New Members Introduction Thread (New Users Post Here!)

[Pathawi]

Hello-

I'm an independent learner in San Francisco, California, USA. I have an interest in ancient cultures of southwest Asia, north Africa, & Europe as they relate to the shaping of ideas that are still influential in the modern world. Because of this, I have learned Sumerian & some Arabic (a language I am still in the early intermediate stages of learning). I would like to learn Greek & eventually (probably in a few years) Latin.

There's a heck of a lot in Greek that I'd like to read. I'm particularly interested in Homer, pre-Socratic philosophers, & Stoicism. Most immediately, I'm planning on working thru Pharr's Homeric Greek, & then reading thru all of Homer & Hesiod. After that, I'd like to move to the New Testament, which I'd like to read in parallel in Greek & Coptic.

I'd be glad to find study & reading partners.

---
Bob Offer-Westort
San Francisco, California, USA

[uswendyuk]

Hello. I have always wanted to learn Latin. I'm on disability right now so thought I'd try using M&F Latin: An intensive course. I hope to go back to work in a few weeks but hope to keep on with learning. Currently live in the US but will be getting married this summer and moving to UK.

Any suggestions on how to start memorizing declensions and conjugations on my own?

[anax]

Hi, everyone. I am learning Ancient Greek, starting with Pharr's book on Homeric. A few years ago I tried with Xenophon, but I've forgotten much of it by now and I am making a fresh start now with a more worthy author.

[Nutter Cobb]

My physician told me that learning Greek and Latin will delay the onset of dementia - it seems that researchers at St. Michael's Hospital have found that people who speak more than one language have twice as much brain damage as unilingual people before they exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer's disease; I asked him if learning two languages would cause four times the brain damage.

[pakmunsu]

Hi! I'm teaching myself Ancient Greek! Very excited about this website!

[Piekarski]

Hey Everyone,

I thought I posted an introduction yesterday, but it hasn't shown up.

Anyway, on to the introduction.

I'm a soon-to-graduate college senior who's just become interested in the ancient world. My goals include learning Latin, and then Greek.

I look forward to getting to know everyone on Textkit.

-Jacob Piekarski

[stereos]

Hi,

I am from Poland and learn modern Greek. I try also to read the Bible in Greek (both New and Old [Septuagint] Testament).

[Servilia Caepionis]

Salvete, omnes!
I'm from Serbia and I study classics at the University of Belgrade. I've been learning latin for 5 years, but i have just started learning greek, so I hope this site will help me with it. I also hope I will be helpful to those who just started learning latin.

[greekandlatin]

I am a high school student who has taken latin and ancient greek for several years now. I am interested in looking at how this website works. I was thinking of creating my own website for latin and greek students, but then I came across this one. This website looks awesome!

I will be looking at this website and try to contact the administrators to see if I can be a moderator of some sort or something else to learn more;

[Noel_P]

Hi my name is Noel and I just finished my first year in college. I am going to take Latin next fall and have never studied it before. Any advice on how I should start? I want to get a little ahead so I don't struggle to much come fall. Thanks!!

[Hey Mr.]

Hello. I'm not a spammer.

[ilulius]

Hi

I'm an independent learner from Nottingham, UK. I have been learning Latin for about 3 months. I'm working through the Cambridge Latin Course, and supplementing this with Orberg's Lingua Latina.

I'm also a Christian and read my Bible regularly, so I've invested in a Vulgate which helps my understanding.

Looking forward to contributing on the board.

Phil

[HiggsB]

Hey there! I am mainly interested in learning Ancient Greek since I am a (hopeful) Orthodox Christian. It would be very helpful to know this language.

[JamieConnors]

Hi, my name is Jamie and I've just started learning Latin. I was given a "Latin Made Simple" book by a friend and I've decided to stick at it. I'm finding it enjoyable so far and I signed up to the forum so I can get some help off people who actually know it whenever I get stuck. Maybe down the line I'd like to learn Greek as well; not for a while, but I like the works of Homer and stuff so it'd be great to try.

[sylvertech]

I am sixteen years old.
I am already fluent in both Arabic and English, as I was born in Lebanon.
It is amazing how I have not picked up French as well.

I never really read Arabic texts much, but that might change because I just noticed that not many people know Arabic.
It would be shame to forget that.


