Hi Textkit. I’ve self-studied Attic greek using a contemporary grammar/translation style textbook (Hansen/Quinn) for a few weeks now. Something I struggle with, that I’m sure I’d have gotten if I had a teacher (or just read more and worked harder), is a kind of informal principle/strategy for how to approach a complete sentence. Right now I feel like I’m doing the reading equivalent of hunt-and-peck keyboard typing.
It goes something like this:
Look at the complete sentence and pray to god there is an easily identifiable subject and verb. Try to translate the partial sentence in my head in such a way to maximize the likelihood that I can keep these words in the beginning of the translated sentence.
Look for a direct object and hope I find one that fits in with step 1.
Look for words that probably group together. Notice there’s a construction that looks like three nested article/noun pairs and feel uncomfortable about the entire situation. Think “The gods of the lands” sounds weird so by intuition read it as “The lands of the gods” instead. (That’s the wrong answer, I shouldn’t have done that…)
While thinking hard about 3, forget step 1-2 and do it again.
Okay so the above is of course a little bit in jest, but I hope you understand. Any advice you can give to a student who is just starting out? What did you wish you knew your first few weeks?
My first suggestion is dont try to translate anything. Look through the sentence from the beginning in the order its written and ask yourself what part of speech each element is. Thats a verb what tense and person is it? Thats a noun what case is it? Thats an adjective what case and number - which noun does it agree with? Thats an adverb which verb does it modify. Remaining items might be particles or connectives etc.
When you are happy that you understand what every element is you can begin to piece the sentence together without translating. When you think you have understood how the Greek works you can try as a final stage to translate it.
If you try to translate as you go you will end up trying to force the Greek into what you think it says rather than what it actually says. Its a mistake we all made at the beginning and continue to do so now.
Once you have parsed sentences in this way it should get easier and as you learn more the process should become more automatic. Understanding the Greek and translating it are two different activities.
If you haven’t already visited this site, it’s called the Center for Hellenic Studies. Leonard Muellner, who is a professor of Greek at Brandeis University and director of publications and IT at the CHS, has put together a number of instructional videos that use Hansen & Quinn as the primary textbook. Have a look!
