[B-Greek] Memorizing Declensions -

Terry and Gail Cook cookie99 at fuse.net
Tue Oct 17 13:38:13 EDT 2006


"nothing like this exists for ancient Greek"
Perhaps, Dr Buth, you are called to produce such a work?
Terry Cook
sDg



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randall Buth" <randallbuth at gmail.com>
To: "B-Greek at Lists. Org" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 1:34 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Memorizing Declensions -


> Mitch you are on the right track to learn to use real words.
>
> SLA (Second Language Acquisition) theory is strongly on the side of
> use and presentation of real forms in simple context (understandable
> content as presented!) Unfortunately, nothing like this exists for
> ancient Greek.
>
> the above does NOT mean that paradigms are bad. But relying on them
> for initial learning has a strong tendency to develop the analytical
> side of a language at the expense of fluency. Use of language within
> understandable context is the crucial factor. This is also a scalar
> category with shades of adaptability as well as extremes. By their
> fruit you will know them: consider 2 German lit majors having a
> conversation over lunch in German. Consider two classics majors having
> a conversation over lunch in English.
>
> Randall Buth
>
>> From: Mitch Larramore <mitchlarramore at yahoo.com>
>> I am unable to reproduce the chart on page 81 of
>> Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek (2nd Edition). But I
>> was wondering if this method is how others have
>> memorized declensions.
>>
>> Under 1st/2nd declensions, he has 3 columns of masc
>> fem neut. They look something like:
>>
>> nom sg  S / - / -
>> gen sg  U / S / U
>> dat sg  i / i / i
>> acc sg  N / N / N
>>
>> To the right of this chart, he gives the 3rd
>> declensions under columns masc/fem and neut, thus...
>>
>> nom sg   S / -
>> gen sg  OS / OS
>> dat sg   i / i
>> acc sg  A,N / -
>>
>> My question is whether or not others find such charts
>> helpful? I have had a tendency to memorize a few
>> prototypical nouns from each declension, rather than
>> learning 'endings.' Is there a benefit for learning
>> endings in this manner?
>>
>> Mitch Larramore
>> Sugar Land, Texas
>
>
> -- 
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη πληθυνθείη
> שלום לכם וברכות
> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> randallbuth at gmail.com
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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> 




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