I’m more or less in agreement with Barry on the use of translations. However, I generally don’t see an advantage in using more than one. Usually, just one will do to help me figure out the syntax if I’m stumped, as long as the translation is relatively literal and doesn’t have literary pretensions. Then I can re-read the passage in Greek with comprehension. I don’t normally translate in my head as I read. I find translations useful in figuring out complicated syntax which doesn’t readily yield itself to me as I read.
I don’t normally translate in my head as I read.
This is crucial I think. I translate only when I have to communicate my understanding of the Greek/Latin to someone else. It can never be more than approximate.
And in the interests of continued improvement, I would recommend again, when you decide to resort to a translation (without shame!), be sure to define as precisely as possible where your breakdown or hesitation occurs.
(And if you’re reading critically, check the critical apparatus first. You may not be the only one who has struggled with the sentence.)
I think translations for an early intermediate fellow like me are important as a sanity check. Thucydides, for example, has some incredibly odd use of words and turns of phrase which make no sense on first scan. You need to look up the words in the LSJ and occasionally reach for a grammar to see what you are missing, but sometimes you are just stuck, so you check the translation. Usually you have SOME idea of what it might vaguely be getting at, but upon reading the translation, you should try to learn what your brain didn’t connect. Sometimes it’s as simple as “oh yeah, I guess I got the subjects and objects wrong”, but sometimes it’s some manner of joining the words to make a turn of phrase you might remember better. But…and this is key…translations can also be wrong and you are free to disagree with them.
I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I read this post. I have felt like a bit of a failure whenever I have succumbed to the temptaion to look at a translation. However, I have sometimes spent an hour staring at a phrase in Thucydides and the text simply would not yield up its sense to me. That indeed is the law of diminishing marginal returns at work. My practice is to make every possible effort to understand the text by reviewing possibly forgotten points of grammar and syntax and often by scouring the dictionary. Then, and only then, will I permit myself to consult the translations.
I have sometimes spent an hour staring at a phrase in Thucydides and the text simply would not yield up its sense to me.
Me too. But I turn to a translation sooner.
Me too. Staring at a sentence for an hour doesn’t sound at all efficient from a learning standpoint. Your learning speed is dominated by something like [num. new words comprehended / hour ].
Translations, like training wheels, have a very useful place, and are only really harmful (in my opinion, from the perspective of developing fluency) when prolonged much beyond that.
Lexicons and commentaries (which are both often only disguised translations in their ways) are similar.
The important thing, I think, is not so much how long you try to understand the passage yourself before resorting to a translation, as long as you really give it a go yourself, but that once you’ve looked up the translation it’s imperative that you’ve fully understood the construction before moving on. This at least has been my approach: sometimes I stare at the Greek text for long but usually not, but after looking up I want to understand exactly what’s going on.