Brute Memorization of Greek Grammar

[Lucus Eques]

χαιρετε!

The time has come for me to do as the Romans did, and learn Greek. It was only a month or so ago that I stumbled upon this website:

Latin by the Dowling Method

In it, Prof. William C. Dowling describes the best means of apprehending Latin: memorizing all the noun declensions, then all the adjective declensions, then all the verb conjugations. He pans Wheelock, the popular Latin for beginners book, and now I tend to agree with his sentiments; though he refers to the Summary of Forms section in the back with all the declensions and conjugations (it is very comprehensive) as the most useful part of the book. And after this "brute memorization" all the grammar, one proceeds to Lingua Latina, a tremendous book, all in Latin, that teaches Latin via the "direct method," like a children's book, comprehensible and self-instructive from the very first sentence. It is a wondrous novel, actually, a novella in its own right with a beautiful little story that follows the day-to-day routine of a Roman family.

I am now more than two thirds of the way through the first volume, and I am simply astounded at how my Latin skills have improved. Every few chapters I've been looking back at random parts of Caesar's Gallic Wars, rejoicing how each time my intuitive grasp of random selections of the text has leapt forward by fantastic strides — to say nothing of how entertaining the story is. I wonder, is there a book like this available for Greek?

More important for now, though, is the ingraining memorization of Greek grammar. I've been looking for a website or the like comparable to that of the ForumRomanum.org page of Latin inflections, which was superior even to Wheelock, but that part of the website has since disappeared in a recent remodelling, most unfortunately, so I cannot provide a link. In any case, I am looking to assimilate the great corpus of Greek nouns, adjectives, and verbs, memorize them all by rote. It worked unbelievably well for Latin, and now it shall work for Greek. Of the resources available at Textkit, which would you all recommend as best for my task at hand?

Last semester I studied abroad in Florence, Italy, in order to become fluent in Italian, and having achieved that end, I will be studying at Florence University this fall, and there I will be taking Latin, Ancient Greek, and possibly continuing my German as well. So I am obsessed with getting as good as possible in Greek beforehand, and therefore committing all the basic grammar to memory seems like a good start.

I am very anxious to hear what suggestions you all would have for me.

[Adelheid]

This may perhaps be useful for Attic Greek.



Regards,
Adelheid

[Lucus Eques]

Dank u zeer, Adelheid! Actually, I just read annis' fantastic treatise on the Greek dialects, and I believe I would like to start with Epic Greek — I want to be in this for the long haul.

[annis]

I believe I would like to start with Epic Greek — I want to be in this for the long haul.

Then use the grammar precis at the back of Pharr for your memorizing. It's the only book in English (I believe) which uses Epic forms for the morphology. For every other book you'd have to check footnotes to see how Attic and Epic differ.

[Paul]

...I believe I would like to start with Epic Greek — I want to be in this for the long haul.

Join us in the light, Lucus.

Cordially,

Paul

[Kopio]

Outstanding!! Glad to have you on the Greek side of the board Lucus.

Koine is my strength, I barely know enough Epic to get by (ask the Odyssey group if you don't believe me), although I did start warming up to it once I stuck with it for a bit.

When (and if) your intrest turns to Koine lemme know....I'd be happy to answer any questions (or at least dig around in my library till I find the answers )

[Lucus Eques]

I most certainly will be interested in learning Koine! Reading the Bible in its original form is one of my future goals.

[RepublicFan]

Hi,

have you been memorizing all the Latin forms, by writing them 200 times? How long is this taking? Is it effective?

Regards,
Eric

[Lucus Eques]

χαιρετε, Republic! et salue!

Yes, I accomplished the full repetitions of all the Latin nouns, adjectives, and verbs back in June. It took about two weeks. But then, I did it constantly, and though I made sure to do the first set of fifty or so by hand, I finished the rest by typing on the computer (I'm a much faster typist), which was just as effective, if not moreso due to the clear, printed style of the computerized text. Now they're all memorized, and ingrained, and I could write most of the Summary of Forms from Wheelock from memory. It makes apprehension of Latin infinitely easier, and I think it's the only way to catch up with the ancient Roman children, to ingrain the grammar as well as their young minds ingrained it for them. In short, it has been very effective.

[RepublicFan]

Fascinating. Thank you.

Regards,
Eric

[GlottalGreekGeek]

Reminds me of a method some famous actor (forgot who) used to memorize his lines : he read the entire script aloud 75 times, and then never looked at it again.

