<p>everyone tells me that taking latin and greek at the same time would be to hard. what if i wanted to take latin and italian or greek and italian at the same time?</p>
<p>bumppppppp</p>
<p>Learning any two new languages at the same time is not really the best idea. College-level foreign language classes are very intense, even the intro classes.</p>
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<p>I know two juniors in college who are currently taking Intermediate Latin and Greek. They are Classics majors, and needless to say, geniuses as well.</p>
<p>My personal feeling is that Greek and Italian together would be easier than Latin and Italian, because Italian is a Romance language. But that's me. I guess it comes down to whether the similarity would confuse you or help you.</p>
<p>Whether you can start two languages at the same time really depends on how good you are at languages. Do you just remember things or do you need to make flash cards of vocabulary and drill grammar? The former type could start two languages with ease, the latter could do it but it would be a lot of work.</p>
<p>My daughter is more in the latter category. In high school, she decided to stagger the begin dates of Latin and Greek and this worked better for her. But she started Greek the same year she took a year correspondence course in Egyptian hieroglyphs and this gave her no difficulty at all. (Yes, three dead languages in one year ...) Those languages are so completely different there was no possibility of confusing vocabulary or grammar.</p>
<p>ADad, what did you use to learn Homeric Greek? Did you learn it on your own or in a class? I once read someone's opinion that it is easier to start out with Homeric and then move on to Attic. This is the way my daughter and I decided to do it anyway. But after a year of Homer she got tired of trying to figure out what certain words are (abbreviations and added syllables so things scan right) and thought it would be nice to move on to Attic.</p>
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<p>Diane, I actually used the book you were so rightly praising earlier in this thread--Schoder & Horrigan, Books 1 and 2. Those books are wonderful. </p>
<p>I studied on my own, but I also was lucky to find a professor willing to correct exercises once a month or so (until I found the teacher's guide).</p>
<p>IMO one should start with what one wants to read, if one has a preference and the opportunity to choose. I was really happy to read Homer. But if not, the fact that I was eventually going to get to Attic or the New Testament would not have been much of an encouragement to me in the meantime. In that case, IMO it would have made more sense to start with the dialect that most interested me.</p>
<p>I still see nothing wrong with OP taking Latin and Greek at the same time. No one bats an eye if a person takes, say, two hard science classes at once. It would be unreasonable IMO to say one should never take two history (or art history) classes at once--even though one theoretically could get confused over dates, events, or influences. </p>
<p>IMO, it is just a matter of putting your mind to the task at hand. Hard work, disciplined work, but doable work. Also, important work, given the interests and situation of the OP.</p>
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<p>I took Spanish and French together for three years and almost never had problems. (Except for the occasional 'oui' and 'si' mix-up) Personally, I don't think taking Latin and Greek together would be a problem I've studied a little of both and they're pretty different with vocab and pronunciation. And you wouldn't get them confused in writing because of the different alphabets. Italian and Latin at the same time would be harder because so many words would be close, but not exactly the same. Greek and Italian would be easier than Latin and Greek because Italian isn't as complicated as Latin. In my opinion, at least.</p>
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<p>I don't think taking two languages is any harder than taking any two other classes - provided you're good at languages! I was taking four at once when I was 16, and it never caused any problems. I am also studying both Modern and Classical Chinese at the moment, and will hopefully be taking on Tibetan or Korean next year. </p>
<p>I also think Latin and Greek together would probably cause less problems than Latin and Italian - simply because they are so different. Plus, ancient languages are more interesting anyway :P</p>
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<p>I did Japanese and Mandarin concurrently for a bit, and found it to be doable.</p>
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<p>I take Latin and Greek concurrently, though I am phasing out of Latin due to a pretty difficult college Greek course I am auditing. It is doable, and the languages are actually different but similar enough for one to help the other.</p>
<p>I don't know if I would suggest two languages at once at the college level. That is tough sledding. My thought, though, is that Latin and Greek taken concurrently is tougher than one dead and one spoken language.</p>
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<p>I took Ancient Greek at my previous university. It was too easy for me so I skipped a lot of classes. I am really good at learning languages, though. I never make flashcards. Pretty much I just read the word two times and I remember it. The other kids in class had a pretty hard time with it though. My teacher did say that having a background in Latin is sometimes bad for the Greek learner. There are certain things that are kind of similar but different, and I guess a lot of people get the mixed up. I'm not sure what he was talking about though. I do think that it is easier to learn a language that uses different types of letters. When we see these letters we automatically put a sound to them, but we do not do that with different looking letters.</p>
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<p>Does anyone know if one who takes Ancient Greek could communicate with those who speak Modern Greek? </p>
<p>On my dad's side of the family, everyone is Greek. They speak English too, but when they're together, they ALL speak Greek. So, unfortunately, I cannot join in when they have a conversation. :(</p>
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<p>No, ancient Greek and modern Greek are <em>very</em> different.</p>
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<p>Ugh.</p>
<p>So there wouldn't be any point in taking Ancient Greek in high school if I only wanted to learn it so I could speak to my relatives?</p>
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<p>Not really. Most people just take it because it's fun. It's not particularly useful. It's a beautiful, lyrical language, though.</p>
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<p>Do you know if the Rosetta Stone language software would work well? <a href="http://www2.rosettastone.com/en/%5B/url%5D">http://www2.rosettastone.com/en/</a> Is that for modern or ancient Greek?</p>
<p>The high school I plan on going to offers Japanese, French, Russian, Greek (Ancient), Latin, Chinese, German, and Spanish.</p>
<p>I plan on taking French. I come to Canada in the summer (Ottawa. Super close to the Quebec border, where everyone speaks French.) </p>
<p>So should I maybe learn French and/or Modern Greek independently and maybe take German in high school? Or just learn Modern Greek independently and French in high school?</p>
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<p>If your relatives all speak Greek, can't one of them teach it to you (like your dad)? :confused:</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that software is for modern Greek.</p>
<p>You might try going to college websites and search for "Modern Greek" and see what comes up. This came up on UNC's website, for example.
<a href="http://www.unc.edu/depts/seelrc/greek_resources.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.unc.edu/depts/seelrc/greek_resources.htm</a></p>
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<p>Unfortunately, I don't spend enough time here to learn the whole language. I pick up a few phrases over the summer while I'm here, but I forget them when I return to my mom's house.</p>
<p>It seems like the Pimsleur's Approach works better than Rosetta Stone according to 21 reviews on amazon.com <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671315536/qid=1145200736/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/103-0723951-9502222?s=books&v=glance&n=283155%5B/url%5D">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671315536/qid=1145200736/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/103-0723951-9502222?s=books&v=glance&n=283155</a></p>
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<p>I believe Rosetta Stone is for ancient Greek. . . what dialect, I don't know.</p>
<p>psr13, I don't understand how you had such an easy time with Greek. What level were you taking? I have to work like mad for my Greek class, and skipping one class is detrimental. Maybe it is just that the university at which I am taking the course is so difficult. . .</p>
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<p>My understanding is that RS is modern Greek. I guess anybody interested needs to call the company before they buy!</p>
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