9 ms·

Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata

182 points by gone35 4y ago

yorwba 4y ago
I was concerned that the Latin title might be a bad sign, but it turns out the main title is Ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζομένη and the Latin is only an explanation for people who are familiar with Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.
bshimmin 4y ago
Thank you for posting this! I gave myself a pat on the back for being able to get through the first chapter unaided thanks to my A-Level in Greek mumble years ago...
agravier 4y ago
The idea seems cool but I don't understand how this is meant to be used in practice, for a beginner. As support for a structured course?
- ikurei 4y ago
  > Can I use LGPSI to teach myself Greek? Honestly, not yet. Would I like LGPSI to get to the point where you could entirely use it, by itself, by yourself, to learn Greek (as you can do with LLPSI)? Yes, certainly. It's not at that point, and I don't expect it to reach that point especially quickly. https://seumasjeltzz.github.io/LinguaeGraecaePerSeIllustrata/intro.html https://seumasjeltzz.github.io/LinguaeGraecaePerSeIllustrata...
  - giomasce 4y ago
    I wonder how they are going to make it easier to understand the Greek alphabet. With LLPSI at least it can be given for granted that the great part of readers will be able to decode the Latin alphabet (and, say, understand what "Roma", "Italia" and "Europa" are even if they don't know Latin yet), given that English, Spanish and French made it (in different ages) the "alphabetus francus" for basically the whole world. That seems much less obvious with the Greek alphabet.
    - yorwba 4y ago
      Someone could record an audiobook version so people can read along and figure out the sound values on the fly.
    - schoen 4y ago
      I wonder if you could find people or objects whose Greek names would be familiar to enough readers, and have a section with pictures and the names written out. Like Αα, Ἀλέξανδρος → https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Alejandro_Magno%2C_Alexander_The_Great_Bust_Alexander_BM_1857_%28cropped%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Alejandr... or Αα, Ἀθῆναι → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_of_Athens#/media/File:The_Acropolis_of_Athens_viewed_from_the_Hill_of_the_Muses_(14220794964).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_of_Athens#/media/Fil... (although some readers might assume that the word illustrated is Ἀκρόπολις rather than Ἀθῆναι) I'm not sure there are famous-enough ancient Greek people, places, or things to use for each letter, though. Optimistically, you could maybe have a few gods, a few philosophers, a very few places (on a map?), and then you might be stuck. Even using Homer brings in a challenge, because beginners won't yet know about the rough breathing mark and most would expect his name to begin with an H letter, as in Latin, rather than an O letter, as it does in Greek. You could try to use things where a loanword from ancient Greek is still used with exactly the same meaning in most modern European languages (like περίμετρος for the outside of a circle), but this might turn out to depend a little too much on people's native languages and prior education. A slightly weird compromise might be to use Latin transliterations alongside each word at first, like you could have the picture of Alexander and say Ἀλέξανδρος Alexandros or of Athens and say Ἀθῆναι Athēnai
    - tgflynn 4y ago
      It's really not that hard to learn the Greek alphabet. It's just 24 letters almost all of which represent sounds common in English. I'm currently learning the devanagari script for Sanskrit, which isn't exactly an alphabet, and it's a much steeper climb, though I think I'm making progress.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mickeyp 4y ago
This is clearly riffing on Ørberg's Lingua Latīna per sē illūstrāta, which is a great introductory book to teaching yourself Latin. There are no explanations of anything; you have to deduce the meaning of the Latin phrases using the contextual clues given to you in the form of pictures and maps. And it works well.
- throw0101c 4y ago
  Duolingo also has a Latin course: * https://www.duolingo.com/course/la/en/Learn-Latin https://www.duolingo.com/course/la/en/Learn-Latin Haven't tried it myself.
  - giomasce 4y ago
    I am told by people who know better than me that it's quite terrible.
    - quercusa 4y ago
      I tried it and I agree. (I've learned Greek and Hebrew via classroom instruction.)
  - Quillbert182 4y ago
    It is woefully inadequate. It uses exclusively the present tense and misses the vast majority of the language's grammar.
anvandare 4y ago
For reference: this book is obviously a (praiseworthy) ambition to have a Greek counterpart to the Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata[1] by Hans Ørberg. Ørberg's way of teaching Latin is, in my view, excellent because it is based on a natural view of learning a language: show something, say what its name is, use its name in simple sentences, work up from there. Each time introducing new words surrounded by already-known ones and letting the pupil figure it out. All in the target language itself, exactly how we acquired our mother tongues. Vocabulary is acquired through repetition, grammar is acquired through "getting a feel for what sounds right". Using the brain's own mechanisms for deducing meaning and deriving rules. The book is definitely going to need illustrations, just like in LLPSI[2]. Hard to understand what 'πόλις' means per se, but not if I take you up a mountain and point at [3] while saying "πόλις". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_%C3%98rberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_%C3%98rberg [2] https://blog.nina.coffee/img/lingua-latina.png https://blog.nina.coffee/img/lingua-latina.png [3] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/c3/10/f5c31074eeb418bc51e7de35d729d7ae.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/c3/10/f5c31074eeb418bc51e7...
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Also worth pointing out that LLPSI is essentially Hans Ørberg's life's work. It's been adjusted and fine-tuned for decades, and it really shows. While at a surface level it looks fairly simple, it is no small task to repeat the process with another language.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    Giuseppi Peano tried to get people to learn an "unconjugated latin" by writing mathematics in it. eg https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n52/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n... (mini rationale https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n65/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n... ) Maybe set theory wasn't the best way of introducing a conlang, but I have to take my hat off for the weird flex.
    - 4y ago
Klaster_1 4y ago
I only did Greek Language Transfer and Duolingo for a couple of months, but some words and even sentences sampled at random do make sense to me. Would you recommend the book to modern Greek learners as reading material?
