I've been using my Spanish almost daily at work these days, which reminded me how much I enjoy other languages. Learning them on my own has always been a struggle. These days especially, my time is limited, and I've just never been good at self-teaching generally. But I finally decided to follow what I know I enjoy rather than stumbling around in the dark.
How to choose which language I'd learn? Ancient Greek (well, more specifically, Koine) was a no-brainer. I had two years of Classical Greek (which focused on the Attic dialect ~500 BC) in college, and so there were still some bits and pieces floating around. I found my old textbook (Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek), and at least the basic declension patterns were mostly familiar. Koine was the Greek of the Roman Empire, including early Christianity. It's pretty similar to Attic grammatically, although slightly simpler (but only slightly). Plus I've always wanted to read the New Testament in the original, to say nothing of works like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (which was also written in Greek).
So, I picked up a textbook on Koine and got to work. I'm only a couple chapters in, but am pleased with my progress. This book is quite good at teaching Greek more holistically. Mastronarde was really big on memorizing paradigms and rules, but I tend to do better learning broader swaths, or maybe better said the big picture. The nice thing about learning a "dead" language is that you don't really have to be able to compose or speak in it, which makes things a lot easier. As long as I can recognize the part of speech when I see it, I'm good to go; I don't necessarily have to be able to pull a given grammatical form out of thin air. I can learn at my own pace and in my own way.
I'd forgotten how much fun this is.
Likewise! Attic is what I started with, but that was years ago (for better or worse, Koine is pretty similar from what I can tell).
I'd never thought of it that way. Speaking as someone who took years of Russian, I'm happy for you having come up with a way to never have to conjugate verbs, only read them. Brilliant.The nice thing about learning a "dead" language is that you don't really have to be able to compose or speak in it, which makes things a lot easier. As long as I can recognize the part of speech when I see it, I'm good to go; I don't necessarily have to be able to pull a given grammatical form out of thin air. I can learn at my own pace and in my own way.
Haha, especially 'cause Greek is much harder than Russian! I can't actually take credit for the idea. When I took Ancient Greek in college, my first year professor was all about learning the paradigms, which in a lot of ways was good for an intro class. When I go to my second year (when we were doing for real readings), that professor didn't teach us forms really, just gave us clues; things like "if you see a syllable repeated followed by a kappa, that's probably a perfect tense." The book I'm using now seems to take a similar approach, and again, it really makes way more sense in this context. It's also more like how we actually learn languages naturally.
An old woman in my uni teaches Ancient Greek. She has even published a textbook on the matter in Russian. Welcomed us for the (optional) classes while we were studying Latin (which she also teaches). Local Orthodox priests study under her. She's one of the five or ten Ancient Greek experts in Russia. Care to take a look at the book?
I'd be interested, sure, although I doubt my Russian is anywhere near good enough to get much out of it.
Nice to hear that you're doing something fun. I read your earlier post on how you were bored at that time. It's good that you found something that can push back the boredom and is fun for you. I'm interested in hearing more about it. As rd95 suggests, it would be interesting to see your translations posted here.
Thanks! And it'll be awhile before I can do any real reading on my own, but I definitely will! I actually started a blog recently as a central point for any translations I do (current just to and from Spanish). I have a tag devoted to my Greek learning too, although I expect I'll post a lot of that stuff here too.
Wow! That blog is beautiful. Thanks for sharing it. :) I also started a Wordpress blog that has gotten me so frustrated with formatting that I've given up on it for a while. I agree with you about the tumblr non-premium themes, but I really like how easy they are to customize. The platforms are so different as well. Thanks for sharing in that blog about Atom. I want to check it out. I've been looking for a 'distraction free' software for a while now. I'm looking forward to your translations of the Bible. I took a Bible study class from a pastor who would translate the Koine Greek to help dissect the passage. I should probably add here that I'm not a Christian, but I found those studies really fascinating.
For true distraction-free writing, I'd suggest WriteMonkey. It's just no good for translation work since I usually need to have a couple of windows open at a time :) I too have typically enjoyed how easy Tumblr is to set up (especially compared to WordPress), but I struggled to find a tumblr theme that wasn't going to require a lot of customization to be what I wanted. I decided to check WordPress and found some great ones, including the one I ultimately settled on. I'm a long ways from doing Biblical translation that's worth anything, but thanks!
I definitely will, although it'll be awhile before I'm there.
Interesting! I didn't realize there were different Greek languages, but now that I think of it, it makes sense, as English has gone through many changes. I learned Latin in high school, for a year. Only because I was tired of French (3 years). Then in college I took Spanish and Anglo-Saxon English. I wish I stuck with them. I can only do basics now. Even with Spanish, I never used it. I was told growing up, oh my gosh, you need to learn a second language, Spanish is it, etc etc. I took French to rebel, lol. Then I took Spanish, but I never, ever heard Spanish outside of the classroom, TV, and songs. So it never stuck. I should start up again though. I just have to decide which one!
To be precise, these aren't different languages, just different dialects. The differences between Koine and Classical are not particularly significant from what I can tell, and more center on word usage than grammar. It's not until you get into Byzantine Greek that things really start to change, and even then it's gradual. I'm surprised to hear that with Spanish (although I don't know where you live). I'm in the southeastern U.S. and have used it in virtually every job I've had since high school. I also use it to talk to folks in the service sector pretty regularly (e.g. the guys that sometimes do our lawn).I didn't realize there were different Greek languages...
As far as I know, most of the changes from Classical to Koine Greek were phonological. Like you said, that doesn't matter so much if you don't need to speak it.
That's most of it. There are a few little grammatical things too, from what I understand. The 3rd person pronoun (αὐτός) is used more, and a lot of -μι verbs transition to regular ol' -ω.
I live in the Midwest. I'm sure I had friends who spoke Spanish at home, but they weren't open about it in person. It's very whitewashed up here in certain areas. I did move to an area after college that was heavily Spanish, and I could have used it then had I remembered any of it. I picked up certain words from the stores and stuff, but nothing to really stick with me. We really need to change how we view foreign languages here. We shouldn't be waiting until high school to learn a second language. But who decides what the second language we learn at the same time as we start 1st or 2nd grade will be?
Yeah. I was lucky in that I started in 7th grade (so about age 12), and I'm sure that helped.