i was horrified to learn that some teachers of recent times have their ag students ignore accentuation altogether. a phd student in classics at a local university from whom i took a bit of tutoring told me that several students in his programs had this issue and still struggled mightily with picking it up
Then you may be horrified to learn that that was my experience starting Greek in 1960. I’m generally familiar enough with the system, enough to distinguish imperfects from pluperfects , and interrogatives from indefinites, but I still don’t always know off-hand the accentuation of specific nouns and adjectives, and I’m too old to learn now. I don’t feel that it presents a big problem, though, although the shame and embarrassment weigh heavily on me, now that everyone knows my dirty little secret.
I never made it to the graduate level–I went in the army after college.
wow, hylander. i am shocked and kind of horrified. that surprises me for 1960. it seems a cruel trick to tell a student not to bother. we were most definitely dinged on exams for wrong accentuation, so one had no choice, really.
it was clearly explained to us that this was really about quantity/pitch anyways, not stress, but stress is what everyone used in reading aloud in class, and remains my method today. to the best of my abilities i try to memorize the accent together with the definition, in part by silently saying the word in my head (using stress, wrongly, but there it is).
it’s impossible to keep them all in there all the time. any attempt at composition requires me to double check and i always find mistakes. and strangely, like spelling certain words in my native tongue, there are some ag words i always get wrong, no matter how many times i check the accent.
but for reading ag prose i agree that it’s not often a big deal. φώς/φως (sorry; no circumflex on ipad) is not likely to be troublesome in context whether or not one can keep their accents straight. can’t say i think much about accents per se while reading. still, my suggestion to any beginner would be to learn the accent (or lack thereof) with the word. it also can help form good habits, like being aware of short alphas in words like υγίεια (sorry; no rough breathing sign), which will come in handy later.
all that said, your command of classical languages is 10x my own, so who am i to say? i didn’t go to graduate school either for classics, and my undergraduate studies therein we’re somewhat compressed (i got a late start and had no previous ag or latin).
Given that my two interpretations of what she is advocating are diametrically different there can be be no doubt that I misunderstood her at some point. You seem to be saying I was right first time but it is now that I am misunderstanding her. I am curious to know why?
Sounds quite credible to me. The only problem of this approach is that studying ancient Greek is more than just understanding the language: it’s also about reading and understanding all the secondary literature, and that’s difficult if you don’t know declination a word belongs to etc., even if you can conjugate it. Also, if you read Homer like this (like I did) it’s difficult to keep the different dialect forms apart (Ionian, Aeolic forms, etc.).
About accents: I’ll never forgive the earlier Teach Yourself Greek (the new one is a different, better book). It was my first introduction to Greek, and it advocated ignoring the accents, which I did. I still find it difficult not to ignore them. Don’t. But this is nothing new, there was a time around 1800 when even (I think) Oxford University Press didn’t print the accents; luckily they soon came back to their senses. Sorry, I don’t remember this exactly, or even where I read it.
Let’s not wrangle about this too long. What Dickey is saying is elementary stuff. She’s advising students to memorize the “relevant vocabulary and grammatical forms” before they start work on each chapter.
There’s really nothing to misunderstand about such an instruction. You spend some time looking at a list of Greek words set alongside their English equivalents, and at lists of the relevant paradigms showing their pattern of inflection, and you try and soak up and retain as much as possible of what you’re looking at. With the right technique, a fair amount can be remembered.
Known cognates or, failing that, mnemonics, can help with the memorization of vocabulary. With paradigms it’s a question of identifying patterns and focusing on the essential differences in stems and endings. If you can learn to give most of your attention to only those parts you really need to attend to in the serried ranks of words laid out page after page, the whole exercise will become less intimidating and, more importantly, easier.
If Dicky is really advocating this (and I don’t think she is) - memorization for its own sake rather than as an adjunct to more sophisticated learning technique then I can only say for me it does not work.
You’re right - she isn’t. Neither was I.
She’s giving readers the benefit of her experience. I was trying to give you the benefit of mine. You’re free to take it or leave it.
I had a feeling that there was something wrong even as as was typing those words but I merely qualified them rather than amending them. Yes of course no one does memorization for its own sake and you are right to pick me up on that. What I intended to say was "memorization and rote learning in isolation.
What she says in the book is not about memorization in isolation. The first words of the quote below are To derive maximum benefit from the exercises …. I don’t know what she thinks about memorization in isolation but is clearly only an auxiliary that you will find it in this book - why else would it be called Greek Prose Composition rather Memorization of Greek Grammar?
We are all here mostly basing what we think on personal experience so it is fine you base your advice on your own. If you have found memorization in isolation works for you I am glad. Don’t assume that my skepticism of memorization in isolation is not also based on experience. I have spent many many hours learning Greek and much of that has been simple memorization but my experience tells me if I don’t use what I memorize I lose it.
People differ but Ancient Greek textbooks do not reflect this.
I have spent many many hours learning Greek and much of that has been simple memorization but my experience tells me if I don’t use what I memorize I lose it.
Dickie agrees with you. She says:
“As necessary as memorization is consolidation. It is an inescapable fact that for most people, Greek grammatical forms and syntactic rules have a tendency to depart rapidly from the mind soon after being learned. One must simply accept this fact and learn the material repeatedly; to this end there are review exercises scattered throughout the book, and it is a good idea to re-memorize the vocabulary and forms of the relevant chapters before doing these exercises. One way to improve one’s retention rate is to be scrupulous about correct accentuation, because once one has learned each form with its proper accent, one knows the form itself considerably more solidly than one does when one has learned only the form. For this reason a brief explanation of the accent rules and exercises in their use are provided, and all users of this book who do not already have a firm grasp of the accent system are encouraged to do these exercises before progressing to the chapters proper.”
No, you’re still wrong; I said nothing about “memorization in isolation”; memorization of paradigms and vocaabulary only makes sense as a prelude to reading and writing Greek.
And I’m not basing my advice merely on my own experience, but that of many other classicists as well- the overwhelming majority of them in fact; at least of those who did actually manage to acquire a decent knowledge of Latin and Greek.
So do you mean that we agree? What I mean by putting what you have learned to use is with little or no time delay.
Yes clearly the people who have succeed have succeed using the teaching materials and methods available and so they will produce the kind of textbooks that worked for them and teach using methods by which they were taught themselves. But what of those who fail? I have tried to find research on why people who start studying Greek fail and it maybe that is because I am looking in the wrong place but maybe that is because no one sees that as a problem.
EDIT
What I just wrote above is wrong:
Wilfred E. Major, On Not Teaching Greek," (Classical Journal 103 [2007] 93-98).
I have yet to get hold of that so I don’t know what position he takes but the important think is that he is asking the question.
I decided to order this book as well and received it yesterday. It might be interested in cross-checking some exercises that don’t have a key with others.
The book looks good, as far I’ve been able to read. At the beginning of each chapter, Dickey assigns a zillion pages of Smyth for reading before starting the chapter. I’m sure the method is effective for someone who has all that time, but I’ve found been able to read the book profitably without opening Smyth.
I received the book the other day. The exercises are all very good, though very simple. I’ve been going through it chapter by chapter orally. There are a few small errors (accents mostly). Dickey plays it very safe by not providing too much of her own prose. An appendix contains a composition by M.L. West that I will post to the board if I get the chance to type it up.