- afthonos 4y ago
  Modern Greek speaker here. No. The grammar and syntax are noticeably different, and the words are related but not the same.
ogogmad 4y ago
It would be amazing if there was something like this for Mishnaic Hebrew and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Classical Arabic too. Super helpful!
- tgflynn 4y ago
  My vote would be for Sanskrit, though I'm very pleased a Greek version exists.
  - klht 4y ago
    It exists, and it's very good. https://en.amarahasa.com/ https://en.amarahasa.com/
    - tgflynn 4y ago
      Thanks, I've actually looked at that a bit (though there seem to be some recent additions I hadn't seen). It seems like a somewhat different experience. With the Latin version there seems to be enough vocabulary overlap that I, knowing only English and French, could pretty much follow along with very little help. I guess there's less vocabulary overlap between English and Sanskrit so it's a bit harder. It's very good to have the web interface where you can click on a word to get the translation. One thing that would be nice to have, since I'm also learning devanagari, would be to have the popup include the romanized text when the main script is set to devanagari.
- giomasce 4y ago
  It's not precisely what you're asking for, but according to my wife this introduction to Biblical Hebrew is great: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKmeTinUEU27syZPKrzWQQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKmeTinUEU27syZPKrzWQQ
blep_ 4y ago
This is pretty great. I've often wished for the concept of LLPSI in other languages, I'm glad someone is doing it. Also, I should try working through LLPSI again.
yawboakye 4y ago
first perhaps insignificant problem: lingua latina per se illustrata is indeed the latin for, paraphrasing here, teaching latin in latin. to borrow from this reference at all, the book should have a comparative title in greek. the first problem with learning greek is getting familiar with the alphabets and their phonetics, a problem almost non-existent with latin since the latin script is very widespread. regardless, i'll take it for a spin. i've had polis' speaking greek as a living language (https://www.polisjerusalem.org/resource/speaking-ancient-greek-as-a-living-language-3/ https://www.polisjerusalem.org/resource/speaking-ancient-gre...) sitting on my shelf but haven't had time to study.
- schoen 4y ago
  It does have a corresponding Greek title: Ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζομένη (right at the top). I assume the use of the Latin title is to help people who are familiar with Ørberg recognize immediately what this is.
fcatalan 4y ago
I clicked, not really sure what it was about and started reading the first paragraph, armed only with my STEM-derived knowledge of the alphabet and I got it instantly. So it seems to work. Very interesting concept.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  It’s like bootstraping a compiler
ryyr 4y ago
i encourage those interested to seek out Athenaze (in italian) instead. i commend the effort put into this though
- notdang 4y ago
  As an alternative, there is the Spanish translation of the Athenaze Italian edition, which is very close to the Italian one, and not like the English one. Currently slowly trying to go through it.
- troad 4y ago
  Why in Italian? Athenaze has an English version as well. Is the Italian version substantively different or improved?
  - notdang 4y ago
    yes, the content is very different. The Italian version is more like what the subject of this post is, Ørberg style. The Italian edition is an expanded version of the original textbook, but they don't have permission to sell it in other markets.
    - troad 4y ago
      Ah, I see, thank you!
Bayart 4y ago
Being a big fan of Ørberg's work (I like to gift Lingua latina per se illustrata to friends), I'll definitely check it out. Having it as an epub is much appreciated !
toto444 4y ago
I am making one for Japanese here : https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html . It makes use of emoji and pixel art to illustrate simple stories. The only thing required of the reader is knowledge of Hiragana and Katakana. It reached the HN frontpage a few years ago and I've kept working on it since then. It now contains close to 100 pages (~500 words) and everything has been proofread by a native speaker.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Jun8 4y ago
What a surprise! I was always envious that Ørberg's famous book and approach had no counterpart for Ancient Greek. In fact in every bookstore I’ve checked books on learning Latin far outnumber those for Greek, if those exist at all. I learned Greek from Grouton’s From Alpha to Omega, a totally unappetizing book. The reason, I think, for the difference is that, while there’s a robust tradition of using Latin in modern settings and a modernized vocabulary (see the many references given here: http://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignorantiam.html?m=1 http://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignora...), the same is not true for Greek, which is a pity. If you still have some resolutions to make for 2023 let this post be a sign to pick learning Greek! The book that’s most recommended to start with is Athenaze. Also, you can use the great and friendly community at Textkit (https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/) it also has texts of many good resource books. And there’s also the Perseus Digital Library with the goal of making all Greek material available: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
- LordGronk 4y ago
  The 2nd edition JACT Reading greek course is excellent, I highly recommend it.
narag 4y ago
I can understand the first paragraph just fine. It's been forty years since my year of Classic Greek. I still have the dictionary somewhere, so it seems I could make use of it.
olah_1 4y ago
It is worth noting that there is another libre "natural method" book called Salute, Jonathan. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Salute,_Jonathan https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Salute,_Jonathan! Anyone can translate this into the language they are trying to teach as well. However, it may work best for western european style grammars, I am not sure.
buggythebug 4y ago
How are you able to learn Greek with this??
schoen 4y ago
> ποῦ ἐστιν ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολις; ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολίς ἐστιν ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι. ἆρα ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολις πόλις Ἑλληνικὴ ἢ Ῥωμαϊκή; ἔστι πόλις καὶ Ἑλληνικὴ καὶ Ῥωμαϊκή. Definitely not the most 21st-century perspective! ('Where is Constantinople? Constantinople is in Greece. Is Constantinople a Greek or a Roman city? It is both a Greek and a Roman city.') Though I guess Ørberg also talks about geography from an ancient perspective, even though he uses place names he expects readers to recognize.

