repeated reading of Plato's Apology of Socrates

Greek Learning Greek
1

The second pass through this text is going well. This was prompted by learning from a trial that, after the first pass, I could not “just pick up and read” a random page of the text. So: do it again.

On the first pass, I thought I was studying carefully, but maybe I was self-deceived. Perhaps I was too quickly satisfied that I understood the sentence and its grammar. The trial dispelled that illusion.

I wonder if other autodidacts can report repeated readings of a particular text. I am now wondering if a third reading, or even more, of the Apology would be productive. I was afraid that a repeated pass might be dispiriting, but it’s not; there is much satisfaction in solving problems that I don’t recall solving during the first pass.

I can recall many years ago in French lit class encountering a Flaubert story. It was like hitting a wall, even though I’d had about three years of formal instruction. After I did much more reading, including repeated readings of “Un coeur simple”, I can now “just pick it up and read” it now, about thirty years later.

2

I read a lot of texts several times or read them and then listen to them several times. I read it more than once because I don’t have time :slight_smile: Similarly, see here:
http://indwellinglanguage.com/reread/
http://indwellinglanguage.com/reading-latin-extensively/

Audio of Apology is here:
http://www.juliustomin.org/apologyingreek.html

3

That’s a good set of links. I can vouch for a process somewhat similar to that.

4

Julius Tomin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Tomin

Is this the same person??

I like the idea of reading part of a text, returning to the beginning and reading a bit more, and so on.

5

Hi Hugh (since you asked for experiences from auto-didacts): yes I definitely find re-reads much easier. The Iliad is the clearest example for me.

The key (even if it sounds obvious) is actually enjoying the text, rather than reading it again to entrench grammar and syntax in context.

The re-read is then the “payoff” – enjoying the text, without as much of that first-time grammatical grind work.

I assume the same applies for non-auto-didacts…

Cheers, Chad

6

Thanks Chad. I’d like to hear more reports of autodidacts, since I am one of that sort. Autodidacts have different experience, for we don’t have the round of assignments and recitations; we don’t have the opportunity to learn from classmates’ mistakes; we don’t have frequent contact with a teacher who knows the hard places, and who on the spot can answer questions and banish confusion, and whose job it is to help.

7

Hi Hugh, yes agreed, I’m in the same boat! Have never had a class of Greek or Latin in my life, or met a classicist / classics teacher / classics academic in real life, or even any other person studying it formally or informally (and so no-one to bounce ideas off). Apart from participating in Textkit over the decades and an email to this or that person, it’s just been personal study for me and working out on my own what resources to study and acquire (answer: all). I think very few of us make it through long-term, as it’s (let’s be honest) very hard; one must be obsessed. I assume my story is pretty typical of quite a few on this forum though (including you), so it’s good we’re all here!

Cheers, Chad

8

Hello Chad, I had two years of Latin in high school (graduated 1956), and forgot everything, except first declension nouns (rosa, rosae) and the present active indicative of amo.

So, I took up Latin, and then Greek, in old age, the initial motive being to have intellectual work to block worries about the health issues that come with old age, the thoughts about losing old friends and relations to death, and so on. But I’ve always had an amateur interest in the classics.

Since I started on Latin in 2009, and more recently Greek, I’ve not read a line of either literature in company with another person.

I’m retired, with security, so I have plenty of time, as measured in hours and days, though of course as measured in years the time horizon seems closer. But nobody knows how long he’ll be in the world, so I don’t worry about that.

I think of this as my substitute for building model ships in bottles, whittling, and the other pastimes that geezers adopt. My greatest strength is that I keep plodding away. My greatest weakness is that I don’t like the solitary memorization of the forms.

9

Although there is a measure of truth in this, there is also some idealisation.

The truth is that even with a teacher you have to learn forms and understand and try to retain the grammar and vocabulary. The teacher can only point you in the right direction they cannot do the work for you. Teachers cannot “banish confusion”, if only they could! :smiley: After a course of formal study there is a lifetime of learning in which one has to teach oneself.

