two languages.

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gigas phoberos
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two languages.

Post by gigas phoberos »

Besides ancient Greek, I would also like to study ancient Hebrew. what do you think? are Greek and Hebrew together too much?

Bert
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Re: two languages.

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I would think it depends mostly on how much time you can make available. It would be too much for me.

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Lucus Eques
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Re: two languages.

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I have enjoyed the bit of Hebrew I have learned so far, from this site. I like the way it introduces the elementary grammar. It is, sadly, far from finished; I'll have to invest in a proper textbook soon.

It is doable. It depends entirely on your psychology and your attitude towards the studies.
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Chris Weimer
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Re: two languages.

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I have Kittel, Hoffer, and Wright's Biblical Hebrew. Many Seminarians do both languages (and rightly should). Just note that Bib. Hebrew is very, very different from IE languages like English and Greek.

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Lucus Eques
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Re: two languages.

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If you had to choose just one, Chris, which would it be?
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Bert
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Re: two languages.

Post by Bert »

Bert wrote:I would think it depends mostly on how much time you can make available. It would be too much for me.
Unless it is part of your education. I assumed you meant it as something in addition to raising a family and holding down a job etc. That assumption could be wrong though.

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jaihare
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Re: two languages.

Post by jaihare »

gigas phoberos wrote:Besides ancient Greek, I would also like to study ancient Hebrew. what do you think? are Greek and Hebrew together too much?
I would get the basics of one down before starting the other. I took a year of Koine in college before I started Hebrew. In all, I took two years of Hebrew and three years of Koine, and I learned a lot this way. The two years of Hebrew overlapped with the last two years of Koine. You can be successful with it. You just need to have an organized mind.

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thesaurus
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Re: two languages.

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I'm spending this summer trying to teach myself introductory Biblical Hebrew while reinvigorating my Attic Greek. I've been studying Greek on my own for a while now, so I'll read and transcribe several pages of Greek for practice and then turn to my Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. I can practically feel my brain switching gears; in comparison, it's very relaxing to read Greek for a while (despite its troubles), because I've already internalized the basic structure of the language.

As Chris says, Hebrew is a very different beast than Greek or most European languages, and I'm appreciating this more every day. My knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Romance languages is only useful to the extent that I'm used to memorizing and internalizing rules of grammar.

To second the others, I would choose one language and hammer it hard for a while until you've got the basics down. Then you can integrate the second language without being overwhelmed. I can tell you that you'll be happy not to have to memorize several disparate verb paradigms at the same time. Learning a new language is frustrating, and nobody likes to simultaneously deal with many frustrations.
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