I’m studying Plato’s Symposium, skipping nothing. I should finish this first pass within a week.
I’ve been working on the Symposium for just over a year, spending 2-3 hours each day, with very few days missed.
Does it seem that I’m taking too much time for this work? I have no idea how others manage.
Hugh,
It took me a very long time, although I didn’t keep track of when I started and finished. You seem to be showing a little bit of frustration, for example your earlier post about not remembering verb forms. I don’t share your frustration because I just accept that I will be looking up the same words and forms again and again and again. Occasionally I think “you should have recognized that one”, but then I think “Oh, well”. As for how much time it takes me to read something, it doesn’t bother me.
One thing that might help is to take occasional breaks to read easier prose. It reassures you that Plato is often difficult. I’m reading the palinode right now in the Phaedrus which I’m finding very difficult. (Often when I’m stuck I find that the two translators I’m using produce remarkably different translations.) Sometimes I want to say to Plato, “You know, you could have made this passage a whole lot easier to read for 21st century autodidacts.”
Mark
Hello hlawson38,
I think you’re spending a huge amount of unnecessary time on this. That you’re doing it very badly. It’s about 1000 hours in 1 year and you can learn ancient Greek very well in that many hours. And then you’d read the Symposium in maybe two weeks. Now you’re wasting a whole year puzzling it out, and in my opinion it’s useless.
How would I do it if I were at your level of ancient Greek and I wanted to read the Symposium? And if I had the same amount of time as you? I mean, all year long, 2 to 3 hours a day:
For the first 10 months I would read very easy texts - various textbooks, graded readers, easy texts with translations, etc. I would also listen to audios for these textbooks and texts. To learn the ancient Greek properly you need a lot of comprehensible input. And not some text puzzling, you won’t learn much.
What books to read? Here’s a list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KhrOKKAL-fERiN8FPY4hkAt5bswv-NQo1_Kka3Q4o0g/edit?gid=0#gid=0
It’s not my list, but I have a large number of those books and have read a lot of them.
And if you can’t do it yet, I’d learn the 500 most common words:
https://dcc.dickinson.edu/greek-core-list
Eleventh month - I would learn the most common words from Symposium that I don’t know. You can find them here:
https://geoffreysteadman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/symposiumcorevocabulary.pdf
https://geoffreysteadman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/symp-core3to6times.pdf
And then I’d read the whole book.
If I have the audio for the book, I listen to it in my free time, when I go shopping, driving somewhere, etc. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the audio for Symposium. Only a very short part here, some videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR_hR6ICN1k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlNcb7v8v80
I’m reading mostly books now for which I have audio. If I were reading the Symposium, I would record the first part of the book, at least 20-30 minutes, and then listen to it.
Twelfth month - I would read the whole book again. Reading means I read it quickly and don’t waste any time, don’t look anywhere looking up words, etc. And I try to understand it directly in Greek.
Then sometime in the future I would read it again, maybe in six months.
Yesterday I started reading the Gospel of Luke. It’s my first time reading it. It’s a little longer than the Symposium. It feels a little lighter than the Symposium. I think I could manage to read it three times and listen to it in about 30 hours. And that I could understand it quite well in direct Greek even listening to the fast audio. I’d need maybe 40 hours for the Symposium to understand it well enough.
I usually only read about an hour a day. But two weeks ago I had plenty of time - my wife and kids went away for a week and I spent the whole week reading and listening to ancient Greek. How much did I read in that week? The Gospels of John, Mark and Matthew, the Book Alexandros, the Italian Athenaze and the Beresford Reader. But I had read all those books before, and now I was reading them for the second time. I’ve also listened to all of them, plus all of these podcasts:
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ellenizometha
Yeah, that’s how much you can read and listen to in a week. Then when I see that you’ve been puzzling through one book for a whole year, I feel sorry for you, you’re probably making a mistake somewhere. I’m also self-taught like you and I’m over 50 years old, that’s why I also have a hard time remembering tables etc.
Mark Mueller wrote:
I just accept that I will be looking up the same words and forms again and again and again. Occasionally I think “you should have recognized that one”, but then I think “Oh, well”. As for how much time it takes me to read something, it doesn’t bother me.
I like this. I definitely needed some consolation! I write down notes in spiral-bound notebooks, and try to make a note of the date. That’s how I knew the length of time on the Symposium. I read somewhere recently that one must see a new word about ten times before it sticks in memory. I should add that I don’t like memorizing word-lists.
Mark again:
One thing that might help is to take occasional breaks to read easier prose.
Good idea!
Very helpful comments, Mark!
Many thanks, paveln, for your generous reply, and the time you devoted to it. You understand the methods of studying ancient Greek much more thoroughly than I do.
So I can’t discuss the matter with you as a peer. As the country saying goes, “Don’t try to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs.”
I can study what you suggest, and see if I can fit some of it into my efforts. Right away I can say that I agree with you and Mark that reading some easier Greek would be helpful. I’m trying out Lysias for this purpose.
My two cents:
Before dealing with original texts, be sure:
Finally, get the original text you want. It should be a lot easier to read it.
No problem! I’m happy to help. I know exactly how you feel. Just a few years ago, I was in the same boat as you – slowly and painfully deciphering every word. But then, together with my Ancient Greek teacher, we studied the best ways to learn this language. We found a lot of easy books, audios, and videos, and now we read and listen to them. About five years ago, that teacher couldn’t read very quickly either. But then he read for an hour every day – very easy texts, but also more difficult ones. And today, he can read easy texts effortlessly, just like in his native language! Not only that, he can even tell me in Ancient Greek what the book is about 
Maybe you misunderstood me, the easier reading must be quite easy. So that you can read 10 pages in an hour. And that’s not Lysias for you. Even my teacher reads very easy books - he read Italian Athenaze, book Alexandros three times, Kataskopos five times, etc. That’s the only way you’ll learn all the forms and endings. You wrote in another thread about forgetting it and what to do about it. Read at least 10 easy books. See that list I posted:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KhrOKKAL-fERiN8FPY4hkAt5bswv-NQo1_Kka3Q4o0g/edit?gid=0#gid=0
A colleague tico before me advised you to do that as well.
I see your point, and understand it, paveln. Reading easy material reduces the dictionary work, and lets the reader get lots of practice with the elementary forms of AG sentences. It also lets one experience new words more naturally, just as a youngster does, reading random material he can mostly understand, while he guesses at the new words.
One must put more of the reading work on automatic pilot, so to speak. And that requires much practice on “comprehensible input”.
Many thanks for your explanations.
I am going through Symposium for a second time now. The first was ‘unaided’ with the Oxford Classical Text, but this time I am using Steadman’s book, which I highly recommend.
I wouldn’t try to understand everything word for word, it’s ok if you just don’t get certain bits - Plato is not necessarily hard in the way he writes, but can get complex (and often very funny!), and I find that some of the Symposium is much easier to read than other bits.
Taking a break for a day or two might help aswell!