Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language

Ancient Greek is a language like no other. It records an astonishing array of great works in different genres, stretching across a thousand years of history. Homer, the most influential poet ever, recited in the matchless cadences of the epic literary Greek dialect. The Apostle Paul, the Four Evangelists, and the other authors of the New Testament also left their accounts in Greek, using Koine, the beautifully clear conversational Greek spoken in the eastern Mediterranean of their day. Likewise, Sappho, Euripides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Plato, Demosthenes, and many other ancient authors wrote in Greek, each with a distinct style that makes their individual voices live across the centuries.

After just a few hours of Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language, you’ll understand why no translation can capture the expressive power of this incomparable tongue. In some ways simpler than English, in other ways more complex, Greek is a delight to study. As you work through these 36 engaging half-hour lessons, mastering the graceful alphabet, the precision of the nouns and verbs, the endlessly flexible syntax, and a vivid vocabulary, you’ll learn words and phrases such as these:

μῆνιν: Pronounced mēnin, the first word of Homer’s Iliad means wrath, setting the tone for the entire epic, which is about the consequences of Achilles’ anger and how it leads the Greek army to the brink of ruin in the Trojan War. In this course, you read the first 125 lines of the Iliad—in Greek.
ἥρως: Once sounded out—hērōs—this word is obviously hero, and such larger-than-life warriors from Greek mythology are the chief characters in the Iliad. After learning the Greek alphabet and diacritical marks, you suddenly see the wide influence of Greek on English.
μαθηταὶ: That’s you, the students, pronounced mathētai, and it’s how Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller addresses you throughout this course. It has the same root (a verb that means “to learn”) as our word mathematics, and in the New Testament it comes to mean disciples.
μὴ γένοιτο: Pronounced mē genoito, it means literally, may this not happen. More colloquially, it translates, God forbid! and it isone of St. Paul’s favorite expressions, used in Romans 7:13 and elsewhere. In this course, you read many such extracts from the New Testament—in Greek.

Read Greek from Two Monumental Works

With no prior experience required, Greek 101 gives you direct access to a remarkable heritage. Covering all of the topics in a typical year of introductory ancient Greek at the college level, these user-friendly lessons focus on teaching you to read unadapted passages from Homer’s Iliad and the New Testament—two of the most important works in the Greek language, which have for centuries inspired people from all walks of life to learn ancient Greek.

Your guide is Professor Hans-Friedrich Mueller of Union College in Schenectady, New York, an award-winning educator who gives classical language teaching a whole new image. Gone is the drudgery of glacially slow progress that is associated with traditional instruction in ancient languages. Instead, Professor Mueller quickly introduces you to authentic Greek, and he presents his subject with charm, wit, and consummate skill in making Greek logical and understandable.

A Unique Introduction to Ancient Greek

With Greek 101, Professor Mueller has created a course that offers the following advantages for students and self-learners of ancient Greek:

Video course and textbook in one: Keyed to each lesson, the accompanying guidebook includes hundreds of pages of explanations, charts, vocabulary, and exercises with answers. Also included are summary charts, a grammatical index, and glossaries, plus resources for further study.
Multisensory: As Professor Mueller recites in Greek, you see onscreen sentences and charts, highlighting what he is saying and encouraging you to recite along with him. This multisensory approach—hearing, seeing, and speaking—is an ideal way to learn a language.
Ready review: Professor Mueller’s lessons are so entertaining and packed with information that you will want to watch them multiple times. His explanations and the accompanying review and practice materials in the guidebook bring clarity to Greek conjugations and declensions.
A unique approach: Your focus in this course reflects the outlook of the great American classicist Clyde Pharr, who almost 100 years ago wrote, “Homer offers an unexcelled preparation…for all later Greek literature.” No other introductory course combines the study of Homer with the New Testament, as this series does.