There are advantages to study on your own. You can go at your own pace neither encumbered by others who go slower or intimidated by those who find things easier. You can read what you like. You dont have to deal with other people’s deadlines.

We all have different ways of working and there is no foolproof recipe. When I want to read a text there are a few things I have always done. First is to keep a list of words I dont remember as I am reading. In the old days that would involve looking the words up and writing them in a notebook. But now readymade vocabulary lists are available for a lot of works at The Bridge https://bridge.haverford.edu/select/Latin/ which reduce dictionary work, although its always helpful to follow the links at The Bridge to dictionaries. Some still prefer to look things up in a paper dictionary, that’s fine too.

The next thing is to keep, as one reads, detailed notes on the grammar one finds difficult to understand. These grammatical explanations and vocabulary lists can then be re-used when you re-read. Although its time consuming to do all this at least you are keeping a record of what you did. Its impossible to keep everything in your memory. When you re-read you might revise your notes or pass over them quickly. In a way this is like constructing your own commentary.

Contact with other classicists is a problem. In London we have the Roman Society which holds meetings many of which are on line as well as a substantial library operated with its sister organisation the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. I wonder whether there is a similar organisation in Florida? There is the “Society for Classical Studies”. I don’t know how American Classical societies are organised.

But whatever contact you might have, reading and studying classical texts is a solitary pursuit. This forum provides a great resource and point of contact with like minded individuals. Carry on asking questions. I hope you realise how helpful your questions are to other people. Even if I dont reply to all your posts I read them and see whether I could answer your question. If I can’t it motivates me to look in say CGCG to try to find the answer.

Think of reading and re-reading as practicing to play a piece of music. No musician ever just plays through something once. We play some passages 100s of times to work out how to make them work. Sometimes we have to go and work on studies to do some technical work, sometimes we have to look more broadly at the harmony and context. Reading an ancient text is analogous.

Hugh your determination and willingness to ask questions is an inspiration to many here. That’s something to be proud of. :smiley:

10

I just wanted to affirm the last paragraph in triplicate. As for banishing all confusion, I’ve devised a Harry Potter spell that works beautifully:

Confusio abi!

Unfortunately it doesn’t work as well on muggles. :unamused:

11

In my experience of re-reading, I find that I’m likely to ask myself questions about things that I gilded over before. I’m constantly re-learning basic grammar. If ὀρθοῖ is present tense, what does the optative look like? Why is the author using a genitive instead of a dative here? What accounts for the seemingly odd word order? When I read I always have a grammar at hand. The first reading is almost a decoding. Each additional reading adds nuance.

I don’t keep lists of words I have a hard time remembering. I figure looking the same words up again and again is part of the process of building synapses in my brain. In addition, I find that the first time I read a definition, one of two words stick in my mind. The tenth time a whole lot more detail sinks in and I understand the range of meaning a word can have. And if I’m curious about a word or phrase and the notes provide references to parallels, I often follow up. I suspect that fully understanding a passage requires a sense for how the words are used elsewhere. I have no problem when re-reading if I only manage to read a sentence or two because something there sends me into a long detour. Based on the small amount of Plato I’ve read, I’ve noticed a lot of interesting things he does with words – things that I totally miss on the first reading.

Mark

12

Very good comments Seneca.

I’ll describe some of my study methods, in case anybody might find them helpful. URL references appear at the end.

I’m a “true believer” in writing to learn. I handwrite about nine-tenths of all the sentences, placing each phrase on a separate line. Sometimes the difficulty involves agreement; there, I underline the words that agree, using different underline symbols, for the different agreement pairs; e.g., a … dot line for two words in the dative, a _ _ _ _ for two words in the accusative. That leaves sawtooth lines ^^^^^^^, and words circled, or surrounded by a blocky rectangle. I underline only with the most difficult problems. I have about 300 pages (150 sheets, front and back) of handwritten notes on the Apology. Although I keep the notebooks, I rarely refer to them. When I reread, I just solve all the problems again.

