Friday, August 27, 2010

My Ancient Greek Introduction



OK, I took Markos' advice and wrote up a small text to practice verbally and to publish as a video on youtube. I hope you enjoy!

Video Caption - Rest your mouse over underlined words for annotations.
Text: “χαίρετε, ὦ φίλοι. ἐγώ εἰμι ἀγνοούμενος ὑμῖν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἠθέλησά τινα περὶ ἐμαυτοῦ λέγειν ὑμῖν. ὄνομά μοι Ἰάσων κἀγὼ ἐν Ἰσραὴλ οἰκῶ. ἀναγιγνώσκειν πολλὰ βιβλία φιλῶ καὶ πάντοτε βιβλίον ἔχω ἐν τῇ χειρί μου. οὐ πολὺν χρόνον τὴν ἑλληνικὴν γλῶτταν μεμάθηκα, ἀλλὰ ἐν νῷ ἔχω ἐπιμένειν μανθάνων. ἐλπίζω δι᾿ ὀλίγου παρὰ ὑμῶν ἀπόκρισιν παραλαβεῖν. ἔρρωσθε.”

I am just beginning to internalize Greek. I have pulled some of these words (e.g., ἀγνοούμενος ‘unknown’, ἐπιμένω ‘I continue’, ἀπόκρισις ‘answer, response’) from accessible passages in the Christian scriptures (Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη “The New Testament”) when I wasn’t already aware of the word. I’m also using the Pocket Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary and the software Diogenes to search for new vocabulary.

The pronunciation that I use is Erasmian, since this is what I learned when I was younger. While I have had a lot of experience reading the Christian scriptures in Greek, I put Greek down for several years. Only recently has my interest in the language grown again, and I’ve begun to study Attic. I hope to add more videos as I become more comfortable with what I’m learning, in an attempt to turn passive understanding into some kind of active use of the language.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Interesting

Just realized today that Complete Ancient Greek has vocabulary sections only up to unit 9. After that, they say that you should look up unfamiliar words in the vocab at the back of the book. That was kinda unexpected. What do you think of the practice?

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Handling the Vocab

Do you guys know where I can get a decent vocabulary software to exercise all of the new words that this book is throwing at me? I can't believe the extent to which they are trying to immerse the student in difficult vocab. I'm really turned on by the experience, but I'd like to have some way to handle it without just spreading through lists. Maybe I'll also stop by Kravitz to see if they have some small cards that I can use for vocab. I used to have some vocab cards designed for the psychometric exams, but I have no idea where I put them. In fact, I'll go look for them before I go to Kravitz, but a decent program is a good idea.

Thanks!

ἔρρωσθε,
Ἰάσων

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

3.2 Greek Reading

I've typed up the exercises for 3.2, and I'm about to start translating them. One thing's for sure -- the amount of vocabulary that this book throws out at you is enormous compared to other "beginner" books I've seen. Just from this chapter:

ἀκίνητος motionless
ἀνεξέταστος without enquiry
ἄνευ without
ἀπαραίτητος unmoved by prayer, pitiless
αὐθαίρετος self-chosen, self-inflicted
βάτραχος frog
βιωτός worth living
δραστήριος active
εὐτυχία good fortune
κολακεία flattery
λίμνη pool, marsh
λύπη grief
μακρόβιος long-lived
ὁμιλία company
παμπλούσιος very rich
πλοῦτος wealth
πολύφιλος having many friends
σαφηνίζω make clear
σφόδρα very much, exceedingly
σχολή leisure, rest
ταλαιπωρία hardship, distress
Τύχη Fortune, Chance
ὑγίεια health
ὑποπτεύω suspect, be suspicious
ὕστερον later, afterwards
χρῄζω be in need of, desire

This is only the second chapter that gives vocabulary, and they're already throwing out words like these!! Can you imagine?!

