Reddit mentions of Greek: An Essential Grammar of the Modern Language (Routledge Essential Grammars)

/u/CarlPeligro answering here because its the same topic.

So I've been learning Greek for about 5 months now, so just slightly ahead of the curve on you guys. Hope you can benefit from some of what I have learned and the tools I have found.

By far I think the biggest jump for an English speaker is the inflection system. Most of us have experience with gendered languages via exposure to French, or Spanish, or something, so that isn't that big of a leap. But Accusative and Genitive case are a lot harder to get your head around. It took me 2 weeks or 3 weeks of playing with it for it to really "click". It may feel like a really tough hurdle, but it doesn't take that long to push through.

While it is possible to make rapid progress in Greek (or any language) I would put "watching tv/movies" and most useful reading 3 months to a year away as a goal. Certainly some will be faster or some will be slower, but expecting that at the start is just going to lead to frustration. That being said, you of course can and should start working through a book "reading" (really translating) it word by word which is excellent practice, but it ins't really "reading" imo, until you are getting through at least most of a sentence or multiple sentences at a time without getting stuck. I'm just starting to be able to read some newspaper articles or YA fiction (harry potter) and only having to look up say 1/10 or 1/5 words (depending on the article in question, and how much unusual vocabulary it uses)

Absolutely I my #1 recommendation is everyone learning Greek use LanguageTransfer (http://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-greek), which is free, to build a foundation in the grammar. I would recommend getting significant progress through this course prior to starting any intensive vocabulary practice, just because so much of the vocabulary has grammatical complexity due to the inflection system in Greek. If you memorize δρόμος as road don't understand what δρόμο, δρόμου, δρόμοι, δρόμων etc mean or why you would use them, then you will in effect have to memorize and learn that word a second time later. By far, having a full understanding of the basic grammar is a multiplier for every other activity you do in the language.

A very similar course to LT is the Michele Tomas course, which is commercial. Its fairly expensive, but can be found at some libraries, or... elsewhere online. Its slightly more "polished" than LT, since it is commercial, but I think overall LT teaches more grammar with more depth (and free!).

For building vocabulary, I strongly point to Clozemaster and Memrise. Clozemaster has the advantage of showing words in context, and in multiple conjugations. The downside is that many of the examples are idiomatic, and the "translation" often has very little to do with the Greek vocabulary/grammar that it matches against. While that's great for learning idiomatic language, it isn't actually that good of a tool for learning vocabulary.

Memrise is great, I build custom lessons from readings I am doing, or whatnot, which really helps cement those words. But what I really recommend is that "2000 words" lessons which are sorted by word frequency. I really wish I had started this earlier. Its very noticeable to me my increase in fluency from the last month or so of using this course, since the words are in frequency order, they pop up so often. http://www.memrise.com/course/426582/top-2000-words-in-modern-greek/ The first few lessons are all "and/the/or" etc, but from 50-100-200 on, they are great "meat" words that seriously show up constantly.

Duolingo my experience has been meh with so far. It has way too many "not useful" words early in the course, and the grammar is much more easily learned via LanguageTransfer in my opinion. But it is a good practice tool.

Install the google translate plugin in chrome (and for android). It makes doing a quick one word lookup much faster when trying to read something. But be careful, its easy to become too reliant on it and look up words that you should be able to remember or figure out.

Some helpful tools/sites

• http://cooljugator.com/gr - Greek conjugations of most verbs
  
• http://www.wordreference.com/gren/ great G->E dictionary
  
• http://www.lexilogos.com/english/greek_dictionary.htm - multi dictionary lookup (including the prior dictionary)
  
• https://forvo.com/languages/el/ Greek pronunciation isn't too hard, but sometimes its helpful to hear a native speak a given word. Google Translates robo-pronunciation is also fairly accurate though.
  
  
• http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/modern_greek/tools/lexica/triantafyllides/ A very good Greek->Greek dictionary, including etymology. Right now, probably a last resort due to difficulty of reading the dictionary itself, but when nowhere else has the info, here is a great start.
  
  For those who do like reference materials, I highly recommend Routledge's Essential & Comprehensive Grammars (2 different books, one a subset of the other) They are available from Amazon, and other place online as well. Very extensive, but also very accessible to a layperson. https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Essential-Language-Routledge-Grammars/dp/0415232104
  
  Also in that vein, the Routledge Reader is a great place to start reading. The readings are mostly of Greek fairy tales, and are given in order of increasing difficulty. Unusual vocabulary is footnoted, and questions for review etc are included for those that like "workbooks". Also available from Amazon, or.... other places. https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Modern-Greek-Reader-Folktales-ebook/dp/B00WZID868/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484249630&sr=1-1&keywords=routledge+greek+reader
  
  When you do get to reading more advanced texts, the "Two language book reader" app on android is great. Upload an ebook in Greek and English, and it will alternate sentences for you. Also includes an in-built dictionary lookup (although it is limited, and is often hampered by Greek's extensive use of hyphenation to justify text) Makes it super fast to struggle through a sentence in Greek, then read the "real" English to see if you got it right. I'm working through Harry Potter this way.
  
  
  A few other sites :
  
  
• lang-8 - write essays or journal entries and get corrections from native speakers.
  
• HelloTalk - phone only, but lots of Greeks looking to practice English, that you can trade help with.
  
  
  
  

I'm a complete beginner, so I ordered this earlier today; not sure if it would be of help to you. I just ordered the Essential etc. by Adams--looks like it will suit me well. A more seemingly comprehensive grammar I found on Amazon that seems to be quite well reviewed is Greek: An Essential Grammar of the Modern Language by various authors. It looks like a great book, but it's a bit pricey and I think beyond what I need starting out.

Thanks for the response! :-)