I test my understanding against an English translation. Usually this is helpful, but sometimes not so much, especially when the translator knows a Greek idiom that I don’t know yet. Geoffrey Steadman is quite helpful on idioms.

I have the Attikos app on an iPad. I read a printed text, like Steadman, write notes in a spiral-bound notebook, and use Attikos, resting in a little stand, as a dictionary. Attikos has the full text; touching a word calls forth a parse and a very short sometimes misleading definition, with the lemma. Touching the lemma calls up a choice of dictionary definitions. If an iPad is affordable, Attikos is huge timesaver. Those who can’t afford an new iPad might look for a refurbished one, or even a refurbished iPhone. A little plastic stand for under 10 USD makes it more useful. My refurb iPad from Amazon works fine.

I also have James Helm’s student commentary. It’s helpful when I need a list of alphabetized principal parts of verbs.

I start with the first word of each sentence, and go forward until I stumble. When I don’t know the word, or can’t parse it, I refer to Attikos, and then move forward again. I keep nearby a full conjugation of an omega-class verb, for frequent reference, and a copy of Morwood’s Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek, mostly for restudy of verb forms. I think of this one-word-after-another attack as consistent with the advice of William Gardiner Hale on reading Latin.

For me, verb forms present the most daunting memory problem. Here is how I work daily on that. First, I want to memorize Helma Dik’s omega-verb table perfectly. I work a few minutes each day on that. Secondly, I do ad hoc work on problems as they appear. For example, when this morning a word resembling a dative noun turned out to be a 3rd-person-singular subjunctive verb, I realized I was clueless on subjunctive endings, so I reviewed that in Morwood. I drill for a few minutes with Mastronarde’s verb drills.

References:

Mastronarde’s verb drills: http://atticgreek.org/verbdrill/verbDrillByType.html

Wm. Gardiner Hale: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0066

Morwood’s Greek grammar: https://tinyurl.com/yckrh3px

Helma Dik’s verb table: https://humanities-web.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/classics/prod/2021-01/luw.pdf

Steadman: https://geoffreysteadman.com/

James J. Helm: https://www.bolchazy.com/cw_contributorinfo.aspx?ContribID=1655&Name=James+J.+Helm%2C+PhD

Attikos app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/attikos/id522497233

13

What a consolation to read about your relearning basic grammar; I do that too.

While re-reading, I had this experience: a web search on a difficult passage revealed that I had asked a question about the very same passage here, and received an answer. Ouch!

14

Hi Hugh,

Of the many good points and suggestions made by all, I found this bit by our Seneca very interesting as it reminded me of school days:

‘The next thing is to keep, as one reads, detailed notes on the grammar one finds difficult to understand. These grammatical explanations and vocabulary lists can then be re-used when you re-read. Although its time consuming to do all this at least you are keeping a record of what you did. Its impossible to keep everything in your memory. When you re-read you might revise your notes or pass over them quickly. In a way this is like constructing your own commentary.’

As first year undergrads at my college, we attended a lecture during orientation that I’ve never forgotten: “Reading with a Pencil”. I’ve never forgotten it because before I listened to it, I thought I was going to be told to write in books, which is something I absolutely abhor! Of course, the lecture was a presentation of how to read closely by taking notes (which don’t necessarily have to be written as marginalia in increasingly fragile books, i.e. poorly bound). Recently, however, I purchased a used copy of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and found that the book had handwritten notes on every single page. They were carefully numbered and addressed vocabulary and grammar issues; they also provided some background information on place names and people. In short, the previous owner of this book had constructed a commentary!

Another anecdote: I used to instruct students from other countries who had come to the U.S. to earn pilot certificates. My favourite student of all time was a young man from Switzerland who had come to study for his Private Pilot License. Over the course of six weeks, he wrote out in English the contents of his textbook in his own words. He achieved a near perfect score on his written exam and kudos from the pilot examiner who administered the oral examination and practical test.

