[b-greek] re: How much daily reading? a bigger question, 2

From: Randall Buth (ButhFam@compuserve.com)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 16:10:49 EST


TW Clay KAI ALLOIS ETAIROIS
CAIREIN

Randall EGRAYEN:
>> 1. "Minimum number of lines": I am in the process of developing
>>guidelines
>> for a two-year segment of a program that will take a person to an
>> intermediate fluency in Koine Greek. At the moment the expected
>>minimum reading figure is 35,000 lines. That figures out to about 350
>>to 500 lines of reading per week, depending on whether vacations are
>>included in the reading schedule. On a five-day week that would be 70
>>to 100 lines per day.

O Clay DE APEKRIQH ERWTWN:
>Where do you find your students who read "70 to 100 lines per day?"
>What do you call reading? I would assume that in new material there will
>be on the average two words per line which need to be looked up in a
>lexicon. So the lexical work ALONE for 100 lines would be 200 trips to
>Danker or LSJ.

EGWGE:
Well, how can one learn a language reading less than that a day?
   E.g. the NT is only 15,000 lines. So the above program is only a little
over double the NT. And there are already excellent aids for students
to do a reasonably informed rapid NT reading, e.g. Kubo. When learning
German, for example, how many novels do you think a person reads?
Quite a few, and that adds up to a lot more than 35,000 lines. A typical
"whodunit" or "thriller" will have 8,000 up to 20,000 lines. A
semi-intensive
two-year German student needs to read more than four whodunits to get
into German.
And even reading 35,000 Greek lines won't necessarily lead to fluency.
Something more is necessary.

Your answer illustrates an important point. 200 trips to a dictionary a day
will wear down most any student. Students cannot be expected to 'look up
vocabulary' at that rate. NAI, KAI ETI MALLON -- NAI.

The other points of my email also remain valid. I think we're on the same
side here. I am concerned that people are willing to approve or ignore a
situation where someone studies a language for twenty years and is still
not fluent. "It's just what everybody does." Something needs to change,
   AR' OUCI DEI TI ALLACQHNAI ; ?
NAI, -- OU CRH TAUTA OUTWS GINESQAI.

Greek is a great language with a rich history and literature. We need to be
a
serious about what we call 'proficiency' and how to get there if we want
students to enjoy it.

ERRWSO

Randall Buth
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org

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