I’m sorry, but I’m too busy reading the Agamemnon of Aeschylus using my horrible understanding of Greek grammar acquired from Mastronarde and that terrible Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek by Morwood, and consulting the crippling commentaries of Fraenkel and Raeburn (as well as West’s notes to his edition) to have time to contribute to this enlightening discussion.
But Markos, you disregard the qualifications: τοῖς περὶ τοὺς λόγους ἐσπουδακόσιν, and μετὰ τὴν πολλὴν τῶν σπουδαιοτέρων ἀνάγνωσιν.
None of us want to revive a dead language. To the extent that people like Christophe Rico do treat Ancient Greek as if it were a living language it is simply a means to an end . The end being to read Ancient Greek fluently. Indeed Krashen sees no role for writing and Greek in acquiring Ancient Greek. His argument is that input alone will enable you to acquire the language. It is the acquisition of a language that enables someone to speak an write in that language not the reverse, (according to Krashen).
Exactly, comprehensive input is the means to acquire the language which then allows one to read the unparaphrased extant texts.
I would add that my preference is for easy texts that are freshly written rather than paraphrases. Acquisition works best if it is absorbing and that is increased if the story is completely new to the reader.
If Krashen is right then yes, the writer will not improve their Ancient Greek by writing Ancient Greek. Their motive can only be to help others. That is the same motivation that has led to quite a few people writing commentaries recently. Why not an easy reader?
According to Krashen (and this thread is specifically about his ideas) acquisition of a language occurs when you read something that is harder than you’re are used to yet not so hard that can’t glean from the context the meaning. If a text is so hard that you have to resort to a translation you are not acquiring Ancient Greek in the process. By decoding a text that is as difficult for you as this you may gain greater understanding of the specific line than if you had read the translation alone but you will not improve your ability to read Ancient Greek in future.
The reason someone might read a paraphrase is to improve their ability to read Greek so that at a later stage they will have acquired sufficient Greek to read the original fluently.
Does it? If are decoding into your native language you are using your conscious ability to analyze problems. The language part of your brain is essentially subconscious and doesn’t get involved if the conscious part of the brain is doing the job on its own. When a child acquires their native language it is done subconsciously. As Chomsky puts it a separate part of the brain which describes as a Language Acquisition Device kicks in when the child is exposed to linguistic input. Essentially Krashen is saying that second language acquisition works in the same way.
I’ve been going through Fraenkel’s commentary (and translation, which is necessary to read the commentary). Also, I’ve been reading through the OCT version of Phaedo without commentary (or even a dictionary).
Although Aeschylus with Fraenkel is great fun, I feel like I’m picking up more Greek from Phaedo. There are some sections that make perfect sense on the first read, for others I have to go back and read a paragraph or a page several times before it makes sense. But eventually it does make sense. So far.
Obviously I couldn’t do this with a text that was harder than Phaedo. And I’ve read a lot of Plato, making him easier for me. But I feel like there are some fluency skills that I don’t pick up from looking up words in a dictionary, or having the hard parts glossed in a commentary.
For me, I’ve found that commentary and dictionary work is more useful if I follow both up by coming back to whatever I’ve read a week or month later, and then reading through it without these helps. It is a lot of mental effort to re-read 2-3 (or even 5-6) times until something difficult makes sense. I find that there is a very strong urge – that I try to resist – just to look up the difficult bits in a dictionary or commentary and go on.
I agree. Would add that you learn a lot by mastering a text, not just getting through it. Take some text that you are fascinated with and stick with it until you can read it like a novel in your own language. It also helps to read other works in the same genre. When I started reading the Greek NT had no real intention of learning the language but I was fascinated with apocalyptic literature. I had spent a year working in E. V. N. Goetchius Language of the New Testament. I transcribed the Apocalypse of John onto yellow lined-tablets (easy on tired eyes) one verse per page with lots of notes. After I finished, I went on to read all the other greek texts of the apocalyptic genre. I also read some in Hebrew. I stayed with that genre for three years. I spent a lot of time in the SPU library where I had borrowing privileges. Read everything they had on apocalyptic literature. Used ILL for books they didn’t have.
Today I was burned out with studying Sahdic Coptic, so I opened my large format LXX and read Theodotion’s Daniel Ch 7. I haven’t studied this text in the last 25 years but reading it was easy. Didn’t look up anything. That’s where you want to get with the texts you are preoccupied with. You should master them.
On the other hand I am perennial dabbler in Attic Tragedy. I have managed to plow through some plays from each author. I don’t have the interest level to stick with them. Other than listening to all of Elizabeth Vandiver’s lectures (many hours) several times I have no background in classics. There wasn’t even a classics dept when I attended SPU fifty years ago. I took a class on Romans which was exegesis from the greek text. I fell asleep more often than not. Wasn’t the least bit interested in NT exegesis from the greek. The course was a 300/500 level with 35 undergrads and two graduate students. Dr. Ralph Kline targeted the lectures at the two graduate students. It was 90 min evening course and I arrived after hour+ workout in the weight room followed by a big dinner. The room was too hot. I manged to pass to course somehow. If you had told me to study greek when I was in college, I would have looked at you like you were out of your mind.
If you’re breezing through Phaedo without a commentary, you know Greek a lot better than I do. I have to admit it’s one of the most difficult Greek texts I’ve read.
I doubt I’ve reached any of the difficult parts yet. I started earlier this week, reading when I can catch a spare moment, and am at 63b. In my OCT, Phaedo is 98 pages, and I’m 8 pages in. The opening pages were very easy, and the last couple of pages have been what required the re-reads. I wouldn’t call this breezing, but I am able to understand the ins and outs of the discussion so far.
We can start a separate thread on Phaedo if we’d like. I’m enjoying it.