Hi everybory,
I’m a beginner in this stuff of studing Greek, so be patient with with me, ok?
It’s very hard to me to translate de/ sometimes and sometimes I thought I was almost useless to translated ( I use to translate it as "But " and “and”) untill I came to Jww’s lesson XVIII, where, in his exemples he does not translate it!
So, Can someone tell me when should I translate de/ or should I use my own “feelings” in doing it?
Thanks
Maximo
Oh, you often just don’t translate de. It’s a particle used to structure the sentence like men… de, but doesn’t need to be translated. I often only translate it if I need but or and in the translation or if it’s in combination with other words like oi( men… oi( de.
Emma is right. In fact, the subject concerning to particles is very hard. There’s a great book on it, whose name is The Greek Particles, by J. D. Denniston. I hope this one (in PDF format) will be soon here among us.
The sequence “μέν […], δέ […]” can be considered (or even translated) as “'In one hand” […], in the other hand […]".