Prolixus Valens wrote:Understanding that I'm looking to internalize the material, how would you suggest that this be studied? Should I just read and reread the material, write and rewrite the material, do some chant (or other memorization techniques such as mnemonics), or some other thing that I may be overlooking?
Hi,
I wouldn't study the material. I would use the material. Print out a copy of one of the paradigms from the Berkeley site, say the one for γιγνώσκω.
Using this as a reference, pick an Ancient Greek sentence and try to paraphrase it into as many ways as possible so as to USE as many of the forms as possible. Pick a sentence that is MEANINGFUL to you.
...philosophy...is an area of interest of mine...
So, for you, I would choose something philosophical, like the γνῶθι σεαυτόν. See how many forms your paraphrases can cover. You would wind up writing something like this:
1. θέλω σε γιγνώσκειν σεαυτόν.
2. γιγνώσκε σεαυτόν.
3. γνῶτε ἑαυτόυς.
4. ἆρα γιγνώσκεις σεαυτόν? καλῶς.
5. γνῶμεν ἡμεῖς ἑαυτούς.
6. δεῖ σε γνῶναι σεαυτόν.
7. εἴθε σὺ ἐγίγνωσκες σεαύτον!
8. ὡς γνοίης σεαύτον!
9. εἰ γὰρ ὤφελες γιγνώσκειν σύγε!
10. ὁ σοφὸς γιγνώσκει ἑαυτόν.
11. γνώτω ἑαυτόν ὁ σοφός.
12. ἐὰν σύ γνῶς σαυτόν, καλῶς ἕξεις.
13. μακαρίζω σε γνόντα σεαυτόν.
καὶ τὰ λοιπά...
After you write them out, try speaking them off the top of your head. Not memorizing, per se, but internalizing to the point that you can produce the forms in meaningful communication. Maybe record yourself saying the paraphrases and listen to them over and over again. Better yet, record a little speech off the top our your head where you use the paraphrases, or just write a story where you use as many forms as you can.
I'm not saying that this method will work better than the traditional method of reciting and writing out the paradigms devoid of any meaningful context. The latter is pretty much the way I learned the forms. Since then, though, by using REPETITIVE, ACTIVE, MEANINGFUL output I have, I think, better internalized the paradigms with a resultant better reading fluency. What we need, though, is for beginners like you to try different methods and see how well they work. It remains an open question, and Chad is correct that different people will learn this stuff differently.
Let us know what works.
οὐ μανθάνω γράφειν, ἀλλὰ γράφω τοῦ μαθεῖν.