Greek for Beginners (Greek Language)

A solid traditional text-book for those starting Greek. It was written 55 years ago for school use. Explanations of grammar are clear and simple, and each new point is backed up with short exercises - some Greek-English and English-Greek sentences, and (before long) some wonderful extracts (simplified of course) from Herodotus and Xenophon.Two things might rule it out as a basic 'teach yourself' book. There are no 'answers in the back', so no way of checking on yoru own progress. Also, although the basics of grammar (ie for the first few chapters) are set out in the book, after that a 'proper' Greek Grammar is needed as well, which is fine if you are going to take the language further once you have finished the book.There is a good vocabulary in the back, and at the start of the book new vocabulary is given at the end of each exercise. However, a third of the way into the book, this new vocabulary is no longer given. That means a lot of looking up in the back, or a lot of work by the teacher!All in all, it does the job it was designed for excellently.

Great book but sadly not much use for GCSE. It introduces some A level tenses early on so much of the book can't be used with GCSE students. Would be great if this got updated so that the passages for translation were more easily used with students working towards an exam.

Excellent aid

I have used this book most of my teaching life. As much as I admire Taylor, for example, there is far too much in it. This slim volume (Wilding) doesn't deal with -μι verbs, but eveything else you need to start reading real Greek is there. I have provided my own grammar materials, rather than resort to Abbot and Mansfield, simply because the layout of the latter is off-putting. But, of course, if you are teaching yourself, you will need both books. Wilding is excellent, provided you have done some Latin first. Though, if you have never met an inflected language before, it may be a bit demanding at first. However, there is so much information these days on the internet, as well as Helen McVeigh's Greek classes (see facebook), you will not be unsupported and alone.

It is advisable to have some knowledge of an inflected language - Latin is the standard one - and to be familiar with grammatical terms before picking up this worthy book and winging it alone. Otherwise, you will probably require a friendly, local teacher of Classics, sadly, a 'rara avis' in a state-school system which seems to champion media studies and leisure-and-tourism as 'subjects' worthier of study.If, however, you are prepared to put a bit of time in and learn, for example, what a 'genitive absolute' is and how it is used or when to employ the subjunctive mood instead of the indicative; and to do a little rote learning, you will be well rewarded and will enjoy the simplified passages of Herodotus and his fellows presented in the book.As other reviewers have mentioned, the book is to be used in conjunction with 'Abbot and Mansfield', also published by Duckworth. This has a section devoted to syntax and usage, which will greatly assist the reader / learner new to an inflected and relatively complex language.Having completed Wilding, will you be able to read, say, Plato's 'Apology' or Homer's 'Odyssey' in the original? Probably not without a lot more time and study. Wilding omits the essential '-mi' verbs and the dual forms for both noun and verb, as well as Homeric variants, but these are all readily learnt from 'Abbot and Mansfield' (and you should know by then how to do this for yourself); and the Loeb editions of all the Greek authors -- with facing-page (not always very literary!) text and English translation represent a wonderfully accessible way into the reading and enjoyment of these brilliant writers.The fact that it has no key to the exercises causes me to award it only four stars, though Mr Wilding wrote it in the 1950s to be used with a teacher when such 'birds' were less 'rare'.

The information in this book is well presented and understandable. But it wasn't as useful as I hoped because it has exercises but no key to the exercises. So it is fine if you are using it together with a teacher who can correct you. I wanted to use it to teach myself, and for that it was no use at all because I couldn't check the exercises I had done. So I have had to order a different book.

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