Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

This forum is for writing about modern themes or phrases used in the classroom or for instruction that do not presume an ancient setting.
Forum rules
This forum is for discussing how to do Greek composition and practicing writing in Greek.

If you post in this forum, you are inviting people to critique what you have written and suggest ways to improve it.

Private subforums can be created for groups who want to practice together without exposing their mistakes to the world, or this can be done in public.
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:How does the suggestion to go private sit with others participating here?
I can set up forums that are private, I can also set up forums where posts expire to avoid long term embarrassment. I am happy to do either.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Wes Wood
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Wes Wood »

Thomas Dolhanty wrote:
Wes Wood wrote:Right now, my reading goal is nine chapters per day in the New Testament and reading as far as I can through Laws book one without a lexicon. Rereading texts is something new that I am trying, and I think it has been helpful.
Wow! That's a serious undertaking, Wes, and especially if you are reading with reasonably good comprehension of the text! That get's you through John in a bit more than 2 days, Luke in less than 3 days, Acts in 4! If that is a consistent practise day after day, you are reading a lot of Greek, and for sure a whole lot more Greek than I'm reading.
That is what I have been doing for the New Testament, but I wasn't very clear about what I am doing with Laws. With it, I have been starting at the beginning of book one and reading up to the point where I have to use a lexicon and I go a line or two beyond where I stopped the day before. When I read what I wrote Laws, it sounded like I was only reading the words in book one that I knew. That wouldn't be very helpful, would it? :lol:
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Thomas Dolhanty
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:How does the suggestion to go private sit with others participating here?
I can set up forums that are private, I can also set up forums where posts expire to avoid long term embarrassment. I am happy to do either.
For reasons stated, I think private is a good idea. I have no strong feelings about automatic expiry. However, since I never really look at these after the lesson is learned, it would not matter to me if they disappeared. I would only suggest that they should remain for weeks and not days.
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Wes Wood
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Wes Wood »

Jonathan Robie wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:How does the suggestion to go private sit with others participating here?
I can set up forums that are private, I can also set up forums where posts expire to avoid long term embarrassment. I am happy to do either.
I am content with whatever everyone else decides. Fear of public embarrassment isn't on my list of concerns. It matters not what I have done, only what I am currently capable of. If all goes well, it will be even more fun to laugh at what I have done in a few more years than it has been the last few days. :D
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Stephen Hughes »

I'm not worried about making mistakes publicly either. What I am interested in is what the general intent of suggesting the "tutorial" conversations go to email is. If Carl is saying that he would be willing to participate openly as a tutor in an email setting, then I could put up with the spamminess of the chain emails that multiway emails generate, and I'd dedicate an email address to it. If he is saying, he thinks we should exchange emails and take this kind of exchange off the forum, then I would like to move to a different way of doing it, which could be agreed upon - preferably somewhere where others who like writing in Greek would like to participate in.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:I'm not worried about making mistakes publicly either. What I am interested in is what the general intent of suggesting the "tutorial" conversations go to email is. If Carl is saying that he would be willing to participate openly as a tutor in an email setting, then I could put up with the spamminess of the chain emails that multiway emails generate, and I'd dedicate an email address to it. If he is saying, he thinks we should exchange emails and take this kind of exchange off the forum, then I would like to move to a different way of doing it, which could be agreed upon - preferably somewhere where others who like writing in Greek would like to participate in.
A disclaimer on my part is clearly in order; what I posted yesterday regarding Greek compositional tutorial procedures was a statement of my own observations and thinking about the matter, not a prescription intended to be adopted on the forum (neither did I intend to hang out a shingle as a tutor in Greek composition). It would appear that I've failed to recognize the generation-gap here, where people are perfectly content to use smartphones to post questions and answers openly in these compositional threads. If and when I have a critique of my own to offer, I intend to use the PM option rather than the piazza pubblica. Chacun à son goût.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I think it's good to have a composition forum with challenges. I don't mind making some mistakes in public, it's a talent of mine, but I do think correcting and learning from mistakes is helpful. What's the best way to do that?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Thomas Dolhanty
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Jonathan Robie wrote:I think it's good to have a composition forum with challenges. I don't mind making some mistakes in public, it's a talent of mine, but I do think correcting and learning from mistakes is helpful. What's the best way to do that?
Although I haven't been much concerned about making mistakes in an open-to-the-world composition forum, I have come around to the point of view that a private forum is a better idea. First because, as I said, it allows the threads to be more easily 'slow-moving'. Secondly, though, let's all be honest here - no one likes to get 'dressed down' before the whole world, and there tends to be a bit of 'dressing down' from time to time.

It is better to try things out and learn language expression by trial and error in a more closed setting. And that is especially true when the correction is less than subtle. I hasten to add honestly that I am not speaking here from personal experience, nor do I have a personal complaint in this regard.
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Stephen Hughes
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Thomas Dolhanty wrote:It is better to try things out and learn language expression by trial and error in a more closed setting. And that is especially true when the correction is less than subtle. I hasten to add honestly that I am not speaking here from personal experience, nor do I have a personal complaint in this regard.
If yo are referring to me, I think that correction should be absolute, direct, clear, unmixed with either shame or other emotion. Language correction from the outside for some degree sets the pattern or tone for how self-correction from the inside will be done. In my opinion that should be as efficient as possible. Being subtle or polite makes things complex. In a balanced moment, the corrector becomes the corectee's self-correction.

In situation where manners and carrying on are appropriate, corrections can be left for the person themselves to process, understand and apply.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Greek Composition 4x4 Challenge

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:I think that correction should be absolute, direct, clear, unmixed with either shame or other emotion.
OK, but the point of correction is to learn and move on. I'm beginning to think that a private subforum for composition is best, and that posts should expire after 2-3 weeks. If you haven't learned from your error in that time, odds are you won't go back. And no need to have these errors haunt us all our lives.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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