Translating de/

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maximo
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Translating de/

Post by maximo »

Hi everybory,

I'm a beginner in this stuff of studing Greek, so be patient with with me, ok?

It's very hard to me to translate de/ sometimes and sometimes I thought I was almost useless to translated ( I use to translate it as "But " and "and") untill I came to Jww's lesson XVIII, where, in his exemples he does not translate it!
So, Can someone tell me when should I translate de/ or should I use my own "feelings" in doing it?

Thanks

Maximo

Emma_85
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Post by Emma_85 »

Oh, you often just don't translate de. It's a particle used to structure the sentence like men... de, but doesn't need to be translated. I often only translate it if I need but or and in the translation or if it's in combination with other words like oi( men... oi( de.

Baphomet
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Post by Baphomet »

Emma is right. In fact, the subject concerning to particles is very hard. There's a great book on it, whose name is The Greek Particles, by J. D. Denniston. I hope this one (in PDF format) will be soon here among us.

The sequence "μέν [...], δέ [...]" can be considered (or even translated) as "'In one hand" [...], in the other hand [...]".

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