Middle Liddell

Textkit is a learning community- introduce yourself here. Use the Open Board to introduce yourself, chat about off-topic issues and get to know each other.
Post Reply
mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Middle Liddell

Post by mingshey »

I noticed that the Middle Liddell has 910 pages in total. If I had regular studying time, I would challenge to 'read'(not possibly learn) about 30 pages a day and cover the whole dictionary in a month. Repeating this for 12 months I should grasp a vast amount of the vocabulary. Anyone tried or going to try this kind of brute force work? Just curious.

Geoff
Textkit Fan
Posts: 345
Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2003 2:30 pm

Post by Geoff »

You are a brave soldier! May the Force be with you.

I've considered it before. I have small focused dictionaries I've read before and found it profitable. Liddell is different because it relies so much on contexts for Study.

User avatar
klewlis
Global Moderator
Posts: 1668
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Contact:

Post by klewlis »

I haven't heard of anyone doing such a crazy thing.

However, if you decide to do it let us know and I will attempt to read it with you. :)
First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you need to do. ~Epictetus

eris
Textkit Member
Posts: 119
Joined: Thu May 13, 2004 8:19 am

Post by eris »

klewlis wrote:I haven't heard of anyone doing such a crazy thing.

However, if you decide to do it let us know and I will attempt to read it with you. :)
I'll join in as well, though perhaps next summer. Sounds like a good challenge! However, I'm still quite new with Greek as I've just started teaching myself this past summer. I'm not certain how much Greek I can handle in one day at this point in time.

Good luck in this crazy quest! I will try to stay with you as long as I can!

Eureka
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 741
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 3:52 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Middle Liddell

Post by Eureka »

mingshey wrote:I noticed that the Middle Liddell has 910 pages in total. If I had regular studying time, I would challenge to 'read'(not possibly learn) about 30 pages a day and cover the whole dictionary in a month. Repeating this for 12 months I should grasp a vast amount of the vocabulary. Anyone tried or going to try this kind of brute force work? Just curious.
You must have committed a great crime, to be punishing yourself in this way? :shock:

whiteoctave
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 603
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2003 11:42 pm
Location: Cambridge

Post by whiteoctave »

i've done that with the Littell, not with the Middell, perhaps one day with the Biggell.

~D
(it was a bit all over the place to be of great use, but definitely helped.)

annis
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 3399
Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 4:55 pm
Location: Madison, WI, USA
Contact:

Post by annis »

whiteoctave wrote:perhaps one day with the Biggell.
I've always heard that one called "The Great Scott!"

It has never occured to me to start on page one, and go to the end, of any dictionary. I tend to linger over a few pages, though, when a root has lots of words derived from it.
William S. Annis — http://www.aoidoi.org/http://www.scholiastae.org/
τίς πατέρ' αἰνήσει εἰ μὴ κακοδαίμονες υἱοί;

chad
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 757
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:55 am

Post by chad »

i don't think this would be useful. it'd be like someone learning to cook, who wants to memorise a list of all possible ingredients.

it'd be far more useful to learn how the main ingredients go together in lots of different ways... the equivalent in language learning would be memorising lists of idiom or something like that, lists of ancient greek proverbs maybe, those kinds of things would be useful in the long run.

User avatar
klewlis
Global Moderator
Posts: 1668
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2003 1:48 pm
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Contact:

Post by klewlis »

chad wrote:i don't think this would be useful. it'd be like someone learning to cook, who wants to memorise a list of all possible ingredients.

it'd be far more useful to learn how the main ingredients go together in lots of different ways... the equivalent in language learning would be memorising lists of idiom or something like that, lists of ancient greek proverbs maybe, those kinds of things would be useful in the long run.
It all depends on one's learning style and the amount of prior knowledge of the language. The more prior knowledge and reading, the more helpful studying the words can be. I am at a disadvantage here since all of my reading so far has been New Testament, but I plan to change that in the near future! Nevertheless, I still think it would be a helpful exercise.
First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you need to do. ~Epictetus

mingshey
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1338
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:38 am
Location: Seoul
Contact:

Post by mingshey »

chad wrote:i don't think this would be useful. it'd be like someone learning to cook, who wants to memorise a list of all possible ingredients.
You have a point here. But I don't think it does a harm to survey the category of the ingredients that you can put in the food, if not memorize them.

I think I might start the crazy project about next year, And in a second thought, to cover 30 pages in a reasonable time for a day(to say, in an hour or two) you have to cover a page in 2 to 4 minuites. That's a very hasty walk through a forest, indeed. You won't be able to properly memorize every word you read. You'll just get a quick glimpse of what kind of words Greek is populated with. And that's what I expect from the crazy project.
whiteoctave wrote:i've done that with the Littell, not with the Middell, perhaps one day with the Biggell.
Whateoctave, great job you've done! How many pages are there in Littell?
Eureka wrote:You must have committed a great crime, to be punishing yourself in this way?
My sin would be not to be born a Greek. :cry:

Episcopus
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2563
Joined: Sat Jun 14, 2003 8:57 pm

Post by Episcopus »

I used to memorize lists of 50 latin words daily. qua due to lack of use they disappear qua however they do indeed occasionally help. It depends whether afterwards you read these words and use them. The only work I have ever done in french is memorize a list of basic 800 word vocabulary and I can understand french TV. I wish I had a similar one for other languages.

Still I have given up doing this. It is not fun, great punishment and sucks out all the zeal that you might have for a language. Still my Collins Latin Dictionary is the BEST and I learned collybus (rate of exchange) as it is always at the top of the page, it's always there, and luella, atonement.

Geoff
Textkit Fan
Posts: 345
Joined: Fri Aug 22, 2003 2:30 pm

Post by Geoff »

Wow! 50 words Daily. I'm not good at memory work. I'm always forgetting to practice it :oops:

That's not a bad practice. I find that forgetting something doesn't mean that memorizing it wasn't helpful. It just makes it easier to memorize the second time. Or my memory works somedays while not others. Sometimes I memorize words then can't recall their meaning, but when I see them in context it floods back. Working towards familiarity with a language is something most grammars don't discuss. This is just one more way that someone can approach the language in the absence of immersion. Maybe someday I'll sit down with the littell.

Lupus minimus
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Aug 26, 2004 9:07 am
Location: Geneva, Switzerland

Post by Lupus minimus »

I studied japanese for quite a number of years, and the universally recognized way of learning how to write (which, since they use Kanji, comes down to learning vocabulary) would be to memorize ten kanji per day. A few fellow students tried the brute force approach, but not one of them seemed to have benefited from it,

jc

Post Reply