[B-Greek] Analytical Greek Lexicon
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Jan 28 10:33:47 EST 2006
On Jan 28, 2006, at 10:10 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
> On Jan 28, 2006, at 6:53 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:
>
>> 24 books of Homer in one month. Anyone else want to comment on this?
>
> By way of contrast I consider 15 lines of Sophocles a fair
> accomplisment for one day.
> Just trying to place a realty check on this since discouragment tends
> to settle in if one has goals which are unreachable and discouragement
> doesn't help one learn Greek in a culture where there are no external
> rewards for the doing it.
I wouldn't have told of this if I didn't honestly believe that others
could do it. I could no more imagine climbing Mt. Everest in a
lifetime; different people have different goals. I can read Greek but
I can't do mechanical work on an automobile. But if you find it
useful to compare learning Greek with climbing Everest, then go for it.
Would it help any if I told you two years AFTER spending that month
reading 24 books of Homer I found myself working several hours on a
page of Pindar? Homer is relatively easy. Pindar and Aeschylus are
something more of a challenge. For my part, I think that Hebrews is a
greater challenge than Homer; Homer is relatively easy, but you must
learn the distinctive Homeric vocabulary and become accustomed to
special morphological features of the Epic dialect.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list