After noticing that I have been swallowing (English) paranormal romance novels like a vacuum,
Sherrilyn Kenyon kept creating Greek and Latin characters,
and that I want to pump my SAT scores, I decided to give Latin a go.

I plan to start learning Latin after three weeks, as my finals would be over and the summer vacation will have started.
I'll start with Greek next summer.

Wish me luck.

[JennyK]

Hello everyone,

Mature-age uni student and full time administrator from Newcastle, Australia. I'm very interested in ancient and medieval history and have always wanted to learn Latin, and this site looks very useful. Look forward to reading all these interesting posts from all these interesting people!

Jenny

[Tiro]

Hi Everyone,

I'm so glad this site exists! I'm studying beginner's Latin and, as I don't know anyone else in my area who wants to learn it, this site is great for resources and connecting with others. So far I've used Peter Jones' Learn Latin, which I really liked. I plan to begin the Read Latin books by Jones & Sidwell soon. Ultimately, I hope to learn to read Greek. Wish me luck!

My username means "learner, beginner, recruit", but the fact that it's a masculine noun might be a bit misleading. I'm a mother of three grown kids, and I live in Canada. I became interested in learning Greek and Latin after reading Greek plays. Maybe one day I'll be able to read Euripides in Greek!

[boomars]

Hello. I have previously posted my first reply but I don't know why it hasn't showed up here.

I am from Hong Kong and I enjoy learning languages very much. I have studied French for a few years before but I have forgotten most of it now. I am studying Latin at the moment, using D'Ooge's textbook.

[Bedell]

I am sixteen years old.
I am already fluent in both Arabic and English, as I was born in Lebanon.
It is amazing how I have not picked up French as well.

I never really read Arabic texts much, but that might change because I just noticed that not many people know Arabic.
It would be shame to forget that.


After noticing that I have been swallowing (English) paranormal romance novels like a vacuum,
Sherrilyn Kenyon kept creating Greek and Latin characters,
and that I want to pump my SAT scores, I decided to give Latin a go.

I plan to start learning Latin after three weeks, as my finals would be over and the summer vacation will have started.
I'll start with Greek next summer.

Wish me luck.

Good luck!

[Butyrum]

Hi! I'm looking forward to using this forum to improve my skills at Latin comprehension and composition. I've taken two semesters of Latin as an undergrad, where I completed Moreland & Fleischer. My exposure to classical authors is limited, so far, pretty much to the excerpts therein, though I'm exposing myself to more bit by bit; I hope to be able to confidently tackle Lucretius soon. Anyway, I'm grateful that this forum exists, and I look forward to getting some feedback on some of my translations.

[jesse.coudray]

How's it going. I just realized that I have been meaning to learn Latin for about 10 years now. I had books, studied for months, then stopped, then picked up for a couple months back tracking on what I already studied, then stopped. It's annoying and a persistent pattern I need to break.
Milton wrote in a letter about education that said (paraphrased) [it is important to learn the language of the classics in order to read the ethics of the classical age.] He saw learning the classic languages as a means to an end and not an end in itself; that the authors of antiquity had a firm grasp on topics such as ethics which if studied diligently would be able to lead a person to honesty in their life and business. Yes it could be argued that you could read the translated versions, but what would be missed? How did the translators life color his translations?
Furthermore I was hoping to be able to read fluently where I can relax with a copy of the Aeneid or Civil War and mull over it on a cool autumn afternoon.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Look on the Latin learning board where I'm going to post about a Latin language get together which I'm thinking about starting, hopefully in person if I can get enough interested Latin learners in Northern NJ (US.)

[infinitelink]

Hello!

Mi nombre es Brad. : )[1]

I sit-around with a relative who has Alzheimer's, look for work, and do some odd jobs when available, but due to that family member, have a lot of free un-free time (not necessarily anything to do, but not able to do just anything): so I've been reading, writing, and working on language interests.

Upon advice at bGreek I've taken-up Pharr's book, though it's slow going with other responsibilities/interruptions/distractions/activities underway. I am working also on Wheelock's Latin too, which I have found quite useful to get some structure and grasp on a case-based language, vs. Pharr's "read these thousand rules and then start to read some text" approach (listing all the endings with words to attach them too, really!!!?), and am particularly thankful for the thread which strings together every post on Pharr's Greek.[2]

I don't know how helpful I can be to this community at my current skill levels--I can say, after a given period extensive straining and researching on my own, that upon drive-byes I am likely to ask too many questions!

