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Ancient Greek, Latin, dead languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ericstotle Newbie United States Joined 3960 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: German Studies: Ancient Greek, Mandarin | Message 1 of 13 29 April 2014 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have a question. Does anyone actually become a fluent reader of a language like classical Greek? What I mean by
"fluency" in this context is, able to read a work by a classical author at a quick and comfortable pace. I have studied Greek and Latin for years at the university, and it still takes me hours to get through five pages of Thucydides. Not only is it a real drudge to read so slowly, it also makes it hard to follow the text because you constantly get stuck and forget what is happening. I have also noticed that neither my peers nor my professors achieve much reading ability after long years of study. After a little while of learning German, I could read whole novels, even classic works of literature and philosophy at a very reasonable pace. As a personal goal, I want to be able to read classical Greek authors comfortably and quickly. Is this actually possible or is reading ancient Greek literature always going to be an exhausting slog? Is there anybody alive who can do this? What did they do? What am I doing wrong? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes  | Message 2 of 13 30 April 2014 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
Well, Thucydides is simply a bad choice for comfortably reading: As Cicero said in his Orator: Thucydides autem res gestas et bella narrat et proelia, graviter sane et probe, sed nihil ab eo transferri potest ad forensem usum et publicum. Ipsae illae contiones ita multas habent obscuras abditasque sententias vix ut intellegantur; quod est in oratione civili vitium vel maximum. If even the great Cicero found his texts difficult, it is no wonder that we struggle too. Choose a nicer author for training your reading speed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6062 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 3 of 13 30 April 2014 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on the author and the person reading it.
There's a forum member that finds Thucydides very easy, as well as a few others. Not Plato, though. Her name is Penelope (formerly renaissancemedi) and you can read her opinion here. By the way, she's Greek. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5910 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 13 30 April 2014 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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It should be doable. I mean, if the Greeks of the day could read it, why not you? (And if they had problems reading it, why not you?) Most of those texts were written to convey information, not make people sit down with a difficult language exercise. Your goal sounds realistic, so try to find out what specifically is stopping you, and work on that. It might help you to look into how native speakers of modern Greek feel about ancient Greek, because the things that are challenging for them are probably the most important differences that could trip you up. Do they get fluent in the way you want? Find out their tricks. It might even help you to learn modern Greek first, and then move on to original material as a native speaker would.
What made ancient Greek difficult for me was a combination of the grammar and the script, but I always felt like if I'd put in the right amount of work (which I didn't, I just did one semester of classes) I would have been able to read it better than I did. The class used the Athenaze series (books I and II with workbooks) which was quite focused on texts, but taught them in much the same way you would teach a modern language, and that really helped. My reading skills weren't terrible by the end of it, and I only spent a few months on it. And now that I'm studying Japanese, I'm actually more impressed that anyone manages to read a page of that than any challenge Greek could throw at me. But I always got the impression that sitting down and comfortably reading an original text in the original Greek was not part of the goal of our course, or anyone taking it. Never understood why. But this is part of the reason why I don't agree with labelling languages as "too hard" - people stop thinking they can do it, and aim lower. Also keep in mind that reading heavy philosophy can make anyone's brain hurt, so I'm sure that contributes :-) Maybe you could start with simpler texts and work your way up. Liz Edited by Lizzern on 30 April 2014 at 1:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Penelope Diglot Senior Member Greece Joined 3870 days ago 110 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, French Studies: Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 13 30 April 2014 at 6:37am | IP Logged | ||
Well, I love him so much, and I had great teachers, that's why I ended up having a great time studying and never feeling bored. In my case "easy" is a bit relevant because the epitaph in particular is a text I still read and love, precise and beautiful yes, but objectively very easy or impossible, no. You need to work on that particular text. I have read it so much that now I can enjoy it without thinking grammar, you know? The other writers I mentioned are definitely a lot easier, but thanks for the vote of confidence Luso :) As fot reading fluently, I don't see why it couldn't be done, and I would urge the op not to be discouraged. Maybe a more experienced member could suggest a change of studying method that would help you break a barrier, or make a breakthrough? Maybe Thucydides is not really your cup of tea, like Plato isn't mine, and you don't find what he writes interesting (maybe, I don't know), so language becomes a problem as well. In any case, relax and enjoy, because sometimes, ancient greek classes can be torture rooms: too serious, too difficult, too important, intimidating... I've been there and it took a couple of great teachers to break that mentality (I was lucky :) ) Edit: The old post was from my point of view, which is a neative modern greek speaker. Luso was right to point it out, because it's a different starting point from a German native speaker. So my opinion may not be helpful, but I hope it is a bit :) Edited by Penelope on 30 April 2014 at 6:54am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 6 of 13 30 April 2014 at 7:44am | IP Logged | ||
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It's not only doable, it's a requirement on a graduate level in Classics/Classical Archaeology at a number of universities. Not the one I was virtually promised a PhD position at so my Classical Greek never got beyond the slow drudgery phase you're talking about, myself, and not I've forgotten almost all of it, but I have colleagues who "sight-read", or "sight-translate" rather, Latin and/or Classical Greek.
