[B-Greek] Re: English Grammar as a Prerequisite to Learning Greek?

jvonkodar at hds.harvard.edu jvonkodar at hds.harvard.edu
Thu Dec 11 20:54:20 EST 2003


There are many fine books on Greek Syntax that do explain both Greek and English grammatical constructions with excellent examples. The key of course is patience and a willingness to learn.

Jonathan,
Harvard Divinity School


----- Original Message -----
From: LIKELUKE <likeluke at bg8.so-net.ne.jp>
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2003 8:41 pm
Subject: [B-Greek] Re: English Grammar as a Prerequisite to Learning Greek?

> Maurice
> 
> 
> Thank you very much for your quick response.
> 
> | I would be the first to categorise it as an exasperated cry <g> 
> from a 
> | generation whose schooling included parsing of English prose as 
> a standard 
> | part of English classes and whose university insisted that my 
> matriculation 
> | subjects include Latin before I could enter the engineering school.
> 
> I understand what you mean, though I cannot imagine how you were 
> parsingEnglish! A parallel argument or even regret is often heard 
> in Japan, too,
> with regard to Chinese classics education, which is regarded as 
> parallelto Greek or Latin in the West.
> 
> I myself belong to a generation in the middle. As I learned 
> English as
> something that was not useful to my daily communication, I had to 
> do it
> all over afresh when I learned speaking and writing in it. Yet, the
> grammar/translation-oriented English that I had learned at school
> provided me with a very good help when I started learning Greek and
> Latin. The way I learned English had made me a good frame of reference
> in tackling those classical languages.
> 
> And I am now teaching Greek, crying for the students' lack of that
> frame of reference. My relief, however, is that, since I was an 
> English/Japanese teacher/translator with a formal linguistic 
> training, I can
> enjoy teaching even English (a bit of fake one), translation 
> techniques,and linguistic points of view to my students with a lot 
> of delight.
> 
> Thank you also for the inspiring article that you quoted on-line and
> sent to me off-line. I really enjoyed reading it. I subscribe to 
> some of
> the mailing-lists on Latin as well, and, honestly speaking, I 
> sometimesfeel envious of such a world that you are taught these 
> classicallanguages at the high-school level or even a lower one. 
> You learn them at
> a high school as typical educated Westerners while we learn, 
> again, 20,000
> Chinese characters as typical educated Japanese . . .
> 
> Well, let us keep enjoying learning this beautiful Greek language!
> 
> 
> ==========
> Hirokatsu Yoshihara <likeluke at bg8.so-net.ne.jp>
> Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, Baguio City, Philippines
> December 12, 2003 (Fri) 05:47 +0800
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----------------------- Original Message -----------------------
> From:    "Maurice A. O'Sullivan" <mauros at iol.ie>
> To:      Hirokatsu Yoshihara <likeluke at bg8.so-net.ne.jp>
> Date:    Thu, 11 Dec 2003 18:46:25 +0000
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] English Grammar as a Prerequisite to 
> Learning Greek?
> ----
> 
> | At 15:23 11/12/2003, Hirokatsu Yoshihara wrote:
> | 
> | >Maurice
> | >
> | >
> | >Speaking from my experiences of 1) traning Japanese people who 
> wanted to
> | >be teachers of the Japanese language as the second language, 2) 
> working| >together with English teachers who were teaching in 
> Japan with the only
> | >qualification that they were native speakers, and 3) myself, a 
> native| >Japanese speaker, having been formally trained as a 
> linguist specialized
> | >in my own mother tongue, it always seems quite difficult for a 
> native| >speaker to be well trained in analyzing his/her own 
> native language
> | >UNLESS one has had a good quality of education on it at any 
> level from
> | >elementary to college.
> | 
> | Thank you for your courteous and well-reasoned response to what 
> you ( 
> | flatteringly ) term my "thesis.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> --------------------- Original Message Ends --------------------
> 
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> 




More information about the B-Greek mailing list