[B-Greek] Memorizing Declensions
JFS
bigjfs at hotmail.com
Thu Oct 19 03:59:31 EDT 2006
I apologize for intruding into this conversation, but I may have something
to offer-not as a professional instructor or someone with credentials that
signify value or competence, but just another student with similar concerns.
I prefer Mounce's paradigms because he distinguishes between the endings and
the thematic vowels. Nevertheless, paradigms are overviews that help us who
are unknowledgeable see how the language is organized. These dead
languages are meant to be read (all the native speakers are dead, no longer
available to speak with). I myself read and re-read and re-re-read verses
of the GNT all the time, everyday. I even memorize some of the verses. I
do not memorize the paradigms. I do review them often, though. As I read
and re-read the GNT (I began with John, but I also backslide and read some
Xenophon for variety) I have developed a feel for the paradigms, but I fear
I may be hard put if required to reproduce them on demand.
Norbert Rennert appears to have something rather good on his website,
unfortunately I reside in China and although I can access his website, I am
unable to open the stories. But even so, I would consider them supplements
to read in addition to the real thing, the GNT.
Randall Buth is correct, but dead languages are dead in the sense that all
the native speakers are dead. Here in China, when learning classical
Chinese, one talks about classical Chinese as well as present day issues all
in modern Chinese. We even speak Classical Chinese using modern
pronunciation (the same can be said of Japanese and Vietnamese, two other
languages that I am acquainted with). I think that this is rational, but
that is just my view.
Living here in China and speaking (to some degree) Chinese, I would also
recommend you dislodge your English grammar from your thinking, especially
your commitment to tense formation in the verbs. I am constantly amazed at
the effort Indo-European speakers put into making Chinese verb aspect
markers be tense markers.
Again, I apologize for this intrusion, but to sum up what I hope I wanted to
say (write) is that the paradigms are very useful, but not so useful I would
spend the time memorize them. But then I am a self learner and if you need
to reproduce them to prove your competence, then that is another issue.
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:43:52 -0700
> From: Norbert Rennert <norbert.rennert at sil.org>
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Memorizing Declensions -
> Cc: "B-Greek at Lists. Org" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <45352468.1000308 at sil.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> I have developed something like this for Koine Greek
> <http://call.canil.ca/koine/index.html>. It uses simple stories as a
> frame which the user can manipulate to change the story in a multitude
> of ways. The semantics of the story stays the same so the learner always
> knows the meaning of each word (once he has learned the words in the
> story in its basic form). This site is not complete; it only has a few
> stories, but it can be expanded. What I need is some competent Greek
> writers to compose very simple stories for me. These will be tagged and
> then offered up for others to read and manipulate. I think that this
> method of learning another language is preferable to memorizing
> paradigms. Of course, something like this could also be developed for
> ancient Greek. This could be a great supplementary reading resource for
> biblical greek students. Any Greek experts out there willing to write
> some simple stories?
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> NORBERT RENNERT
> Information Technician
> Canada Institute of Linguistics
> 7600 Glover Road, Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1
> t: 604.513.2129 ext. 3955
> f: 604.513.2128
>
>
>
> Terry and Gail Cook wrote:
>> "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
>>>>
>>
>> ---
>> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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>>
>
>
>
>
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