I think you should read as much as you can so that you still understand everything.
pster wrote:I'm transitioning to the Schliemann method. Basically, you memorize a large chunk of text. More and more I think it is the only game in town for one hour a day
Paul Derouda wrote: I've pretty much decided now that I'm going to read a lot easier stuff like Plato before attacking difficult texts like tragedy again.
Markos wrote:I would break the hour up thus: reading Greek 30 minutes, writing Greek 15 minutes, speaking Greek 10 minutes, listening to Greek 5 minutes
Qimmik wrote:If you are focusing on Koine Greek, you will be reading a very limited corpus which you probably know in translation almost by heart.
i don't think translating into a modern language is doing classics, for me it's doing modern languages. . . . you are missing parts in the original that cannot come across into the modern language
You have probably memorized 500 songs or poems.
cb wrote:...the best thing to do was find very literal translations of texts and then translate those translations back into the original language, and then check my version against the original and think about the differences.
Markos wrote:I also use the English as a cue to speak the Ancient Greek.
uberdwayne wrote:Markos wrote:I also use the English as a cue to speak the Ancient Greek.
Im not sure I understand what you mean by this. Can you elaborate on this?
Qimmik wrote:Markos, why don't you try reading the Anabasis in the unaltered form in which X wrote it? It's really not very difficult, and wrestling with the difficulties it does present should contribute to your mastery of the language--when you turn to more complicated texts you will have to face those difficulties and more.
On comparison of the simplified version with the original, the simplified version reads like the sentences of made-up Greek that are found in elementary text-books. It looks to me like many of the characteristic idioms and modes of expression of real Greek--which you will need to master in order eventually to read real Greek (if that's your goal)--have been smoothed out to produce a text that reads almost like a word for word translation from English. In particular, the word-word order has been shifted around, and all the particles seem to have been reduced to men and de.
Difficult Greek has the price that you read less Greek - that's the key problem.
Scribo wrote:I remember the first time reading a tragedy, I wanted to kill someone but you get used to it rapidly.
I think the thing is people don't really read in blocks, which is how we tackle Classical literature: Homer is so much easier when put together with Hesiod and Herodotos, I found most of Tacitus' very easy since I'd read so much of Caesar, Sallust and Livy etc etc. Its a matter of developing reading practices.
Anyway I just think "real" texts are easier in the long term but its best to use a mix of materials.
Qimmik wrote:Greek that has been reconfigured to read more like English.
Paul Derouda wrote:Scribo wrote:I remember the first time reading a tragedy, I wanted to kill someone but you get used to it rapidly.
Hmm... Because of the Greek, or because of the subject matter...?
You mean like "read one book of Homer, then the Theogony, then another book of Homer, then a bit of Herodotus, then five books of Homer...". Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. Though it's helpful to have a good teacher to make a reading schedule for you, because it's difficult to know this sort of thing before you've actually read the text yourself.
daivid wrote:Qimmik wrote:Markos, why don't you try reading the Anabasis in the unaltered form in which X wrote it? It's really not very difficult, and wrestling with the difficulties it does present should contribute to your mastery of the language--when you turn to more complicated texts you will have to face those difficulties and more.
On comparison of the simplified version with the original, the simplified version reads like the sentences of made-up Greek that are found in elementary text-books. It looks to me like many of the characteristic idioms and modes of expression of real Greek--which you will need to master in order eventually to read real Greek (if that's your goal)--have been smoothed out to produce a text that reads almost like a word for word translation from English. In particular, the word-word order has been shifted around, and all the particles seem to have been reduced to men and de.
The choice is between reading a larger quantity of simplified Greek and rather small portion of real Greek.
Adapted text allows you to read of lot of stuff you sort of know and by the repetition allows that to become second nature. Reading harder stuff means you can spend a day struggling over a sentence and having sussed it out it will days before you meet the forms that gave you the trouble again. By that time you will have forgotten them.
Difficult Greek has the price that you read less Greek - that's the key problem.
But like Markos I do read actual Greek - there is an argument for doing both.
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