182 points by gone35 4y ago

I was concerned that the Latin title might be a bad sign, but it turns out the main title is Ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζομένη and the Latin is only an explanation for people who are familiar with Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.

bshimmin 4y ago

Thank you for posting this! I gave myself a pat on the back for being able to get through the first chapter unaided thanks to my A-Level in Greek mumble years ago...

agravier 4y ago

The idea seems cool but I don't understand how this is meant to be used in practice, for a beginner. As support for a structured course?

ikurei 4y ago
> Can I use LGPSI to teach myself Greek? Honestly, not yet. Would I like LGPSI to get to the point where you could entirely use it, by itself, by yourself, to learn Greek (as you can do with LLPSI)? Yes, certainly. It's not at that point, and I don't expect it to reach that point especially quickly. https://seumasjeltzz.github.io/LinguaeGraecaePerSeIllustrata/intro.html https://seumasjeltzz.github.io/LinguaeGraecaePerSeIllustrata...
- giomasce 4y ago
  I wonder how they are going to make it easier to understand the Greek alphabet. With LLPSI at least it can be given for granted that the great part of readers will be able to decode the Latin alphabet (and, say, understand what "Roma", "Italia" and "Europa" are even if they don't know Latin yet), given that English, Spanish and French made it (in different ages) the "alphabetus francus" for basically the whole world. That seems much less obvious with the Greek alphabet.
  - yorwba 4y ago
    Someone could record an audiobook version so people can read along and figure out the sound values on the fly.
  - schoen 4y ago
    I wonder if you could find people or objects whose Greek names would be familiar to enough readers, and have a section with pictures and the names written out. Like Αα, Ἀλέξανδρος → https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Alejandro_Magno%2C_Alexander_The_Great_Bust_Alexander_BM_1857_%28cropped%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Alejandr... or Αα, Ἀθῆναι → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_of_Athens#/media/File:The_Acropolis_of_Athens_viewed_from_the_Hill_of_the_Muses_(14220794964).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_of_Athens#/media/Fil... (although some readers might assume that the word illustrated is Ἀκρόπολις rather than Ἀθῆναι) I'm not sure there are famous-enough ancient Greek people, places, or things to use for each letter, though. Optimistically, you could maybe have a few gods, a few philosophers, a very few places (on a map?), and then you might be stuck. Even using Homer brings in a challenge, because beginners won't yet know about the rough breathing mark and most would expect his name to begin with an H letter, as in Latin, rather than an O letter, as it does in Greek. You could try to use things where a loanword from ancient Greek is still used with exactly the same meaning in most modern European languages (like περίμετρος for the outside of a circle), but this might turn out to depend a little too much on people's native languages and prior education. A slightly weird compromise might be to use Latin transliterations alongside each word at first, like you could have the picture of Alexander and say Ἀλέξανδρος Alexandros or of Athens and say Ἀθῆναι Athēnai
  - tgflynn 4y ago
    It's really not that hard to learn the Greek alphabet. It's just 24 letters almost all of which represent sounds common in English. I'm currently learning the devanagari script for Sanskrit, which isn't exactly an alphabet, and it's a much steeper climb, though I think I'm making progress.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mickeyp 4y ago

