by Elucubrator » Tue Jun 03, 2003 6:14 pm
Hi Bert,<br /><br />try reading from left to right, as a Greek would be hearing the spoken words. When you get to "tov stpathgov pempeiv", you know already that you are in an accusative and infinitive construction, and the "general" could be subject or object, but as soon as you hear the verb "ekeleuse" you have to take "the general" as the subject of the infinitive, because it's the only way the mind can complete the sense. <br /><br />Greek is a natural language, and paying attention to its word order, will help you to understand what you are reading. A lot of people end up looking all over the sentence trying to identify the subject, then the verb, and so on. This is often referred to as decoding, which is a very bad thing, as it will prevent you from getting to the point where you can understand Greek in Greek, and though it seems like the easier way at first, it makes progress very difficult. Force yourself to read from left to right trying to construct the meaning as you go along. If you don't know what to do with an accusative you have to just hold onto it in your head until you get to a point in the sentence that completes the meaning. Try to do this always in your head. If you come to the end of the sentence and you haven't understood it. Go back to the beginning and start reading it again from left to right; each time it will get a little easier until you get it. <br /><br />In this way rather than "translating" Greek, you will be translating your mind to the Greek; you will be learning to think in ancient Greek. This is the most exciting and rewarding experience.<br /><br />Let us know what your experience is like when you try this out. <br /><br />Sebastian<br /><br />PD have you got the spionic font yet? I transliterated because you did. But you should get the font as it is what we use on Textkit. I will come back here later and modify the post to put it into spionic, after I am sure that you have seen it.<br /><br />-S.
