[B-Greek] Beginner Struggling with Translating

Richard Burks rburks9400 at comcast.net
Fri Dec 3 16:46:47 EST 2004


John,

I think that you have found the weakness of Mounce's grammar ... In the
first semester of material you deal with everything but verbs, which makes
true sentences and not fragments difficult to use as examples or questions.

I like Mounce's grammar but I found the same disconnect ... The clue that
you have the indirect objects in this fragment is dative case phrases in the
fragment. Mounce notes that the dative case is a sign for the indirect
object on page 47 sub paragraph 7.5.

If I may I would like to share something that helped me, when I was taking a
class based on the Mounce book I purchased Wallace's book on "Greek Beyond
the Basics" and read his chapter on the topic I was a little "foggy" on from
Mounce's book.  It will give you more info than you need, but he does go a
little more in depth and explains some of the reasons Mounce presented the
material the way he did.

Even though I disagree with Mounce and Wallace on some aspects of the case
system, and don't like the fact that you don't get to verbs till later,
Mounce's book is one of the better first year Greek books I have seen. Of
course everyone has an opinion, so take mine with a grain of salt.

The "fog" is common when you are first taking Greek ... Hang in there the
fog will clear at some point.

Regards,

Bill Burks



On 12/3/04 11:17 AM, "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:

> At 8:38 AM -0600 12/3/04, Mitchell, John W wrote:
>> 
>> I'm working my way though Mounces' BBG.  One group of exercises for this
>> chapter is translating various sentence fragments.  I'm really
>> struggling to get my answers to match Mounces.  For instance, this is
>> one of the fragements I'm supposed to translate (I haven't covered verbs
>> yet which is why he provides the definition of the first word):
>> 
>> GNWRISQH (he/she/it might be made known) NUN TAIS ARCAIS KAI TAIS
>> EXOUSIAIS.
>> 
>> Mounce translates it as:
>> 
>> It might be made known now to the rules and the authorities.
> 
> I take it that GNWRISQH is not an unaugmented aorist passive 3 sg. but
> really the subjunctive form GNWRISQHi. In this context I don't think I'd
> had offered that without a hINA or something that would take a subjunctive
> form. And in fact this is the text of Eph 3:10.
> 
>> Before I looked at the answer, I didn't understand what to do with two
>> words in the dative.  Does the clause TAIS ARCAIS KAI TAIS EXOUSIAIS
>> represent the indirect object?  If so, how would I have known that ahead
>> of time?  Also there doesn't seem to be a subject.  It appears the the
>> subject in contained within the verb, but if so, how would I know to use
>> 'It' and not 'He' or 'She'?
> 
> Well, that's precisely my complaint about context-less sentence fragments;
> my own preference has always been for paragraph-length reading segments.
> Yes, TAIS ARCAIS KAI TAIS EXOUSIAIS is an indirect object, although you
> wouldn't know that without knowing that both nouns represent authorities
> deemed to be persons exercising authority. As for the subject, when in
> doubt, supply a "he" "she" or "it" from the verb's 3rd-person form--and if
> all you're given is the fragment as you've cited it, don't let anyone tell
> you that it couldn't just as well be "that he might be made known" or "that
> she might be made known."
> 
>> Also when a word means multiple things, such as the word EXOUSIAIS which
>> I learned can mean power or authority, how do I know which English word
>> matches the sentence thought best?  Is this something that just comes
>> with experience?  Does this get easier with time?  I've been working
>> hard to memorize the vocab, noun endings and articles and I thought I
>> was doing well.  But this has got me thinking I've misunderstood
>> something.
> 
> Well, I think that for the sake of this exercise, it doesn't matter that
> much which of multiple sense of a word you are using. Again, I personally
> think that the problems you are encountering are built into a system that
> gives you such context-less sentence fragments to cope with. On the other
> hand, there are many on this list who have learned from that textbook and
> workbook and who teach from it. They'll surely give you a different slant
> on your questions--and probably a much more helpful answer.




More information about the B-Greek mailing list