Greetings Attic students from an aging beginner
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Greetings Attic students from an aging beginner
Hi all,
I'm 49 years old, and am just starting Greek. To sum up my so called life, I have spent most of my adult years in the software development biz. My personal interests have been quite diverse, but I have spent a fair chunk of time at one time or another playing chess, bridge, and backgammon, practicing magic, and watching movies and TV. In the last 5 years or so, I have gotten pretty interested in American history, in the course of which I became very impressed with how articulate and educated America's founding fathers were. This in turn lead me to suspect that their education in the Classics might of had something to do with that.
Well I developed an illness about a year and a half ago that basically introduced me overnight into my mid-life crisis. During my recovery, I discovered the whole Rhetoric thing, read 4 books by Quintilian (translated of course) and got then got quite excited about learning Greek and Latin. I joined this forum a year ago, decided to hit Greek first, learned the alphabet and the first 4 or 5 chapters of "First Greek Book", but unfortunately ended up getting distracted by other stuff.
Nevertheless, in the past year I have had this recurring yearning, a feeling that I'm at some kind of crossroads, and that Greek, Latin, Rhetoric, Logic, History--will all somehow have something to do, in perhaps a profound way, with how I am going to spend my next 20-40 years. So when I heard a radio announcement for an Ancient Greek class starting last month, I immediately signed up. I decided that a formal class would provide the necessary structure and impetus to keep me moving forward. I'm on unit 4 of Mastronarde and just love my class!
Just last week my instructor was showing us a translation of Hippolytus and remarked in passing that the Greek "κουκ ανωνυμοσ" literally meant "not anonymous" and was a rhetorical device known as litotes, which I happened to recognize. But I also noticed the translator had translated it to "high renown", detroying the rhetorical sense, in my opinion. I knew then and there I was on the right track in deciding to study the original language.
I am looking forward to discussions with you. Nice to meet you all!
Jamieson
I'm 49 years old, and am just starting Greek. To sum up my so called life, I have spent most of my adult years in the software development biz. My personal interests have been quite diverse, but I have spent a fair chunk of time at one time or another playing chess, bridge, and backgammon, practicing magic, and watching movies and TV. In the last 5 years or so, I have gotten pretty interested in American history, in the course of which I became very impressed with how articulate and educated America's founding fathers were. This in turn lead me to suspect that their education in the Classics might of had something to do with that.
Well I developed an illness about a year and a half ago that basically introduced me overnight into my mid-life crisis. During my recovery, I discovered the whole Rhetoric thing, read 4 books by Quintilian (translated of course) and got then got quite excited about learning Greek and Latin. I joined this forum a year ago, decided to hit Greek first, learned the alphabet and the first 4 or 5 chapters of "First Greek Book", but unfortunately ended up getting distracted by other stuff.
Nevertheless, in the past year I have had this recurring yearning, a feeling that I'm at some kind of crossroads, and that Greek, Latin, Rhetoric, Logic, History--will all somehow have something to do, in perhaps a profound way, with how I am going to spend my next 20-40 years. So when I heard a radio announcement for an Ancient Greek class starting last month, I immediately signed up. I decided that a formal class would provide the necessary structure and impetus to keep me moving forward. I'm on unit 4 of Mastronarde and just love my class!
Just last week my instructor was showing us a translation of Hippolytus and remarked in passing that the Greek "κουκ ανωνυμοσ" literally meant "not anonymous" and was a rhetorical device known as litotes, which I happened to recognize. But I also noticed the translator had translated it to "high renown", detroying the rhetorical sense, in my opinion. I knew then and there I was on the right track in deciding to study the original language.
I am looking forward to discussions with you. Nice to meet you all!
Jamieson
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Welcome back Jamieson. I'm glad to see you decided to commit to Greek. A good teacher can be the best learning aid. The Greek forum will be a good resource for you if you choose to use it, but when or if you learn Latin I will be glad to help in the other forum.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae
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Welcome!
I wish I had the chance for proper education of those western classics. Now I study them on my own when I doubt I could do a useful work with them. But at least I could influence my daughter. Anyway they are fun to learn. And that's a good reason to learn them. And I envy you that you have a class to attend to. Enjoy your visit to textkit.
I wish I had the chance for proper education of those western classics. Now I study them on my own when I doubt I could do a useful work with them. But at least I could influence my daughter. Anyway they are fun to learn. And that's a good reason to learn them. And I envy you that you have a class to attend to. Enjoy your visit to textkit.
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WELCOME!
You are hitting 1000: you have chosen Greek, and you have chosen textkit.com as your online learning aid.
~PeterD
p.s. What is it with software engineers, and other computer related professionals and the study of Greek?
You are hitting 1000: you have chosen Greek, and you have chosen textkit.com as your online learning aid.
~PeterD
p.s. What is it with software engineers, and other computer related professionals and the study of Greek?
Fanatical ranting is not just fine because it's eloquent. What if I ranted for the extermination of a people in an eloquent manner, would that make it fine? Rather, ranting, be it fanatical or otherwise, is fine if what is said is true and just. ---PeterD, in reply to IreneY and Annis
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