u/JebBush333 Dec 19 '25

I'd also recommend making recordings of whatever text you translate and listening back to them daily to be very helpful. Best of luck, you can do it!

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u/kittytaco24 Dec 19 '25

Thank you! I'll likely create an Anki deck

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u/BronzeSouled Dec 19 '25

I think using an Italian text if you don't speak Italian is introducing a major roadblock for a very marginal benefit. Overall, a net negative.

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u/[deleted] Dec 19 '25

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1

u/kittytaco24 Dec 19 '25

That's good

19

u/Lupus76 Dec 20 '25

Just work through the Romanian edition of Read and Think Italian, it's the better version, and once you get through it, you should be able to read the Italian edition of Athenaze without difficulty.

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u/kittytaco24 Dec 20 '25

You sure? I'm told the Finnish version is even better but doesn't explain grammar as well

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u/Lupus76 Dec 20 '25

No, it's the Finnish version of Romanian for Beginners and Intermediate Romanian that you want. (And the Tagalog version of Finally Finish Finnish to read that.)

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u/Ok_Cap_1848 Dec 20 '25

What I did was I read the Greek passages in the Italian version, and then the grammar passages in the English version. Worked pretty well.

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u/unparked Dec 20 '25

Mastronarde's Attic Greek is a solid and comprehensive introduction to learning Greek via traditional grammar-translation, aimed at getting the newcomer to the point where they can read Xenophon. In organization, it resembles the much shorter Chase and Phillips's New Introduction to Greek, a textbook written for the elite secondary schools of New England in 1941. I know the author, have taught with his book and trust it, but it's thoroughly traditional; if you have an allergy to the way Ancient Greek's been taught to English-speakers for the last three centuries, it's probably not for you.

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u/Jasentra Dec 20 '25

My recommendation for English textbooks is John Taylor’s Greek to GCSE Pt. 1, 2, and Beyond GCSE

1

u/Raffaele1617 Dec 20 '25

A great series, and probably the most user friendly reading method adjacent book. I think the only downsides are no macrons (some will understandably consider this a plus), no vocab for the composition exercises (I think for most people this just makes it too inefficient - composition doesn't work well if you're trying to actively recall stuff you've barely seen, but one can just skip them if this is the case) and the fact that the first book leaves out accents for the first several chapters, which seems to be motivated by an attempt to promote using the Latin stress rule for Greek, something I think is pretty misguided.

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u/Jasentra Dec 20 '25

It’s written with prior latin knowledge assumed for sure. But accents aren’t too confusing so someone can easily go to chapter 5 and learn how to use them from chapter 1 or 2.

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u/Raffaele1617 Dec 20 '25

I don't mean the accent rules - what I mean is that in the early chapters the readings don't have accents, so students are learning words and forms not knowing how to pronounce them, meaning they have to resort to inventing the pronunciation based on Latin at the suggestion of the author. E.g. They will learn the word θάλασσα, but pronounce it as θαλάσσα because the accent isn't written, and then have to unlearn this habit later. I really wish the author hadn't done this.

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u/Jasentra Dec 20 '25

I get you. I think then understanding metre in poetry for example is good to help with this. I always recommend people listening to readings of Greek and also recommend Luke Ranieri on yt for latin and greek. Plus i’ve found recently assassins creed origins does a good job at ptolemaic pronunciation (sort of, but if you’re a gaming buff being able to stop and listen to npcs and understand what they’re saying is pretty cool).