I am sure that this is an effective method for mastering the morphology, but it has never seemed to work for me. Whenever I have tried brute memorization for a language (I have tried with French and Greek, those being the languages which I have studied most seriously), it does not stick to me very well. I never copied a paradigm 200 times, but some I have done 100 times.

This is not for lack of a strong memory - once I memorized 15 pages of dialogue (which, if you cut out other people's lines, 5 pages of lines) in an hour at about 98% word perfection. However, I can only memorize quickly when I have a context, even if the context is just music or dancing (thus have I learned a few songs in languages I understand not). Therefore I have learned my forms, in both French and Greek, much better when I use them in sentences, or read them in a text, than when I use "brute memorization".

However, if this method has been successful for you in Latin, by all means proceed with Greek.

[Lucus Eques]

You're right, GGG (hehe, I'm not sure what nickname you prefer); people's memories work in different ways. Perhaps if a person in your case made a sentence to go with each word being memorized in sequence, it would be more effective.

[yadfothgildloc]

I most certainly will be interested in learning Koine! Reading the Bible in its original form is one of my future goals.

XAIPE!

So you'll also be learning Hebrew?

[Thucydides]

I think that learning styles have a lot to do with it. Others might find brute-forcing more effective with aural techniques (recording on to a tape, repeating aloud) than visual (ie. looking in reading/writing)

[Adelheid]

I think that learning styles have a lot to do with it. Others might find brute-forcing more effective with aural techniques (recording on to a tape, repeating aloud) than visual (ie. looking in reading/writing)

When I studied to become a teacher, learning styles did indeed come up. But also that the brute memorization is something you can do best with children of the age of 12 to 14, after that resentment to this method sets in.

But I do agree that the method works: when I studied Italian at university, the grammar had to be studied relentlessly, and was tested relentlessly. And there I also still reap the benefits.



Regards,
Adelheid

[Paul]

Hi,

I may as well add my 2 cents, at least concerning what's worked for me: rote, rote, and umm, what's that again? oh yeah...... rote.

I recently tested my knowledge of certain Greek paradigms. With only two or three errors I wrote out the entire inflection (all voices, moods, tenses) of lu/w. The last time I did this self-test was about 4 months ago.

I attribute this to brute force memorization.

In the late 70s my alma mater replaced Chase & Phillips with a Greek manual written by two of our 'tutors' (professors). It's a very good manual, but it deprecates rote in favor of a 'rule-based' approach to mastering forms. It seems to me not accidental that this tendency, at least in the U.S., correlates well with the 'ascent' of television.

Rather than decry the MTV generation, let me close with a telling remark from Cunliffe's preface (emphasis mine):

"For such reading, translations being useless, an accurate and familiar knowledge of the Homeric language is the first essential. This knowledge is not to be acquired without hard, and possibly repulsive, work with grammar and dictionary; but though the way be long, the reward is sure."

Cordially,

Paul

[GlottalGreekGeek]

Of course, you have to do a lot of drill work, no matter how you cut it. I just get more out of drill sentences (such as the English-Greek excercises in Pharr) than copying charts.

[Adelheid]

Of course, you have to do a lot of drill work, no matter how you cut it. I just get more out of drill sentences (such as the English-Greek excercises in Pharr) than copying charts.

My experience is, that without the drilling (copying charts that is), I do not even have to bother trying the English to Greek exercises. Too much going through Pharr's charts otherwise, trying to find the form I'm looking for (fortunately I mostly know what I am looking for...).

I'm going to take one advice of my Greek teacher (of long ago): to print out the paradigms and put them up above my bed....

Regards,
Adelheid

[Bert]

I may as well add my 2 cents,...

One thing I have learned about Paul is that his 2 cents are worth at least a buck.

[Yhevhe]

I'm going to take one advice of my Greek teacher (of long ago): to print out the paradigms and put them up above my bed....

Hopefully, they will work similar to a dream catcher, filtering all those nightmares and translating them into Homeric Greek

[Adelheid]

Deleted

[Kat Doe]

"Koine is my strength,...When (and if) your intrest turns to Koine lemme know...."

Do you have any recomendations for memorizing Koine grammar?

[av1438]

Prof. William Harris seems to be an advocate of the "direct reading" method also. A guide to self-study of Homer:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/homeric.html
(probably posted here before)
from
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/