Note: you are ineligible to complete this challenge if you’ve studied Ancient or Modern Greek, or if you natively speak Modern Greek, or if for other reasons you know what mistakes I’m claiming Opus 4.6 makes. If you’re ineligible, please don’t help other people complete the challenge.

I have recently started using Claude Opus 4.6 to start studying Ancient Greek. Specifically, I initially used it to grade problem sets at the end of the textbook I’ve been using, but then I got worried about it being sycophantic towards my answers, so started having it just write out the answers itself.

I recently gave it this prompt, from the end of Chapter 3 of my textbook:

Can you write out the answers to this Ancient Greek fill-in-the-blanks exercise so that I can check my answers against yours? The exercise is to fill the blanks, marked as ___ with the words under “Λέξεις”.

Α ___ ἐστίν. Α καὶ Β ___ εἰσιν. Α, Β, καὶ Γ ___ Ἑλληνικὰ γράμματά εἰσιν. Καὶ Π ___ γράμμα ἐστίν, οὐ Λατινικόν. C ___ γράμμα ἐστίν, οὐχ Ἑλληνικόν.
Β οὐ φωνῆεν, ἀλλὰ ___ ἐστιν. Β καὶ Γ οὐ φωνήεντα, ἀλλὰ ___ εἰσιν. Β ___ μικρὸν γράμμα ἐστίν, ___ κεφαλαῖον. β οὐ ___, ἀλλὰ μικρὸν γράμμα ἐστίν. Ω = ὦ ___, Ο = ὂ ___.
ΑΙ Ἑλληνικὴ ___ ἐστιν. ΑΙ καὶ ΕΙ Ἑλληνικαὶ ___ εἰσιν. Α’ δίφθογγος οὐκ ἔστιν, ἀλλ’ ___. Α’ καὶ Β’ ___ εἰσιν.
«Ἀπολλώνιος» κύριον ___ ἐστιν. «Ἀπολλώνιος» καὶ «Ἑλένη» κύρια ___ εἰσιν. «Ἀπολλώνιος» ___ ὄνομά ἐστιν (♂). «Ἑλένη» ___ ὄνομά ἐστιν (♀).
«Salve» Λατινικὴ ___ ἐστίν, οὐχ Ἑλληνική. «Salve» καὶ «lingua» ___ Λατινικαὶ ___ εἰσίν. «Χαῖρε», «γλῶσσα», καὶ «ἀριθμός» ___ Ἑλληνικαὶ λέξεις εἰσίν.

Λέξεις·
ἀριθμός | -οί
γράμμα | -τα
δίφθογγος | -οι
λέξις | λέξεις
ὄνομα | -ματα
σύμφωνον | -α
ἀρσενικόν
θηλυκόν
οὐδέτερον
Ἑλληνικόν
κεφαλαῖον
Λατινικόν
μικρόν
μέγα
δύο
τρεῖς, τρία
οὐ… ἀλλά

Interestingly to me, Opus 4.6 doesn’t do perfectly on this. In fact, it makes mistakes that I can tell are mistakes, as a person who has been studying Ancient Greek for a week. Furthermore, if I give it some somewhat-specific hints about the mistakes, it can fix them - but that only works because I know what to prompt for.

The challenge: Figure out a way to get Claude Opus 4.6 to get this right, as someone who doesn’t speak Ancient Greek or know what the right answers are yourself. The way you do this is send me a prompt or the answer you get from Opus 4.6, and I will tell you if you’ve succeeded or not. Bonus points...

hythlodaeus

hythlodaeus