Phrase Learning vs Word Learning

[Markos]

@daivid

There are several of what I described as gotchas.

Thanks for going over the passage and sharing your thoughts, David. I assume that there are many Greek teachers out there who have informally kept track of what typically causes students to fail to process sentences, but if this could be systematically collected, new strategies for teaching Greek could be developed. This is what I am after. I think your concept of “gotchas,” instances where familiar words have unexpected meanings, is certainly part of the problem.

Now having done the exercise I think what would have been most help is a number of example sentences that illustrate the usage of the words and constructions used in the sentence.

I will incorporate that idea as I develop some new methods to overcome the failure to process.

And this is in supposedly very easy Xenophon!

I do think that the easiness of the Anabasis has been overstated. What you have there is a text where a large percentage of the sentences are very easy, but there are still many sentences that one is likely to fail to process. The Phillpotts/Jerram adapted edition removes or simplifies all these sentences, so you are left with a text 90% of the sentences of which intermediate students are likely to be able to process. The sentence we have analyzed above, for example, is radically simplified, essentially by editing out the second half.

Easy Selections Adapted from the Xenophon, p. 7 wrote:
καὶ ἐνταῦθα Ξενίας ὁ Ἀρκὰς, στρατηγὸς, καὶ Πασίων ὁ Μεγαρεὺς ἐμβάντες εἰς πλοῖον ἀπ-έπλευσαν.

I am not, of course, saying that students should not be exposed to difficult sentences. I am in fact trying to come up with methods to help them tackle just such sentences. But I think the experience of reading extended blocks of easy sentences without experiencing failure to process is essential, and I think this adapted text fits the bill very well.

@uberdwayne

what do you (υμεις) think about the idea of inserting Greek words into English sentances. For example, I might say. σημερον, I am going οικῳ μου. It appears it would add some context for the words σημερον and οικῳ μου. But do you think it will do “damage” to align it with an english usage?

τι νομιζετε υμεις;

I would not rule out any method. I think anything and everything should be tried. I am inclined to methods that only use the target language, but in the final analysis I evaluate a method based on how well it helps students learn to read Greek, so I think what you propose is worth a try.

[daivid]

@Markos

3. The word ὡς. ὡς has to be one of the toughest Greek words, since it can mean so many things and is used in so many constructions. Here the first instance means basically “because” and the second instance is used with a participle marking the presumed intention of a an action. Again, not that hard in isolation, but when piled upon each other and added to the other difficulties, your brain stops working.
   .

Actually the first ὡς is also sort of a presumed intention of a an action. I say that because I have been working on an alternative sentence to illustrate the use of ὡς. The different meanings of ὡς are related just not in a way that makes sense to an English native speaker.
(I wonder how those of us who are not native speakers find this sentence. I suspect just as difficult but for different reasons)

My start on producing sentences that illustrate the problems of Xenophon’s sentence can be found here:
http://discourse.textkit.com/t/illustrating-xenophon-anabasis-1-4-7-a-start/12037/1

[jeidsath]

καὶ Ξενίας ὁ Ἀρκὰς στρατηγὸς καὶ Πασίων ὁ Μεγαρεὺς ἐμβάντες εἰς πλοῖον καὶ τὰ πλείστου ἄξια ἐνθέμενοι ἀπέπλευσαν, ὡς μὲν τοῖς πλείστοις ἐδόκουν φιλοτιμηθέντες ὅτι τοὺς στρατιώτας αὐτῶν τοὺς παρὰ Κλέαρχον ἀπελθόντας ὡς ἀπιόντας εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα πάλιν καὶ οὐ πρὸς βασιλέα εἴα Κῦρος τὸν Κλέαρχον ἔχειν.

Many years ago, I recall getting stopped by that same sentence in an English translation. I had been skimming Xenophon in the college library, and had to stop there and re-read. I had no memory for Greek names then, so I had to go back and figure out who Clearchus was, and why Cyrus was happy with him taking all these men back to Greece.

It’s the logic behind the sentence (out-of-context) that is hard, more than the grammar. Ξενίας καὶ Πασίων are going back to Ἑλλάδα because they are jealous that their men deserting to Κλέαρχον to go back to Ἑλλάδα are allowed by Κῦρος to be kept by Κλέαρχον.

Why would Κῦρος do that? It’s too crazy to parse without the preceding context about Κλέαρχος.

I don’t really know about translating ὠς, but it’s useful for finding out what parts of the sentence are their own logical units when you’re reading.

[Markos]

@jeidsath

It’s the logic behind the sentence (out-of-context) that is hard, more than the grammar. Ξενίας καὶ Πασίων are going back to Ἑλλάδα because they are jealous that their men deserting to Κλέαρχον to go back to Ἑλλάδα are allowed by Κῦρος to be kept by Κλέαρχον.

Exactly right. I happen to understand your English here only because I took the time to sort out who is who, but you are correct, the multitude of the people involved and the subtlety of the motives results in a “failure to process” (a term coined by me) even in the English.