[B-Greek] Beginner Struggling with Translating

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Dec 3 19:09:22 EST 2004


Forwarded for Johnny Evans:

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 14:45:48 -0500
From: JEvans1007 at aol.com
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Beginner Struggling with Translating

I, too, am using Mounce's book and judging from your statement, I may be a
little ahead of you.  (I have just started verbs.  I agree with Carl's
statement about contextless (is that a word?).  Although I don't worry over
as much as you do.  If something can have more than one correct answer and
I get at least one of the correct answers I tell myself I got it right and
defy anyone to tell me otherwise.  In some of fragments given to translate,
it is impossible to know everything you should know. In those cases, you do
what you can, try to determine if what you did not know was something you
should have known and didn't or something you could not know. Of course,
this requires a lot of going back to review previous chapters and takes
precious time but it is the only solution that I know about.

Johnny Evans <JEvans1007 at aol.com>

At 12:17 PM -0500 12/3/04, Carl W. Conrad 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.
>--



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