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Ancient Greek and Latin: study strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6113 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes  22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 9 of 48 26 April 2011 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is an interesting subject in it's own right. The way I approached it was to learn enough Modern Greek to get the euphony of the language and then to use that knowledge to properly speak the ancient language (in my case Koine). Additionally, If you really want to "master" Greek, you also need to learn the Modern language and Koine, in addition to Classical--at least that is my opinion. Edited by JW on 26 April 2011 at 3:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| etracher Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5325 days ago 92 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Modern Hebrew, Russian, Latvian | Message 10 of 48 26 April 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
What is that X? Is that a cross? JW, are you ruining another thread by bringing up religion? Sorry, I couldn't resist. LOL. EDIT: And I almost forgot, for sofi: if you decide to start with Homeric Greek, I would also recommend Owen and Goodspeed's "Homeric Vocabularies". It consists of word lists organized by frequency. It was very useful when I began studying Homer. Edited by etracher on 26 April 2011 at 6:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6113 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 11 of 48 26 April 2011 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
Touche' :) Sorry about that, the forum was malfunctioning and I could not delete the double post, nor leave it blank. Perhaps a moderator can delete it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cntrational Triglot Groupie India Joined 5118 days ago 49 posts - 66 votes Speaks: Hindi, Telugu, English* Studies: French | Message 12 of 48 26 April 2011 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A bit of advice: the vast majority of textbooks for learning Latin and Ancient Greek use the "translate from and to English" method. This will not work. Living languages aren't taught like that anymore, and for good reason: all it will teach you is how to translate, not fluently speak. Treat this as if you were trying to learn any other foreign language if you're aiming for true fluency.
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| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6669 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 13 of 48 26 April 2011 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This is interesting! I hope you create a language learning log here on the forum and record your progress. I would very much like to know what method you end up using and how soon you are able to start reading. I also study an old language (Old Church Slavonic) in order to read old texts ;)
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| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6113 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 14 of 48 26 April 2011 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is very good advice. Here is a funny illustrative anecodote. One of my Koine teachers asked an associate to read a passage in Greek aloud. He was someone who could translate from Greek to English at an advanced level--however, he had considerable trouble reading the passage aloud--To me, this certainly does not equate to mastery of a language... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sofi Newbie United States Joined 4953 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 15 of 48 26 April 2011 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The reason that I mention the possibility of beginning with Homeric Greek is that Homer is considered to be the birth of the Greek culture in its recognisable form, along with Hesiod, though Homer has priority. Is it more difficult to do Homeric Greek => Attic Greek than it is to do Attic Greek => Homeric Greek?
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| Sollos Newbie United States Joined 5990 days ago 15 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Danish | Message 16 of 48 26 April 2011 at 11:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Your 5 month estimate is just flat out false.
Anyways, begin with what interests you the most. If you do start with Ancient Greek, Latin will be a breeze. I had two years of Spanish and four years of Latin before I started Russian which has made the latter pain-free. I will have to learn German and French in graduate school, but because of my background it's really of no concern. I know far more Russian than Latin though because of my linguistic and literary taste, which far supersedes any historical and scholarly interest I had in Latin. I would start with Ancient Greek if I were since it seems the more interesting to you. You made a programming reference, I don't know how intimate you are with it, but I started with C++ and worked my way down the ladder to Java and then to Python. If you have any experience with programming, then you might be better able to judge if jumping headfirst into a more difficult language is fine rather than progressively working up to it. My recommendation is to pick up a number of texts in Ancient Greek, a comprehensive/referential grammar, and the obvious dictionary. The grammar book may be the most difficult to get. I have one for Icelandic, but Russian doesn't seem to have one. Russian has a grammatical outline, but it is far from comprehensive. The best grammar reference there is, is tied and mixed up within a textbook, and isn't ideal. It'll be a matter of luck for you if there is something for Ancient Greek on the market. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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