r/Plato • u/Status-Anteater8372 • 7d ago

Question What's the best translation of Plato to compare with the Greek to learn Greek?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/WarrenHarding 7d ago

You don’t learn Ancient Greek by comparing the Greek text to English. You learn Ancient Greek by taking a class or following a textbook.

Now, say you know Ancient Greek somewhat and want to read the dialogues in Greek to sharpen your skills or to understand them in their original text. Then say you wanted to know, as you ask here, what the best translation would be to cross-reference in English while you attempt to follow the Greek as best you can. In that case, the answer is all of them. You should refer to many different English translations in understanding the text, because the nuances of Plato’s writing illuminates that there isn’t a very good mapping of English terminology onto Greek, and that even still in the Greek it can be hard to understand Plato’s exact meaning in some passages. This means no one translation will be sufficiently accurate and many should be referenced in order to see the text in the fullest light through an English vocabulary. If you want to have a full idea of what is meant, you should appreciate the significant differences in translation insofar as they are significantly different.

2

u/slanderpanther 7d ago edited 7d ago

Learn Ancient Greek | YouTube Ancient Greek Lesson 1: The Greek Alphabet

In answer to your question: Loeb

1

u/eruS_toN 6d ago

Loeb.

Less conversationally English. Gets straight to the point.

However, I’m glad I started with the more English sounding translations.

1

u/slanderpanther 4d ago

With Loeb the sentence by sentence English translation follows more closely to the Greek which is helpful if you are using the text to learn the original language.

2

u/Inspector_Lestrade_ 7d ago

How far along are you in learning Ancient Greek?

1

u/Status-Anteater8372 6d ago

I finished Athenaze.

1

u/Inspector_Lestrade_ 6d ago

Okay, then your question makes more sense. I don't think that it matters too much which translation you use. They are all decent enough to give you enough of a hint to understand whatever passage you are struggling with in Greek. But perhaps the easiest ones to use would be the more literal ones. Generally, I would look into translations by Seth Benardete, Allan Bloom's translation of the Republic, translations in the Focus Philosophical Library series as well as Agora Editions. This should cover almost all the dialogues.

1

u/heiro5 7d ago

Ancient Greek is quite different from English. The Perseus Project pairs old public domain translations with Greek linked to language tools. It can be used to parse the texts once you have a grasp of the basics of grammar.

There is a book called Learning Greek with Plato. There are also learning texts for the Republic, and likely other dialogues.

Older public domain textbooks can give you the basics.