ETA: And since most people don't get into Classics or Classical Archaeology because they are super-awesome at languages, I don't think raw talent has much to do with it. It's necessity, just as it ends up being a necessity to pick up German and Italian/Modern Greek (depending on your specialisation) when studying at a PhD level. Edited by eyðimörk on 30 April 2014 at 7:47am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4245 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes | Message 7 of 13 30 April 2014 at 10:26am | IP Logged | ||
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If it took until PhD level to get there, said uni needs to be burned down. We have them
doing that by the end of the first year of the bachelor's in Oxford. I've got it from a good source that it is the same in Cambridge and London. I can't speak first hand for the US. I am not impressed by the graduate students we take from Brown, Princeton and Harvard, but I've met two people from Bologna, Italy, who likewise had to develop such a skill very early on. The question is how? Well it's the training method and environment. You're exposed to a lot of grammar very quickly and expected to master it while fostering reading in your own time. You don't have to read more than the bare minimum. Only if you want to pass your first year and go on to get a degree. I swear I've repeated this sort of advice re: classical languages here so often. Sigh. Ok let me summarise something one more time for OP since he presumably has the basics. 1) Focus on Greek first. You might find this boring, but simpler syntactical constructions make Greek easier than Latin to self teach. Latin constructions are something that require a lot more focused, rigorous, work. This wasn't something I realised as a student having an excellent Latin master but it really comes out as a teacher....Greek also has a smaller vocab than Latin, you can get a functional grasp of a frequency list really easily. I think we give students around 1600 words in Greek vs the 2400 in Latin to begin with. 2) Do not rely on textbook. A textbook is a guide to the bones of a language, not a magic lamp, you need to spend a decent amount of time consulting a grammar and adequate reader. 3) Make sure you check word definitions and usage. This is super serious, I've noticed that people try to gloss meanings based on related modern languages. No wonder they can't focus on a text. 4) Find suitable reading material. Though most anything will do. For Greek try Lucian's True History book one (after the first 5/6 paragraphs), Plato's Apology, Lysias or something like that. For Latin it's harder to find something more suitable. Caesar was oft chosen due to his "simpler" style but said simple, pointedly "Attic", style belies a rhetoric complexity. Maybe pick up Orberg's amazing "Lingua Latina" series to practice and then go onto Virgil from there. 5) Do some work everyday. I'm not saying you need to work all day everyday on it. But little by little. Find otherwise like minded people like the bros over on textkit. A community can be an invaluable support. I had my tutors and college mates plus friends in other universities and we'd spend each day in a coffee shop or a common room going over stuff together. It helped immensely. In the 21st century you can somewhat replicate this via internet. I mean bro come on, it says you study Mandarin! this is doable. Edited by Lykeio on 01 May 2014 at 4:55pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 8 of 13 01 May 2014 at 9:06am | IP Logged | ||
That's nice, but I never said it takes until PhD level to get there. I said that it's a requirement at graduate level. Those are very different things. And I doubt you'd need to burn down the universities where it isn't a requirement, because not all degrees across the world are language-focused, especially not since I included in my post a degree that generally is not. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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