After lurking around a while, I thought the decent thing to do would be to register and say hello.
I’m all VERY new at this, from the point of view of the languages. I traditionally hadn’t been much into the Classics at all, but I’ve been ill this year, and as sick people often do, I started reading, partly because there wasn’t much else to do. So I started reading Colleen McCullough’s “Masters of Rome” series, and found myself to be hooked. I read the lot; then read them all again.
Having come to a bit of a loose end in my life, and not being the materialist sort, the notion of doing a Classics degree entered my head. The non-linguistic side of it all sounds quite delightful, but the learning of Latin and Greek filled me with foreboding. I haven’t attempted any studies of languages since early attempts at Japanese and German at high school, 20 years ago. Those attempts were miserable. However a bit of googling found me here, and so I’ve downloaded beginners primers on both Greek and Latin.
I was hoping to start my degree in the mid-year intake, but for financial reasons I will have to wait now until the next academic year starts in March; though that gives me a while to get stuck into Textkit’s little bag of tricks.
Oddly enough, while I am more into Roman history rather then Greek, I am finding Ancient Greek to be the more stimulating and exciting language to learn. I keep putting off Latin. I am spending an hour a day on Initia Graeca, by the late Sir William Smith, and finding it challenging without being overwhelming.
It’s all rather odd that a 30 something blue-collar worker should change direction, but the joys of life in this day and age is that we can indeed make these radical changes. Anyway, I expect I’ll be posting here fairly frequently. Thanks for putting this site and forum together!
Welcome! It’s always good to hear about someone else who has the courage to make those kinds of changes in their life. Your plan sounds like a good one, and I’m sure lots of people around here will be more than willing to help prevent your current language-learning from becoming “miserable”! I’m working through the Pharr book on Homeric Greek myself and really enjoying it.
I too love the “Master of Rome? books and have read all of them more times then I can remember. Although I find the last one not as good as the other five.
I can’t help you with Greek as I don’t know anything about it, but I will gladly help you with any Latin question you may have, as a lot of people here will certainly do.
When you decide to start studying Latin I recommend the “Latin for beginners? by Benjamin L. D’Ooge that you can download here in Textkit. I’m also a fan of the “Lingua Latina? books, but as you said that you are a little tight with money right now, “Latin for beginners? will probably be better as it is a very good book and free.
I’ve downloaded D’ooge and had a skim of that and it sounds like the right one for me. I’ll forward it to my sister who is the kindly sort of soul who will print the whole thing out for me as well.
I agree with you Andrus in that ‘The October Horse’ ends in a rather messy way.
And very glad to see that I’m not the only Adelaidean on this board! Hope you are keeping warm, Carola.
And very glad to see that I’m not the only Adelaidean on this board! Hope you are keeping warm, Carola.
For those northern hemisphere folks now basking in the summer sun, Adelaide has been waking up to temperatures ranging from 1-2 deg. C in the city to minus something up in the hills for the past few days. And everyone is complaining and walking around rugged up like Arctic explorers! So cold is relative, like everything else - it would probably be a nice summery day in Siberia.
Scotia, don’t forget to have a look at the State Library for Latin and Greek books when you get started on your studies, they have quite a large collection. Look at the online catalogue http://www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au/screens/opacmenu.html as some of the books are not displayed on the shelves, but they will get them out for you on request.