This is clearly riffing on Ørberg's Lingua Latīna per sē illūstrāta, which is a great introductory book to teaching yourself Latin. There are no explanations of anything; you have to deduce the meaning of the Latin phrases using the contextual clues given to you in the form of pictures and maps. And it works well.

throw0101c 4y ago
Duolingo also has a Latin course: * https://www.duolingo.com/course/la/en/Learn-Latin https://www.duolingo.com/course/la/en/Learn-Latin Haven't tried it myself.
- giomasce 4y ago
  I am told by people who know better than me that it's quite terrible.
  - quercusa 4y ago
    I tried it and I agree. (I've learned Greek and Hebrew via classroom instruction.)
- Quillbert182 4y ago
  It is woefully inadequate. It uses exclusively the present tense and misses the vast majority of the language's grammar.

anvandare 4y ago

For reference: this book is obviously a (praiseworthy) ambition to have a Greek counterpart to the Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata[1] by Hans Ørberg. Ørberg's way of teaching Latin is, in my view, excellent because it is based on a natural view of learning a language: show something, say what its name is, use its name in simple sentences, work up from there. Each time introducing new words surrounded by already-known ones and letting the pupil figure it out. All in the target language itself, exactly how we acquired our mother tongues. Vocabulary is acquired through repetition, grammar is acquired through "getting a feel for what sounds right". Using the brain's own mechanisms for deducing meaning and deriving rules. The book is definitely going to need illustrations, just like in LLPSI[2]. Hard to understand what 'πόλις' means per se, but not if I take you up a mountain and point at [3] while saying "πόλις". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_%C3%98rberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_%C3%98rberg [2] https://blog.nina.coffee/img/lingua-latina.png https://blog.nina.coffee/img/lingua-latina.png [3] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/c3/10/f5c31074eeb418bc51e7de35d729d7ae.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/c3/10/f5c31074eeb418bc51e7...

marginalia_nu 4y ago
Also worth pointing out that LLPSI is essentially Hans Ørberg's life's work. It's been adjusted and fine-tuned for decades, and it really shows. While at a surface level it looks fairly simple, it is no small task to repeat the process with another language.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Giuseppi Peano tried to get people to learn an "unconjugated latin" by writing mathematics in it. eg https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n52/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n... (mini rationale https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n65/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/formulairedemat04peangoog/page/n... ) Maybe set theory wasn't the best way of introducing a conlang, but I have to take my hat off for the weird flex.
  - 4y ago

Klaster_1 4y ago

I only did Greek Language Transfer and Duolingo for a couple of months, but some words and even sentences sampled at random do make sense to me. Would you recommend the book to modern Greek learners as reading material?

afthonos 4y ago
Modern Greek speaker here. No. The grammar and syntax are noticeably different, and the words are related but not the same.

ogogmad 4y ago

It would be amazing if there was something like this for Mishnaic Hebrew and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. Classical Arabic too. Super helpful!

tgflynn 4y ago
My vote would be for Sanskrit, though I'm very pleased a Greek version exists.
- klht 4y ago
  It exists, and it's very good. https://en.amarahasa.com/ https://en.amarahasa.com/
  - tgflynn 4y ago
    Thanks, I've actually looked at that a bit (though there seem to be some recent additions I hadn't seen). It seems like a somewhat different experience. With the Latin version there seems to be enough vocabulary overlap that I, knowing only English and French, could pretty much follow along with very little help. I guess there's less vocabulary overlap between English and Sanskrit so it's a bit harder. It's very good to have the web interface where you can click on a word to get the translation. One thing that would be nice to have, since I'm also learning devanagari, would be to have the popup include the romanized text when the main script is set to devanagari.
giomasce 4y ago
It's not precisely what you're asking for, but according to my wife this introduction to Biblical Hebrew is great: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKmeTinUEU27syZPKrzWQQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKmeTinUEU27syZPKrzWQQ

blep_ 4y ago

This is pretty great. I've often wished for the concept of LLPSI in other languages, I'm glad someone is doing it. Also, I should try working through LLPSI again.

