Friday, December 13, 2013

Upcoming

I finished the first level of Greek to GCSE quite some time ago, and it has taken me a while to get back into the swing of things with the second level. In the beginning of December I put together my answers for the first chapter of the second book (chapter 7). I’ll upload that to my website and provide a link here so that you can see what I’ve been doing.

I’ll also post some observations and questions that I have after doing the exercises and comparing my work with the answer key generously provided by the author, John Taylor. I didn’t mention this before, but I had some correspondence with him about the text (he’s very generous with his responses and with his work), and he sent me a hard copy of the key he has put together for both levels of his textbook and also to his Greek Beyond GCSE (the third book in the set). I have them now also in digital copies (PDF), and I’ll send them to anyone who wishes to receive them for their own work in this series. Just let me know that you’re interested, and I’ll send them along via link or email – with Mr. Taylor’s blessings.

I’ve also decided to re-record the video introduction that I made before to take into account the most meaningful change I’ve made in my approach to ancient Greek. I’ve begun using Randall Buth’s reconstructed Κοινή pronunciation. I still have a bit of trouble with the equation of οι to υ (not like modern Greek [i:] but like German ü), but I’m getting used to reading αι like ε and have completely converted ο to sound like ω in my pronunciation. Buth’s reconstruction is supposed to be the best equivalence scholars can make to the sound of Greek during the Κοινή period. I’ve been convinced by Buth’s evidence, and I’m doing my best to convert over. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to converse with him the next time I run into him in Jerusalem. My plan is to re-record the introduction, upload it to Youtube, make the video private with access only by direct link (because of an abusive user on the CARM forum) – and to post the video here on the blog for your viewing scrutiny. Let me know what you think of it.

ἔρρωσθε,
Ἰάσων τοῦ Ἰωάννου

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Latest Progress

Well, it's about time I started updating this blog again! I don't know how it got away from me like this.

Since I last wrote, I have finished level 1 of both Athenaze and Greek to GCSE. I've put the former aside for now and am working from the GCSE series exclusively. I'm currently in chapter 8, which is the second chapter of the second level.

I'll add some more later, but I just wanted to open up this blog again. I hope that it will become a focus of some energy in the upcoming days.

ἔρρωσθε,
Ἰάσων