Hopefully questions of interest to others (current or future at the time), that they just haven't thought to ask. And here's hoping to a Pharr group starting-up someday, here or at maybe even at Quasillum. ; )

And now aideu.

[1] I don't really speak Spanish (well) anymore, but I used to: hope to get back to it too! Every time I study Greek or Latin, Spanish begins to assert itself aggressively--jealous of rivals, I guess.
[2] That said, I think I know how to fix the spionic issue, if any will let me: I have downloaded all the files linked to on the chapter-by-chapter Pharr thread and converted the underlying mark-up to work with a computer that has spionic installed: what I am not sure of is this, that one can just simply re-supply those files and drop them into a dynamic forum system: what is necessary is to find every document with spionic in it, and convert [face=spionic] to <font face=spionic> and [/font] to </font>, which I did on my computer quite simply using Notepad++, though only for that one set of links. (Not this whole site!)

[Noel_P]

I'm a sophomore in college and am going to start studying Latin next year. Any suggestions where I should start? Thanks in advance!

[robotopia]

Hi all,

I'm interested in improving my Latin, mostly because I want to be able to read the scientific (and other scholarly) literature of the Renaissance in the original. There's something about Latin, in particular, that conjures up images of wizened old men, sitting in cavernous libraries, exploring the mysteries of the universe just for the pleasure of it. Something of that sense of awe and wonder is lost in modern education, in my opinion, so I'm hoping that reading the originals will help scholarship really come alive for me. Having said that, my Latin is pretty poor, if not practically non-existent, so I've definitely got my work cut out for me!

~robotopia

[stephenesherman]

Hi. I've been studying Ancient Greek since late 2006, through self-study. I am 58, retired from banking.

While my original goal was to read Homer, I deliberately started with Attic. Worked through Mastronarde's Intro to Attic Greek, then read Anabasis and a few other Attic works. By 2009, I felt ready to switch to Homer, and have been reading & re-reading the Iliad and Odyssey since. This year, switched back to Attic. Felt pretty good about my ability to read Plato's Apology, the Anabasis (again) , and Hellenica.

But have never been able to master ancient Greek well enough to "read it like an ordinary English-language newspaper." Have been content to plow through texts with dictionary, Smyth's grammar, and even a translation handy.

Then I read a post on this forum from Feb, 2011, by "Chad," username cb. (As a first-time user, I'm not even going to try an internal link.) I found his viewpoint and recommendations very useful, and want to comment on that thread.

[Gaius]

Salvete,

Quid nomen mihi est Gaius. Latinamque Graecam linguam discere volo.

Valete,
Gaius

[Gaius]

Hi,

I am a recent college graduate with a degree in English, but I studied Greek and Latin also. I am going on for doctoral studies in Comparative Literature and I am planning to specialize in Greco-Roman literature as well as English literature. I have read some of these forums as a guest, and I think this site is a great place for the kick in the pants I need to finally become "fluent" at reading these languages. It is hard to keep it up outside of classes and I want to strengthen my reading before the fall.

Best,
Zach (Gaius)

[inquisitivefeathers]

Hello everyone!

I wished to post my introduction sooner, but it seems Textkit was having some problems because I wasn't able to access any threads. But now it's all fixed, so here I go!

My name is Elizabeth and I am a year-two Latin student in high school. I'd like to learn Latin in order to read contemporary Latin texts (like Harrius Potter, Cattus Petasatus, Insula Thesauraria, etc), plus write some of my own latin with friends as sort of a secret language. I'm in love with nearly everything about Latin, but as a fairly new learner to it, don't know very much, so I hope this forum can help me learn more about its grammar (my school uses Ecce Romani as our textbooks, so we don't get very much grammar) and get cool book/website suggestions!

[Nyarpy]

Hi, I'm a 30-year-old newbie to these languages, learning them just for the fun of it. I got interested after reading Dowling's article on his method of Latin learning and decided to try it. I'm currently on chapter XXVI of LLPSI, seven months after starting (I compressed the rote memorization and memorized all six charts in 17 days - I figured that was good enough to start LLPSI since it was written for people who hadn't even done that). I'm planning on taking a break from Latin at the one year mark and doing a year of Greek (I intend to start with Schoder and Horrigan). After that, who knows?

[druvey]

Hello!

