new user learning greek, saying hello!

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ostapoppi
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2015 5:51 pm

new user learning greek, saying hello!

Post by ostapoppi »

Hi all! I'm a new user and just wanted to drop in and say hello to introduce myself (and also to follow the forum rules).

Anyways, here's the cheat-sheet version on me: my name is Greg, I'm 24 and got my BA in Linguistics and Japanese lit a few years ago. I actually initially wanted to do a PhD in Japanese literature focusing on Japan's equivalent to the Classical era, but wound up deciding the itinerant life of a professional Japanese literature scholar wasn't a good fit for me. Right now, I'm working as a file clerk in a radiology department in a hospital while I let ideas about exactly what I'm doing more long-term cook.

The idea to teach myself Ancient Greek started incubating a few weeks ago, and I've always had an on-again-off-again interest in the Western Classics, poetry and drama in particular, as well as being pretty interested in Religion and the early history of Christianity, so I'm hoping to get a deeper appreciation of all the above by studying Greek. Having studying Linguistics, I also find I grok learning languages pretty well and just generally enjoy it, so I guess I'm a "hobbyist" more than anything.

Right now, I'm working through a less well-known, slightly older textbook I actually took out of my old college's library called "Beginning Greek: A functional approach" by Stephen Paine, which I didn't really see mentioned anywhere on this board. It's based on an inductive approach, which I'm enjoying right now as I care more about reading Greek than translating it, but I'm hoping to get the other, more traditional perspective from this board as well.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, but thanks for reading and nice to meet, all!

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Viviparidus
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Joined: Sun May 10, 2015 2:45 am
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Re: new user learning greek, saying hello!

Post by Viviparidus »

Hi, ostapoppi, nice to have you here. Welcome!

As Japanese once (poorly) learned Greek, I find it interesting you picked up ancient Greek after Japanese, because both have (as to the latter, is said to have had) pitch accent, not stress accent, unlike many other European longuages. In addition, in the art of poetry, the duration of the words counts rather than stress.

I'm curious whom you studied but that would be off-topic here. Anyhow, I hope you have good time here as I do. :D

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