yawboakye 4y ago

first perhaps insignificant problem: lingua latina per se illustrata is indeed the latin for, paraphrasing here, teaching latin in latin. to borrow from this reference at all, the book should have a comparative title in greek. the first problem with learning greek is getting familiar with the alphabets and their phonetics, a problem almost non-existent with latin since the latin script is very widespread. regardless, i'll take it for a spin. i've had polis' speaking greek as a living language (https://www.polisjerusalem.org/resource/speaking-ancient-greek-as-a-living-language-3/ https://www.polisjerusalem.org/resource/speaking-ancient-gre...) sitting on my shelf but haven't had time to study.

schoen 4y ago
It does have a corresponding Greek title: Ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶσσα καθ᾿ αὑτὴν φωτιζομένη (right at the top). I assume the use of the Latin title is to help people who are familiar with Ørberg recognize immediately what this is.

fcatalan 4y ago

I clicked, not really sure what it was about and started reading the first paragraph, armed only with my STEM-derived knowledge of the alphabet and I got it instantly. So it seems to work. Very interesting concept.

drexlspivey 4y ago
It’s like bootstraping a compiler

ryyr 4y ago

i encourage those interested to seek out Athenaze (in italian) instead. i commend the effort put into this though

notdang 4y ago
As an alternative, there is the Spanish translation of the Athenaze Italian edition, which is very close to the Italian one, and not like the English one. Currently slowly trying to go through it.
troad 4y ago
Why in Italian? Athenaze has an English version as well. Is the Italian version substantively different or improved?
- notdang 4y ago
  yes, the content is very different. The Italian version is more like what the subject of this post is, Ørberg style. The Italian edition is an expanded version of the original textbook, but they don't have permission to sell it in other markets.
  - troad 4y ago
    Ah, I see, thank you!

Bayart 4y ago

Being a big fan of Ørberg's work (I like to gift Lingua latina per se illustrata to friends), I'll definitely check it out. Having it as an epub is much appreciated !

toto444 4y ago

I am making one for Japanese here : https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html . It makes use of emoji and pixel art to illustrate simple stories. The only thing required of the reader is knowledge of Hiragana and Katakana. It reached the HN frontpage a few years ago and I've kept working on it since then. It now contains close to 100 pages (~500 words) and everything has been proofread by a native speaker.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Jun8 4y ago

What a surprise! I was always envious that Ørberg's famous book and approach had no counterpart for Ancient Greek. In fact in every bookstore I’ve checked books on learning Latin far outnumber those for Greek, if those exist at all. I learned Greek from Grouton’s From Alpha to Omega, a totally unappetizing book. The reason, I think, for the difference is that, while there’s a robust tradition of using Latin in modern settings and a modernized vocabulary (see the many references given here: http://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignorantiam.html?m=1 http://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2019/03/argumentum-ad-ignora...), the same is not true for Greek, which is a pity. If you still have some resolutions to make for 2023 let this post be a sign to pick learning Greek! The book that’s most recommended to start with is Athenaze. Also, you can use the great and friendly community at Textkit (https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/ https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/) it also has texts of many good resource books. And there’s also the Perseus Digital Library with the goal of making all Greek material available: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

LordGronk 4y ago
The 2nd edition JACT Reading greek course is excellent, I highly recommend it.

narag 4y ago

I can understand the first paragraph just fine. It's been forty years since my year of Classic Greek. I still have the dictionary somewhere, so it seems I could make use of it.

olah_1 4y ago

It is worth noting that there is another libre "natural method" book called Salute, Jonathan. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Salute,_Jonathan https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Salute,_Jonathan! Anyone can translate this into the language they are trying to teach as well. However, it may work best for western european style grammars, I am not sure.

buggythebug 4y ago

How are you able to learn Greek with this??

schoen 4y ago

> ποῦ ἐστιν ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολις; ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολίς ἐστιν ἐν τῇ Ἑλλάδι. ἆρα ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολις πόλις Ἑλληνικὴ ἢ Ῥωμαϊκή; ἔστι πόλις καὶ Ἑλληνικὴ καὶ Ῥωμαϊκή. Definitely not the most 21st-century perspective! ('Where is Constantinople? Constantinople is in Greece. Is Constantinople a Greek or a Roman city? It is both a Greek and a Roman city.') Though I guess Ørberg also talks about geography from an ancient perspective, even though he uses place names he expects readers to recognize.