I’m discovering that at 70, my once excellent memory needs to be replaced by excellent notetaking, such as that of Herr Brandt (Cyropaedia) or my former student.

15

I like Seneca’s suggestion, reaffirmed by Aetos, of making one’s own commentary for future reference.

Although I hand-write copious notes, so far I have not done this for future reference; instead, my purpose has been to reinforce new learning by the act of writing. This practice in turn fitted my habit up to now of doing little rereading. However, my experience of rereading the Apology, as well as the witness of others about the value of rereading, is changing my thinking about my practice of doing little rereading.

Still, a one-time note written to strengthen a bit of learning in the mind, and that purpose alone, is a different thing from a note written for later reference while rereading. The latter, it seems to me, requires more intellectual clarity, and a more legible presentation. This is something to think about.

16

Hugh, think of what you write the first time round as a first draft. It doesnt have to very detailed. It could just be a sentence in which you have parsed some of the troublesome bits and a note like “mixed conditional see MWH’s pinned thread”..or whatever reference you have found in a grammar book. You are not writing for publication you are laying down a few stones to indicate you passed this way before and thought about the passage. You can elaborate it or not later.

Dont wait until you have completed a work before rereading it. Re-reading what you did the day before is a good way to start your next session. Or looking back at what you did last week. Continually looking back is a good way to reinforce what you have learned. I expect you know this already.

17

Very helpful, Seneca. I had not considered planned rereading, and this is working a change in my thoughts about notes. A most productive thread.

18

English notes are a terrible habit for language learning for anyone trying to get to free reading. F. R. Whitesell goes into the theory of why that is in this article for Monatschefte, “Learning to Read a Foreign Language”.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/30165792

It opens with a story of a German student translating a whole novel out in his coursebook, only to find that he had no ability to read it on examination.

19

Thanks for the link to the article. It was written seventy years ago. I think a lot has happened in that time in teaching modern languages particularly the easy availability of multimedia resources. The author is writing from the perspective of teaching German at a University where his students have most likely studied for many years beforehand and possibly lived in Germany on exchange trips - so they already have quite a grasp of their chosen study. Some of the advice I would take with a pinch of salt. In particular it says nothing about the role of translation and rather takes for granted that its a good thing, or at least a fixed feature of the curriculum.

Nevertheless there is much to recommend some of things he suggests. Reading a whole section before working on it to see what sense one can make of it, marking unfamiliar words with a dot, trying to recognise constructions used. Re-reading the text etc.

In the discussion above some of us suggested making notes. These could be really brief or quite detailed if they referred a complex or unfamiliar construction. I can’t see how this is a hinderance. At some stage one has to learn for example what a “mixed conditional” is and collecting examples in reading seems to me helpful. The scale of the note taking is really dictated by the student’s needs. It is important always to have a clean text (I think) so one can read and re-read unencumbered by notes of any kind.

Writing grammatical explanations and lists of vocabulary are not helpful however if this is an end in itself. There is no avoiding the fact that a lot has to be memorised. I would direct everyone to the Preface of Eleanor Dickey’s Introduction to Greek Composition page ix “The author, as a student, wasted years over the non-memorisation method and later wished bitterly that someone had told her how much more efficient it would be just to sit down and learn things by heart; it would have been the single most useful tip anyone could have given her, so she herby passes it on.”

Finally. however satisfying it might seem to translate Greek or Latin this is, in my opinion, the biggest obstacle to reading. I really wish that when I was an undergraduate Greek and Latin to English translation had not had the prominence it did. translating from English is very helpful because it forces you (eventually) to translate an idea and not words. This then can become the model for translating into one’s native language.

20

Much advice here that may be read by many people over the years, not just the participants in this thread. But is it good or bad advice, Seneca? Perhaps consider contributing to the Random Greek Passages thread, and let people see what your level is and where exactly your methods got you over the years? Surely your audience deserves to know that?