But that's Greek for you! They say that modern Greeks can grasp the meaning of 50% of ancient Greek texts, and that the Greek language is very flexible. You will still be able to find all the words in this text in a modern Greek dictionary, and most of the phrases are correct and still used all the time, although some, and only some, may be a bit stilted or formal.
But this does not mean learning from this book will keep modern Greeks from understanding you. For example, to say "I came here", younger Greeks would say "Ertha etho" and older Greeks would say either the same "Ertha etho", or the older form of "iltha etho." Younger Greeks still would understand when an older Greek uses the older form "iltha etho." This book teaches the older form "iltha etho," but does NOT teach the modern form of "Ertha etho," which is being used more and more often these days.
Even modern Greek keeps the spelling and usage of older words, including many ancient Greek words, but this text does not teach the most modern usage. Older Greeks would understand what you are saying and younger Greeks could easily figure it out, as most of the words are still very much the same as spoken Greek today. The Greek in this book is older and quite formal, as is some of the writing and spelling, most probably because it was created in the 1950s by people who learned Greek 30 years earlier, from teachers that had learned Greek in the early 1900s. The transliteration from the Greek into English letters is actually quite good, but unless you have the tapes or CDs, you won't really know the correct pronunciation. This text is good if you have no other source of learning, or if you are a monk in a cell with nothing to do but memorize and create practice drills by yourself.
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