Question
6. τὰ μεγάλα δῶρα τῆς Τύχης ἔχει φόβον.
What does it mean to "have fear"? Does it mean "to be afraid"? I'm not sure how to understand this sentence. "Great gifts of Fortune have fear." Any suggestions? Thanks!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Learning Ancient Greek through Stories



I think Markos (Μάρκος) has a great idea here. Using ancient Greek for conversational purposes, asking questions and giving answers in Greek, playing back-and-forth, telling stories. This is the best way to internalize the language. I'm going to watch more of his stories on Youtube to see how he goes about it. He's been encouraging me to make my own videos in Greek, but I don't have the cojones to do it yet.

At our school we start simple - "What's your name?" "My name's Bob." "What's your job?" "I'm a manager." "How do you do?" "Who's that?" "That's Jane." "What's her job?" "She's a doctor." If I could learn to communicate on this basic level in Greek, I'd be happy. The problem is - how do we communicate even such a thing as "a manager" in the language? How do you ask someone what his/her job is? I'm sure there's a way, but I don't have a clue. I really have a lot of bases to cover before I go making any Greek videos!

But, with all the vocab that Complete Ancient Greek is throwing at me, perhaps it will be sooner than I expect!

ἔρρωσθε,
Ἰάσων

Vocabulary Deficit

I find that one huge problem facing me when it comes to composition or basic conversation in Greek is the lack of active vocabulary that I've got. My passive vocabulary is not terrible. Nate's often commented that he's surprised at how well I do when it comes to recognizing words and being able to tell what they mean.

The issue of active vocabulary, however, is something that I'm going to have to fight really hard to overcome. This is especially true when it comes to trying to communicate my thoughts in Greek. I need to learn some ancient-sounding words that can communicate modern ideas, like "computer", "television", "cable", "telephone", etc. If anyone knows of a list somewhere online, I'd love to get the link to it.

I was thinking also -- and I know that many people do this, but I never did it myself -- before I read a text in Greek I need to familiarize myself with the vocab that is common to the text. This is perhaps a mistake that I've already made with the Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους. I've tried reading it dry without getting into the vocabulary specifics first. I think tonight (when/if I get any free time) I'll run up a list of the vocab for the Apology from Perseus and see what I get. Maybe that will open up some doors for reading.

τί λέγετε καὶ ὑμεῖς;

Ἰάσων

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Quick Update

Just wanted to start out with a post stating where I am in my study.

I'm doing an online study with other students with both Athenaze and Greek to GCSE. In the former, we have just collated our answers for chapter 4α. In the latter, we have just done our first collation of sections 2.1 to 2.7.

I have completed chapter 2 of Complete Ancient Greek. I'm really challenged by this book already, since the vocabulary is really heavy. There were 71 vocabulary words in chapter 2 and only 17 reading exercises. I have a feeling this book is going to build my vocab quickly. I'm already being hit with words like ἀνεξέταστος "without enquiry" and ἀπαραίτητος "pitiless" in chapter 3!

I'm looking forward to really improving my Greek through the combination of these three textbooks. It might be a bit ambitious, but I really want to actually be able to claim that I can read Plato and mean it.

Today's Greek sentence:
ὁ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ.
The life without enquiry is not livable for man.

Why this blog? What is a τέκνον μακάριον?

My idea in creating this blog is to chronicle some of the things that I discover in my study of Attic Greek. I'm currently using three textbooks in my study:

Complete Ancient Greek: Teach Yourself by Gavin Betts and Alan Henry.
Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek (book 1) by Maurice Balme and Gilbert Lawall.
Greek to GCSE (book 1) by John Taylor.

In this blog I just want to put my comments about various things that I encounter during this study, and perhaps put up some lines in Greek that I think are memorable. No matter what, I hope to keep track of what I'm going through.

Just by way of background information, I studied κοινή (Hellenistic) Greek in undergrad school for three years. My desire to push into Attic is for the purpose of eventually reading Plato and other ancient writers with some level of confidence.

Along with the three textbooks above, I have a friend with whom I exchange online who challenges me to read the text of Plato's Apology (Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους) with at least a little regularity. Thanks to Nate for all of your encouragement and aid in my struggle to get back into a mindset of Greek!

The phrase τέκνον μακάριον means "blessed/happy child". I feel that I've been blessed to have taken the paths that I've been on in life, and I hope not to take for granted the gifts that have been given me along the way.