Practice Is Everything

Greek Learning Greek
1

Oh, how that rings true when speaking about Greek… (I am a beginner and have been studying for roughly two months…)

“Practice Is Everything” is a quote by Periander, as far as I know, often misquoted as “Practice Makes Perfect”.

What I’d like to know is how the quote was originally coined in Greek. Does anybody know?

Please include some hints on how to read the Greek “type fonts” here in Text Kit in your reply… Or point me to an online source where I can see the quote in Greek letters.

Thanks :smiley:

2

http://discourse.textkit.com/t/representing-greek-font-notes-for-new-users/131/1


Please include some hints on how to read the Greek “type fonts” here in Text Kit

3

Thanks very much. That really helped and installing the SPIonic was easy :slight_smile: It all makes more sense to me in this part of the forum now… Now I just need the Periander quote in Greek :wink:

4

According to http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2948/fraselat.html,

The Greek was MELE’T_E TO` PA’N.

Strange transliteration, perhaps this is mele/th to\ pa/n?

5

Titus, thanks

I found “mele/th” in my dictionary and after some research the other word. But shouldn’t it have a circumflex? pa=n

I gather the copulative was omitted and that the phrase just means: practice everything.

Anyway, I hope this little phrase will pull a smile in the context I intend it for :slight_smile:

6

You can safely translate it as “Practice IS the everything”, by the agreement of cases. The complement with a defninite article. And it’s a very common practice to omit the verb εἰμί when the subject is the same thing as, or one of, the complement.

I think you are right about the circumflex.

7

Ok, I’ll try my hand at using the spionic to write in Greek…

σοί χάριν ἔχω

I hope it shows correctly, and that I haven’t made any grammatical errors :wink: I want to say “thank you” - is it correct?

I found the Woodhouse online dictionary, which I look forward to using some more!

Because:

μελέτη τὸ πᾶν

Right? :smiley: