[b-greek] Re: Read or Study?

From: Polycarp66@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 05 2002 - 09:10:33 EST


In a message dated 2/5/2002 2:29:36 AM Eastern Standard Time,
ctripp@ptialaska.net writes:

>I have a question on where I should go from here. I am looking at 3
options. One >would be to continue reading Herodotus as I have been, as an
unfamiliar text. >Second, I purchased a volume containing books v-vii by
Loeb Classical Library >which contains both the greek and an english
translating. It would be kind of like >cheating, but I could cover
considerable ground by 'peeking' over at the facing page. >Another would be
this: i have seen on a web-page that Anabasis by Xenophon was >rated as a 1
on as scale of 1-10 of relative difficulty of Greek texts. Herodotus was >
rated 5, Theucidides (sp?) was rated a 10 (a friend of mine who has read some
of it >says it is really difficult). The GNT was not listed.

The GNT would not be listed since the difficulty depends on what you are
reading. The Gospel According to John is extremely easy. Some other
portions such as Hebrews are not. You might try reading from the
deutero-canonical books of the LXX or you could get the Loeb edition of the
Apostolic Fathers or Clement. They also have Josephus. If you think that
you will inadvertently "cheat", cover the English page with a piece of paper
as you read. Then you can check your results with the experts. I would also
suggest taking your Nestle-Aland to church to follow along in the reading of
the gospel and the epistle. It will force you to move a little more quickly.
 You could also get some of Plato's dialogues and Homer. If you don't
already have a copy, I would suggest getting Smyth's Greek Grammar. It's not
all that expensive. Use it while reading classical texts particularly to
nail down the function of each form.

 
>I am curious on feed-back on which approach would be the best or perhaps an >
alternate approach. In another question: what level of proficiency is
attainable? I >am no where near to the point of reading greek like an
english newpaper. Maybe >I'd have to be heariing it all day long to be able
to attain that level of proficiency.

You can obtain whatever level of proficiency you are willing to spend the
time and effort to obtain. I've been reading Greek for much longer than your
7 years, and I still don't read it as I read the newspaper either (not even
like Der Spiegel or Le Monde) - perhaps more like reading a dissertation.

>I frequently remind myself that little five year-olds were running around
chattering
>away in this most challenging language.

When I hear people commenting on the difficulty of learning English, I like
to remind them that it too is a very simple language which even little
children can speak.

gfsomsel
[MIME formatting deleted --cwc]

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