How to Get the Most out of Talking to Yourself in Ancient Greek
Προθεὶς ἐκ Mark Lightman ἐπὶ Ἰούνιος 12, 2010 περὶ 10:30am
If you are going to learn to use Ancient Greek, you will wind up spending a lot of time talking to yourself. It is a challenge to find other speakers, and even if you can, you simply cannot spend enough time with them to speak on a regular basis. You have to speak Ancient Greek EVERY day, for about an hour a day, so unless your spouse speaks Greek, that leaves…yourself.
The good news is that speaking Greek to yourself, as opposed to reading, writing, or listening to it, can be done anywhere and really can be made part of your daily routine. You can talk to yourself in Greek in the shower, in the car, while you exercise. You can talk to yourself in Greek while you are doing the dishes or changing a baby. Most of us have jobs where at least some of the time we can talk to ourselves in Greek. (If your boss catches you, just say you have stopped taking your medication.)
I have found that in the past few months, I have gotten more out of talking to myself in Greek. A few years ago when I tried it, it seemed forced and not very helpful. I should say right off that I think the things we do on Schole, writing in Greek, listening to audios, watching and making videos, are a huge help in speaking Greek. I should also say of course that I am no expert, and really I post this hoping that others will have further suggestions.
I have found that it is best to try to talk about things while you do them. I mentioned the shower. νυν εισερχομαι εις το λουτρον. νυν επιχεω υδωρ επι του σωματος μου. Then switch the construction. νυν το υδωρ επιχεεται επι μου. Start with simple verbs and objects in the present. εγω πλυνω τας χειρας. εγω πλυνω το προσωπον μου. εγω πλυνω τα σκελη μου. Say it every day while you are in the shower, and practice it several times a day while you are at the copy machine or while you are in the grocery store. After you get that down, you can do variations. εχθες επλυνον το σωμα μου. You can switch the word order. τας χειρας νυν πλυνω. Then you add adjectives. εγω πλυνω τας χειρας τας ρυπαρας. You do this everyday until you need more of challenge. πλυνω την κεφαλην μου υδατι θερμῳ.
To get started, you have to identify things you do every day. Just try to say them. THEN look the words up if you have to and confirm that you have the accents and the grammar right. The words you choose will depend on your Greek goals, but don’t get hung up on which words you choose. What really matters is using the syntax with the endings. I think it is better to use simpler, more common words. I recently learned the Homeric word for “bathroom” ασαμινθος, η." Ι used this for a while but switched to λουτρον because it is simpler. Again, I think speaking Greek is first about getting all the endings to become automatic. Vocab building can come latter.
The other thing I have just started trying is oral drills, based on a recommendation by John Sanders over at B-Greek. While I water the plants I say stuff like this. το σωμα μου ρυπαρον εστιν. δια τουτο δει με πλυνειν παν το σωμα. Then I switch to a different number, gender, and declension. αι χειραι μου ρυπαραι εισιν. δια τουτο δει με πλυνειν πασας τας χειρας. I try to do about ten of them which will cover all the forms, and I do them over and over again. I record this on my MP3 player and I listen to it back. (Hopefully I catch most of my mistakes this way. ) Then I come up with a new drill. αρτος ουκ εμοι. δια τουτο επιθυμω αρτου. I run through this with βρωσις, οινος, χιτων, κτλ. Then I do a drill where I use the same words in the dative.
EVERY TIME I do something I try to say it out loud. I go down my stairs and I say καταβαιων την κλιμακα. When I drive I say ελαυνω την αμαξαν μου. You can start a little dialogue with an imaginary friend so you cover the other forms. και συ, ω φιλε μου; συ ελαυνεις την αμαξαν; επαυριον ελασεις την αμαξαν σου; και το τεκνιον σου; αρα ουτος ελαυνει την αμαξαν αυτου; Again, the idea is to start with the basic phrase ελαυνω την αμαξαν. Say it over and over again. Then you can branch out. ου θελω ελαυνειν την αμαξαν μου. θελω αναγιγνωκσειν τα βιβλια Ομηρου.
If you are going to talk to yourself in Greek at every opportunity, you are going to need a pocket lexicon. I recently bought Langensheidt’s Pocket Dictionary of Classical Greek, which does fit in your pocket, but does not have principle parts or anything. It would be good to have a pocket grammar too, but I’m not aware of one that is really small. What I’ve done is written some paradigms in my dictionary. Contracts verbs above all seem to still give me trouble, as well as some rarer nouns and adjectives.
Then try to write the phrases you have been speaking to yourself to someone else. That’s what Schole and Dialogos and Textkit are for. Hopefully, in writing stuff I have been saying, I will catch more of my mistakes. Make an audio or video of the phrases you say ever day. Don’t film yourself in the shower, but you can film yourself sweeping. τι ποιω, ω φιλε μου; σαρω. την γην σαρω. δια τι; η γη ρυπαρα εστιν. σαρω ουν την ρυπαραν γην. Post the video on You Tube. it will help us internalize the language, but more importantly, it will help you.
Talking to yourself in Ancient Greek is no substitute for real discourse with real people, but it is the next best thing. I don’t know how much of this Spanish learners, for example do, but of course they are not as desperate for speakers as we are. I do know a lady who claims that she basically taught herself to speak French by talking to herself. Talking is of course composing on the fly, plus you get to hear the language.
I know that Τροφιμος λαλει προς εαυτον. I’d love to hear from him or others who have had experience with this. If anyone has more ideas for drills, let me know.
Remember not to neglect the other parts of γ.α.λ.α. These skills reenforce each other. In Heaven we will all be speaking to each other in Greek, but in the mean time, let me conclude with my customary injunction:
λαλει σεαυτον, παρακαλω. Ελληνιστι, παρακαλω.
Mark Lightman
Now he speaks very fast and it is impossible with translating. I also speak quite fast now, but sometimes with mistakes. I understand the teacher perfectly, without translating, even when I am very tired and sleep deprived. The brain simply develops a centre for the language and I understand easily and quickly, without effort. Even for the Classical Greek. Then I don’t concentrate on how to say it, I don’t think about grammar, endings and words, but on what I want to say - I often make jokes with my teacher. Or we want to say something interesting and we forget to think about how to say it correctly in Greek and think only about what we want to say.