progress report on Thucydides, Book I

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hlawson38
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progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by hlawson38 »

I've been studying Thucydides since September 2022. At about 1/2 way through Book 1, I think I see what Cameron is doing in his student commentary. He seems to have in mind an industrious student, who solves for himself many of the problems. Leaving those aside, Cameron comments on the what he considers the more difficult questions, for instance an idiom treated in a long lexicon article. I am often unsure which bit of an L&S article is relevant to my difficulty.

Besides that, because several here have recommended re-reading, I'm trying to do more of it. On this, Joel commented that each time he re-reads a passage he "finds something new". I now experience that too. Focusing on that "something new" gives me a motive for re-reading, helps me to see it as an enjoyable experience and not just a necessary exercise.
Hugh Lawson

paveln
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by paveln »

The rereading is excellent, I'd recommend it too. But even better is to read something and then listen to it several times on audio. For example, yesterday I read the whole of Revelation from the New Testament. And now for the next two weeks I'm going to listen to it - for example, when I go shopping, when I clean or cook, etc.

Here's a good article on rereading:
http://indwellinglanguage.com/reread/

hlawson38
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by hlawson38 »

paveln wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:43 pm The rereading is excellent, I'd recommend it too. But even better is to read something and then listen to it several times on audio. For example, yesterday I read the whole of Revelation from the New Testament. And now for the next two weeks I'm going to listen to it - for example, when I go shopping, when I clean or cook, etc.

Here's a good article on rereading:
http://indwellinglanguage.com/reread/
Hello paveln,

Was this a first-reading of Revelation, or a rereading? I ask because it would take me many days to get through a work of that length.
Hugh Lawson

paveln
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by paveln »

hlawson38 wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:59 pm
paveln wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:43 pm The rereading is excellent, I'd recommend it too. But even better is to read something and then listen to it several times on audio. For example, yesterday I read the whole of Revelation from the New Testament. And now for the next two weeks I'm going to listen to it - for example, when I go shopping, when I clean or cook, etc.

Here's a good article on rereading:
http://indwellinglanguage.com/reread/
Hello paveln,

Was this a first-reading of Revelation, or a rereading? I ask because it would take me many days to get through a work of that length.
That was my first reading of the whole of Revelation. I read it all Sunday, though, and didn't finish until sometime after midnight. About 8 to 9 hours total. And I always read the vocabulary list and parsing of difficult verbs before reading each chapter.

Edit: I'll listen to the full audio in two weeks. I think I'll understand it 99%. It's only 1 hour and 40 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ip5RbHQZw0
If I read it myself, I'd be reading it for at least 4 hours :-)

hlawson38
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by hlawson38 »

I asked paveln:


Was this a first-reading of Revelation, or a rereading? I ask because it would take me many days to get through a work of that length.
And he replied:
That was my first reading of the whole of Revelation. I read it all Sunday, though, and didn't finish until sometime after midnight. About 8 to 9 hours total. And I always read the vocabulary list and parsing of difficult verbs before reading each chapter.
I am very impressed by your industry!

It seems to me that my first reading prepares the "vocabulary listing and parsing of difficult verbs", and not much more. That tells me I need to do more rereading!

Do you use a book that includes the text, as well as the vocabulary and verb parsings? Or do you prepare this yourself, before your first attempt at reading? For a chapter of Thucydides, I need a couple of hours of this preliminary work.

I hope you don't mind these questions. On learning, I need the description of what one does.
Hugh Lawson

paveln
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by paveln »

I'll be happy to describe how I do it.

I prefer to use bilingual books for reading. If I don't understand something in Greek, I look on the next page in the translation. And then I use a list of words I don't know and also parsing of difficult verb forms. As I wrote before, I study the unknown words from the chapter and the difficult verbs first and then read the text.

Unfortunately, my native language is not English. In English you have everything ready and done, both the bilingual books and often the vocabulary and parsing of difficult verbs. For that New Testament, just buy some NT reader with vocabulary and you can read. Or here's a bunch of ready-made dictionaries for many Greek books: https://geoffreysteadman.com/

I have to do almost everything myself. Like those bilingual books - Greek and with my native language. As well as the vocabulary and parsing verbs. For the New Testament and the LXX it's easy to do because I have all the vocabulary and parsing for both books in Excel. I did the vocabulary and verb parsing all at once for the entire NT and had it printed as a book in Lulu.com.

For the other books I also do it using Excel and parsing using:
https://outils.biblissima.fr/en/eulexis/
I always do the words and verbs for several books at once.

I also have an Excel list of the vocabulary words I know or don't know, especially the most common ones. Using this list, I then use Excel to eliminate the vocabulary words I know, leaving me with a few unfamiliar ones. I also look up difficult verb forms using Excel.

hlawson38
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by hlawson38 »

Thank you paveln for describing your impressive work!
Hugh Lawson

paveln
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Re: progress report on Thucydides, Book I

Post by paveln »

Here is one easy way to get the vocabulary for a book or a chapter of a book. You can specify which book or chapter you want the words for. Then Excel would filter out the ones you know:
https://vocab.perseus.org/word-list/urn ... /?page=all

It's also a good idea to take vocabulary from the whole book and learn the most common ones, for example, those that occur at least five times. I would have learned it before I even read the book:
https://vocab.perseus.org/word-list/urn ... /?page=all

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