I am studying Biblical Greek as part of a distance learning seminary course. My class uses Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek as the text so most of my questions may come from there. In distance learning you lose the personal interaction that you would normally find in a traditional classroom. I hope this will be a valuable and useful resource to me and I look forward to getting to interact with you!

Druvey

[jr2ko]

Hello everyone, I am very interested in familiarizing myself with the language of the New Testament. Thank you all in advance for your help..

[jesse.c]

How's it going. What's funny is how quickly time passes. I was looking at several Latin books that I had and said, "yeah I'm going to learn Latin" which is something I've been wanting to do.... for over 10 years now. The books I had I remember buying before college, before traveling, before doing everything and here I am 10 years later only knowing how to tell if "a farmer's daughter gives money to a poet."

I revamped my studying and decided that I am going to use "Classical Latin: An Introductory Course" by JC McKeown (I saw people at my university studying from that book several years ago, not to mention it has pretty good online support.) It has 28 chapters, seems quite thorough and if I study at least a chapter a week in 7 months I should be able to really dive into classical Latin. I'm on Chapter 7 now.

But why study Latin? Couldn't tell you, guess I'm a sucker for the classics, for foregone society and thoughts, for civilizations bristling of ethnocentrism and egoism. Maybe one day in the future when I am fluent and in retirement I will be travelling through a country that was once occupied by ancient Roman legions, stumble across a cryptic tome of forgotten lore and say, "finally."

Also I live in Northern New Jersey (right outside New York City for those outside of the US.) If anyone is interested in starting a Latin group, ie a Dead Poets Society, drop me a line.

[absmcgee]

I'm trying to teach myself Latin at home. I took a few semesters of it in middle school and have a used copy of Rosetta Stone latin, but that doesn't seem to be the best format for learning a dead language, as you might imagine . I can't really seem to pick up the on the grammar and spelling, only the pronunciations. So I guess i'm here looking for some suggestions on good books/textbooks for self teaching Latin. Maybe I should make a separate post for this, idk.
Sorry for the rambling.

So anyways...um... hi

[derfner]

Hi, everybody. I did a couple years of Latin in high school (ten thousand years ago) and am returning to it now because, hey, why not? I'm using Orberg/Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, and I'm a few chapters into the second book. My secret dream is to go to the Accademia Vivarium Novum, but since I'm no longer between 18 and 25 it'll have to remain a dream, alas.

[Laertiades]

Hello. Just joined today. I have been studying ancient Greek for 4 and Latin for 3 years. I would like to interact with others of similar interest. I am currently working on Euthyphro.

[davidmccollough]

Hi, my name is David McCollough, I am a research student at London School of Theology and am new to this website. My Greek is definitely rusty, and so I am hoping to find some answers to some of my grammar questions, especially on Luke-Acts, my area of interest.

David

[rn9243050]

Pax Vobiscum

So even though I started with Latin, I'm here to learn greek. I took a course in college based on a grammar that goes straight through the Gospel of John but to date (a decade later) I imagine I retain little to none of it. I'm purchasing the ATHENAZE books 1 & 2 online now and really look forward to the potential community here on text kit. A decade ago I also became literate in biblical hebrew but again I am so out of practice I imagine I again retain nothing. I would love to be able to read Greek, Latin, and Hebrew even sparingly before I die. Likewise I look forward to learning Latin to help me round out verbally. I speak English and Spanish but have a hankering to learn Italian and French. SO, pretty rambly first post. I swear I am a human and not a spambot.

God's Peace Everybody!

Oremus Pro Invicem

Nic

[stephenesherman]

Hi,

First time user here. Been self-studying Greek for 5 years. Found CB's 10-point post on learning Attic very helpful.

[korhoj]

Hello!

My name is Joel. I live in Finland. I'm a reborn Christian and would like to be able to read in Greek but so far I only have tried to learn the alphabet... I'm also interested in learning Latin. Besides Finnish, I understand some Swedish and a little German.

I'm a BBA and majored in computers. At my spare time I sometimes tinker with dictionaries. So far I have attempted to convert Webster's 1913 Unabridged and the English Wiktionary for Kindle and Android.

I found this forum as I was tackling with Greek fonts for Android. Someone suggested NAU. I didn't manage to install it yet but I installed the NokiaPure font and it seems to work ok with Greek. I don't know about its license though.

Cheers,
Joel