For the past month or so, I’ve been having some success reading a particular Ancient Greek text called "The Anabasis", and written by Xenophon. This is an account of the adventures of 10,000 Greeks who joined forces with a Persian prince in an attempt to sieze power in Persia.
This is a great text for beginners because Xenophon’s style is straight forward, and the narrative is exciting as well as being easy to follow. It is essentially a sequence of battles interspersed with colorful anecdotes about grand practical jokes, persuasive oratory, local flora, fauna, and peoples.
I use three books to read this text. One is the Loeb’s edition, which I use as the primary source. The two other books I use are Clark’s interlinear translation and John White’s “Illustrated dictionary to Xenophon’s Anabasis,” which has an invaluable etymological breakdown of many of the words it defines.
I generally read about one page per day using the follwing technique. I first scan Clark, noting down words I will have to look up. When I’ve reached about 15 words, I stop scanning and mark my place in the book with a pencil. Next I look up each word in White, making sure to understand its grammar and etymology (which helps a lot in commiting the word to memory). I underline with a pen words that I’ve looked up in White, so that I can test myself when I encounter them again later when thumbing through the dictionary. Finally, I attempt a reading of the text in Loeb, occasionally referencing the English translation on the opposite page, or Clark, when I run into some difficult grammar.
With the preparatory vocabulary work, I find I can read a fragment from Loeb’s quite enjoyably, and this technique has kept me engaged and learning for a good while now. I look forward to being able to tackle more than one page at a time, and ultimately to a second reading, which should go much much faster.