GREEK LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE COURSE BOOK (NEW EDITION) Paperback – 21 Mar. 2006

this is a great book,I used it myself to learn the basics of Greek a few years ago, and now I've bought it again, this time to help a friend who is keen to start learning Greek as i myself already speak the language, to a more advanced level. it is clear, user friendly, and accessible for an absolute beginner or someone who knows a few basics, also it is very useful for those who are a little more advanced. to have around for reference/reminder. I will be using it as a basis teaching my friend, and i highly recommend it.

I have been learning modern Greek for six years(having studied Classical Greek at school more years ago than I care to remember) because I fell in love with the country,language and people on my honeymoon.This book gives a very interesting balance of language,grammar and culture and dovetails with the CD's better than any other Greek language book I have discovered.

I'm about a quarter way through it, and it does seem to fit reasonably with my learning style. The progress is fairly rapid, and I don't think I would have coped if I hadn't already used the matching BBC primer 'Talk Greek', which is aimed at raw beginners. This book might be OK for beginners going to lessons, but I don't think is 'easy' enough for self learners just starting out. I found the vocabulary learning a bit too 'subtle' for me, being embedded in the text, and complementing the book with the old fashioned flash card style of learning by wrote using Anki (use a search engine) suited me better. However, this is by far the best text I've found.The CDs for both books don't have copy protection, so it's easy to transfer the lessons to a MP3 (or in my case OGG) player for easy transport.

It's good

The book might not suit an absolute beginner as it starts with some quite difficult words and the chapter order is unusual (asking directions before being able to say hello). However if you are new to learning Greek but have some experience, it's excellent when combined with the CDs which are sold separately. It's filled in several gaps in my knowledge.

I teach Greek to adults at my local Community College and I use this book because it is a good introduction to the language and it is affordable at about £10 (other course books are over £30 which is a lot to ask of people to spend when they are starting).It has a lot of dialogues and listening practice and it is current. However, I supplement it with a lot of additional material which I have designed myself to go along with each chapter of the book as there are not enough exercises to help students learn the material of each chapter before moving on to the next.It is a book that requires students to take control of their learning and practice the material again and again at home. I think it will be hard for someone to do it on their own and having the teacher to ask questions and clarify things makes it easier.One thing I don't like about the book is the small font and there is also a couple of typos.All in all it is good value for money and fun to work with.

This is a great introduction to the Greek language, it is well written and does include a reasonably good Grammar section. It is advisable to buy the CDs that accompany this book to get the most out of it.

Firstly, as a language teacher with twenty years experience, I should have been apprehensive that no Greek person got any credits for the authorship of this book, I believe that both a Greek-speaker and an English-speaker should have been involved in the creation of a book like this, since it uses both languages extensively. I should also have been apprehensive that Amazon does not give any author details on David Hardy. Why did I buy a book about Greek language and culture when I didn't know if the author has any qualifications, knowledge or experience in those areas? I did buy it, however, and now I'm regretting it.Secondly, even the format makes me feel nauseous. All those faux-nostalgic black-and-white photographs, with no obvious use other than to fill the pages cheaply and to provide some sort of sepia 1940s photograph-album ambiance. The only one I liked was the photo of the old chap dancing in a taverna in shorts and a cap.Thirdly, as @Gavin so rightly says in his review here, the cultural info is an unnecessary filler, you could get the same information for free on the internet. But @Gavin doesn't mention the worst aspects of this: there are completely unfamiliar Greek words interspersed everywhere amongst the cultural descriptions, which very quickly gets very tedious. Imagine if the same thing were done in a book about French language and people, something like this: "Rennes is the capital city of la Bretagne (Brittany). It's known for its colombages (half-timbered houses). Parc du Thabor includes une roseraie (a rose garden). South of the Vilaine river, the Musée des Beaux-arts displays oeuvres (works) by Botticelli, Rubens and Picasso. The Champs Libres cultural center abrite (hosts) the Musée de Bretagne (Brittany Museum) and Espace des Sciences". I hope this analogy illustrates what I mean. Apart from being tedious to read, it's not clear to me whether this method has any value at all in the teaching of vocabulary.Fourthly, there are other areas where I have similar concerns about the pedagogical value, e.g. when teaching a language like Greek, in which even the alphabet has numerous letters completely unfamiliar to the English-speaker, is it a good idea to immerse the learner in the capital letters ONLY, with a host of examples, right from the start, in the very first chapters, BEFORE introducing the lower-case letters?Fourthly, there are mistakes that a Greek author/proofreader would have spotted immediately (if such a person had been involved), e.g. in the first chapter, the translation for "coffee" is given as "kafe" (my transliteration). However, the basic form of the word is "kafes" (printed correctly like this in the back of the book). And it is dubious whether it has any value for the learner to give the "bare" noun llke this, without the definite article. It should have been given as "o kafes". The accusative case of this is, indeed, "kafe"... but there is no accompanying explanation that the accusative is being used, or why it is needed.Finally, I suggest that you should also read the very perceptive and useful reviews here by @Gavin and @A teacher of Greek.