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Ancient Greek and Latin: study strategy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Glossaphile Pentaglot Newbie United States youtube.com/TranslatRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4744 days ago 26 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin Studies: Ancient Greek, German, Old English | Message 41 of 48 10 December 2011 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My two cents:
Technically, I began studying Ancient Greek about a year ago and have only finished my self-taught course (using mostly Hansel and Quinn's text) at the end of last month. I took a couple of extended breaks from it because other pursuits caught my attention, though, so I'm going to estimate actual time spent on Greek at about a total of six months (probably more like four, but let's err on the conservative side). At the time I began, I was already comfortable with Latin, though I was (and still am) noticeably better at production than comprehension. While studying Attic, I made an effort to get more practice actually reading at least semi-authentic texts, and I think I was mildly successful. Still, as with Latin, my learning was motivated much more by the desire to use the language creatively than to decipher ancient texts. In fact, it actually frustrates me that in every major Latin dictionary I've found, the Latin-to-English section is about twice as long as the English-to-Latin. And a bi-directional dictionary for classical Greek hardly seems to exist at all (so far, the best I've found is Woodhouse)! I know perfectly well why this is (very little demand), but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. The point: it is possible to get what I call a "solid foundational knowledge" (what this site might call "basic fluency," or at least within a stone's throw of that status) in a language, even ones as complex as ancient Greek or Latin, in a few months. Then again, this belief is based on a grammar-focused learning style. It took a bit of self-discipline for me to slow down and attempt to acquire a decent elementary vocabulary, because I wanted to sprint through the book and absorb all the grammar. I've done my first lyric translation from English to Ancient Greek already, and it's been met with overall approval from a classics student in Britain (not as respectable as a professor, of course, but she presumably has at least more experience with the language than I). Now, as far as reading the classics without having to wear out your dictionary, I estimate that that would probably take at least a couple of years based on the challenges I've faced with it. Edited by Glossaphile on 10 December 2011 at 7:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5061 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 42 of 48 10 December 2011 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, at least Latin can be studied like a modern language. I learnt them in a classic
manner at school and don't know much. Ancient Greek is completely forgotten. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6664 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 43 of 48 10 December 2011 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Assimile Le Grec Ancien is out there, if one knows French, and also a German little book called Sprechen Sie
Attisch? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sipes23 Diglot Senior Member United States pluteopleno.com/wprs Joined 4875 days ago 134 posts - 235 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Persian | Message 44 of 48 10 December 2011 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think the first bit is key. You need to read Greek to read Greek. There are some nightmares of sentence length hidden away in the literature. And yes, there is a bit of vicious cycle in there, so yeah. As for the second, Geoffrey Steadman is your friend. http://geoffreysteadman.wordpress.com/ His books should also be available on your local Amazon site. They're not deeply scholarly works: they are designed to get you reading authentic Greek. And then you can see how the Greeks said it for your creative work. I've also put together a couple of videos at YouTube about Ancient Greek. I'm not saying they're great, but n00bs with Greek may find them useful. Materials for Beginners' Materials for Unadapted Greek 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6664 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 45 of 48 10 December 2011 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that scholars often, very sadly, prefer to teach students science before the language. I was learned to
analyse the predicate before I understand what it meant, which is pretty sad. No language should be calculated out as math. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fomalhaut Groupie United States Joined 4908 days ago 80 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 46 of 48 11 December 2011 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Molendinarius/Evan1965 agrees; Check out his youtube study course for Latin. If we could change the pedagogical (for a century as pure math) approach to Latin, it'd be a far more successful language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sipes23 Diglot Senior Member United States pluteopleno.com/wprs Joined 4875 days ago 134 posts - 235 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Spanish, Ancient Greek, Persian | Message 47 of 48 12 December 2011 at 2:03am | IP Logged | |||||
Which is a true pity, since some of the stuff in these languages, as you know, can be life changing.
Ugh. Yeah. I'm doing my small part every time I get in front of students. I sometimes drop all English at class time and speak directly in Latin as part of my instruction (well, to upper level students). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6055 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 48 of 48 23 October 2013 at 7:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been studying Ancient Greek (attic) since about 3 weeks ago.
My study strategy is the "sentence method", as described by myself and others in other posts. I'm using Assimil Ancient Greek (putting the audio in the sentences),as well as this site as a source to mine tons of sentences. I occasionally reference some grammar on the net, especially for all the verb forms. I usually study one grammar point a day (basically one lesson out of a textbook), with 20 sentences, and 10 to 15 new words. Progress is going great so far, and because of the audio from Assimil, my pronounciation is authentic. I'll let you know how it goes in a couple of months. Edited by irrationale on 23 October 2013 at 7:25am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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