[B-Greek] Memorizing definitions, learning techiniques

R Yochanan Bitan Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Wed Jun 23 13:35:03 EDT 2004


>> Randallus scripsit:

>> some language learning issues here.

>> If you like flashcards, they're yours. 

>> Personally, in most languages I've worked with, I find that seeing a word
in

>> context is crucial. With what words is it used? How is it used?
Concordances

>> are very useful here, though when unfiltered, they require a relatively

>> large vocabulary.

 

>Listen to this man: he has the words of eternal, well, Greek learning!

 

>> Secondly, it is sometimes/often good to learn about words from reading

>> without looking them up. (I'm kidding, right? No, I'm serious.) This
morning

>> I was working with our Texts and Land students. (different language, same

>> priciples.) David wanted to "chase this GEDUD", where the words "chase"
and

>> "this" are already known by most students. Well, in the passage 1Sm30 one

>> can see that a GEDUD could burn a city and take captives/slaves. 

. . .

> 

>Well, Randall, I'm annoyed because you included Hebrew words in your post, 

>which really hurt my eyes.  

 

Barry

XAIREIN

Since you addressed me in Latin I assume that it was the non-Hebrew font
rather than the non-Greek language that stung the eyes. (part of the remedy
is to have the language wired through sound, the other is to wait for
unicode on the list.)

 

>That aside, though, I wholeheartedly endorse 

>your comments.  Nothing teaches language like actually reading/speaking the


>language, once you get enough of the basics down to do so.

> 

>Anecdote: When an undergraduate, one professor told us to keep a vocab
list.  If we had to look up any word >more than three times, then memorize
it.  I followed that regimen faithfully enough to build up a fairly >healthy
vocabulary in both Latin and Greek by the time I got to grad school in
Classics.  In my first quarter >in grad school, I was busily reading a play
of Sophocles and keeping my vocab list.  One of the 2nd year M.A. >students
came up to me and said, in a voice dripping with scorn, "Vocab list?  You're
still doing that?  No >way, man, you should be figuring out the vocab from
context."  He so shamed me, that ever after I kept my vocab >lists hidden...
and started doing just what he suggested, as you have suggested above, and
found it a very >fruitful discipline over the years. 

 

Glad to see that you got something positive from the encounter. There is
even a way to do both, though using 'context' requires material that is not
'too dense' with new vocab. You can list new words as you read them but
don't look them up. The "blank" lists allow you to review or to remember the
word as itself (rather than as an english gloss) and to suggest words to
look up if you get 'annoyed' by them, that is if you see them a half-dozen
times and still don't know them, or find them in a critical context. If only
there were a source to explain the "annoying" words in basic ancient Greek .
. .

 

ERRWSO

 

Randall Buth

 

 

Randall Buth, PhD

Director, Biblical Language Center

www.biblicalulpan.org

and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel

Hebrew University, Rothberg International School

ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il

 




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