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Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: October 22nd, 2012, 4:03 pm
by gmoothart
Hello,
I am teaching myself Koine Greek and am trying to decide where to go from here. I've worked my way through "Basics of Biblical Greek" and I'm partway through Mounce's Graded Reader.

I picked up Wallace's grammar, but honestly I was a little disappointed. This may be naive, but usually I think I can figure out the meaning of a dative or a participle from context, and I just don't have the mental stamina to fill my head with the 30 different ways a dative can be used.

I do feel like more parsing practice would be good for me, though. So I guess I have two questions:
1) What resources are available that would give me lots of parsing practice?
2) And, more generally, what should I do next to continue improving my Greek?

TIA,
Gabe

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: October 23rd, 2012, 2:07 am
by RandallButh
for Gabe
I do feel like more parsing practice would be good for me, though. So I guess I have two questions:
1) What resources are available that would give me lots of parsing practice?
2) And, more generally, what should I do next to continue improving my Greek?
it always helps to think in terms of languages that we learn to communicate with rapidly. If you were learning Russian or Spanish, would 'parsing practice' be the major step forward?

So moving on to the second point, I would suggest starting to talk to yourself and listening to Greek. Yes, the skill of listening to Greek with understanding will improve your reading.

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: October 23rd, 2012, 3:46 am
by Barry Hofstetter
In addition to Randall's always excellent comments, let me add that you don't practice the English alphabet every day. You use it. Randall is giving you a major way of using what you've learned. Another way (both/and not either/or) is to read as much ancient Greek every day as you can fit into your schedule. Parsing should get to the point where you don't parse -- you just look at the form and know what it is. The only way to get there is lots of actual practice using the language.

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: October 25th, 2012, 6:43 pm
by gmoothart
Thanks for the suggestions! I will read a lot.


Gabe

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: November 1st, 2012, 12:34 pm
by Alan Patterson
Gabe,

I may be a little different here but my suggestion would be to forget NT Greek. Devote all your time to Classical Greek. This will lay a foundation for every aspect of NT Greek, such as grammar, syntax, etymology, etc. You need not master Classical Greek, but a few years studying it will really take you to higher levels of Greek than studying NT Greek only or first. After Classical, go to Hellenistic Greek. The NT falls within this period. I am being a little dramatic, but the overall idea is solid.

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: November 1st, 2012, 12:49 pm
by RandallButh
It's not the content--whether Hellenistic or "classical"--that will make the difference, but whether you internalize the language and learn to speak to yourself and others in it.
If this gets overlooked, then it's 'same-old, same-old'. "Same-old same-old" will not produce what people imagine knowing a language is, when they start to learn a foreign language.

There is plenty of 1st century material available with all the bells and whistles, from Josephus, Philo to Plutarch, not to mention the very versatile Lucian at the end of the second century who can write superb 'high Attic' as well as a mean 'Ionic'.

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: November 19th, 2012, 10:14 am
by ulrikp
Hallo Gabe,

Jonathan Robie, the forum owner, kindly gave me permission to post this.

In your post, you asked for "parsing practice". It so happens I have written a software program which gives you precisely that. It's called "Paradigms Master Pro", and you can download a free evaluation copy here:

http://paradigmsmasterpro.com/

The idea behind the program is very simple: It gives you a question, namely a word-form in Greek (or Hebrew), and you must answer by telling the program what it is, morphologically speaking. Then the program tells you whether you were right or wrong, and gives you the complete list of correct answers. If you were wrong, it attempts to give you the form that would have been the question, had your answer been correct.

The premise of the program is twofold:

1) Repetition is the mother of all learning, so we should provide that, if recognition and identification of forms is the goal
2) Variation is important in repetition -- otherwise, repetition gets boring and counter-productive to learning

The program give you both: Repetition and variation. And it knows more than 2800 forms for Greek, all carefully hand-curated in their analysis. It provides quizzes on verbs, nouns, adjectives, the article, and even certain aspects of prepositions. It also "gamifies" the process of learning, keeping a score which you can use to compete against yourself.

The program runs natively on Windows(R) and Mac OS X(R). If you wish to use it on Linux, the Windows version works for me under the "Wine" program on Linux.

There is a short video on the website which you can watch to get an idea of the program. And the evaluation copy is free to download.

Have fun!

Ulrik Sandborg-Petersen
Denmark

Re: Parsing resources and "next steps"

Posted: November 19th, 2012, 11:07 am
by RandallButh
My only question is whether it internalizes the language or internalizes the analyzing? The question is similar to the problems generated by referring to κολυμβᾶν as κολυμβάω, ("I swiem", drop the 'e'.)