How to study languages

[Matthew Longhorn]

Ok, a bit of a weird one, but it recently occurred to me that I don’t actually know how to study. My approach to Greek is very much along the lines of “Ooooh, that is interesting! Let’s throw money at books and journal articles and read them, underline things, and write in the margins” (and of course try to actually read the language). Frankly, it isn’t overly effective and often just leaves me with the general impression of things and a lot of books with much underlining and marginal notation.

I am currently re-reading books on the article in Greek and just realised that there has to be a better way of approaching it - I am pretty convinced that if I were a bit more disciplined in my technique and time I could be much better than I am right now.
I never went to university, and my school time was spent copying other people’s homework rather than do my own so study methods weren’t exactly something I paid attention to. Do people have recommendations on approaches to language study that are more widely applicable than just those looking at morphology and vocab?

[Barry Hofstetter]

Matthew, having spent some time with you reading Josephus, your Greek is at least at an intermediate level, so what you have been doing has borne at least some fruit! But the answer is to pursue it systematically. Teaching grammars with graded readings and exercises present just such systematic approaches, some more successfully than others (and we occasionally have discussions about that). I don't think you need that. You are at a point where reading lots of text is going to benefit you more than anything else (and that suggestion goes for anyone else at a similar level). Use grammars and so forth as reference, but put your emphasis on interacting with actual texts. Then there are the growing amount of resources emphasizing spoken ancient Greek -- I'll let others sing their praises, but with the proviso that actual ancient written texts still have to be primary.

[Matthew Longhorn]

Thanks Barry. I guess I am torn between studying to read the Greek, and studying about Greek. I probably favour the latter even more than the former and they don’t quite seem to have the same way of measuring progress.
I guess that I should be reading the grammars / linguistics and then explicitly seeking to think through that in my reading. I listened to a youtube video on study techniques where there were a whole bunch of theories named - that made me think that there may be some such theories that are more applicable to languages than those in that general video. Also a great opportunity to buy another book on a theory if needed

[Jonathan Robie]

A few thoughts.

I have been very impressed by the SIOP model for language instruction, originally developed to teach ESL in California, widely used for SSL as well. This PDF is helpful:

Making Content Comprehensible for Secondary English Learners: The SIOP Model

Listening to interviews with polyglots, basically anything that keeps you happily engaged, paying attention to the text in detail, and in the target language tends to be key, and different people have different preferred approaches. If whatever you are doing keeps you going back to English or metalanguage and seems to involve way too much overhead, try something else. I like asking and answering questions in Greek as a primary technique.

For Hebrew, I have been very impressed with Aleph with Beth, and I think a Greek version is under production. For both Hebrew and Greek, I think Biblingo is very helpful. All of these give a very guided approach.

Personally, I just like to listen to a chapter or three of Greek on You Version as I read. Something about listening and reading at the same time works for me.

[Matthew Longhorn]

Jonathan, great suggestions - thanks.

I think I have hit on a method that helps with combining both my interests. Work through a chapter in a technical book so that I can enjoy learning about language and the more linguistic elements, write notes and then do lots of reading that day seeking to apply those concepts to what I am reading. That should combine a healthy amount of both sides of the learning process given that I don’t just want to learn to read better.

Your suggestion re. listening will be a great accompaniment to that approach, especially with Benjamin Kantor’s audio resources over at koinegreek.com (not to be confused with Mike Aubrey’s koine-greek.com)

I will definitely give that pdf a read (sometime!). Having formal methodologies is useful for me, even if I don’t adopt them in their entirety.

The other element that I need to bring in is probably just discipline. It will probably help actually having time allocated to reading about and reading in the language rather than being as unstructured as it is at the moment.

[RandallButh]

Thanks for the PDF link.

Things can be distilled into comprehensible input and meaningful production.

[Jonathan Robie]

Thanks for the PDF link.

Things can be distilled into comprehensible input and meaningful production.

Yes. But the way to provide comprehensive input and meaningful production appropriately in any given situation or setting ... that's what master teachers are for, and SIOP gives some really good advice. It takes creativity and experience.

[RandallButh]

Thanks for the PDF link.

Things can be distilled into comprehensible input and meaningful production.

Yes. But the way to provide comprehensive input and meaningful production appropriately in any given situation or setting ... that's what master teachers are for, and SIOP gives some really good advice. It takes creativity and experience.

Yes, all of the above.

I mention the "distillation" because those are points that can be kept in mind while producing pedagogical materials. The teacher/writer must always consider if the material remains comprehensible and must always look for ways for meaningful production and not parroting. The same goes for classroom/ZOOM interaction. Having said that, yes, there are layer after layer of audience-considerations for keeping things comprehensible, and SIOP works on documenting that. And some things, like TPRS naturally do that along with appropriate graded readers (not necessarily available for biblical languages, even if so named. 1. The material needs to be correct. 2. The material needs to be appropriately built up and not necessarily just dumbed-down biblical stories. Those are tall orders.).