[B-Greek] Your AD NAUSEAMs

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Dec 26 18:26:47 EST 2007


This came to me from a man who supports a major Portuguese site for the GNT at http://www.apostolicbible.com/port
>From what he writes and from what I see of his website, I would hardly classify him as a "virtual nobody in Greek scholarship."

I'm simply passing on hereby what has come to me; some may find it useful. At any rate, I'm grateful to Senhor Joaquim Pedro.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)


>From: "Joaquim Pedro" <jopeunmo at hotmail.com>
>To: <cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu>
>Date: December 26, 2007 03:53:04 PM EST
>Subject: Your AD NAUSEAMs
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>Dear Professor
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>I am a virtual nobody in Greek scholarship. All I know I learned "by myself" (how is it "by myself", if I´ve read what you and so many others have written and published on the net?), as I´ve learned the languages I employ in addition to my native Portuguese from Brazil. My most relevant experience with Greek can be seen on www.apostolicbible.com/port. I love your AD NAUSEAMs, and they fit much of my experience with learning not only GREEK. I have dared to add to them, to read along, the following:
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>JOAQUIM PEDRO´s ADD- IN
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>Do not despise Attic accents.  Learn to use them as one learns to follow a note´s duration when learning how to sing. You will understand better the "spirit" of the language.
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>When doing Prof Conrad´s "Reading large chunks of unfamiliar text is vital to being able to master the language", do it as one reading musical notes. Employ what Mastronarde has taught about contonation and mora. 
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>Simultaneously learn modern Greek pronunciation.  It will make easier to understand  Greeks speaking about THEIR language if you ever have an opportunity to contact a Greek who is a scholar on the subject.
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>About your first topic, " Learn at least a year of Attic Greek before proceeding to Koine Greek " after seeing so many "specialized " books (koine, mid-koine, late-koine, etc, etc--the list goes on ADADADAD NAUSEAM), I noticed that when thinking on my own languages several translations of the Bible and now stick to your view. And from my experience with English on a UN Peace-keeping mission multinational environment. If you know English, you know English, unless you have for all your life lived on a farm on Texas in land or on the Rocky Mountains without ever watching TV, or going to the next town. Those differences US, UK, Australian, etc, never meant anything for me. Wait until you are in a WORK (not an academic discussion) meeting with people from 10 or more different national backgrounds speaking the English they learned as such and your having to produce a report, a record, and so on...
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>The second is great, also.  I was a child trying to learn "the cowboys´ language" I used to hear on far west films, and my father recommended to learn how to think with the English language! Great man that my old father.... From that come my two first observations! They work together, as a whole. 
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>My last comes from  a Greek man whose site I read, telling that we non-Greeks trying to speak Attic Greek from "I-think-it-sounded-like-that" criteria sounded for him as barbarians...yet, the accents did not come from nothing...So, I think my second observation fits together very well with your "The goal of learning Greek should be to think in Greek, not to produce an English translation" and  " Reading large chunks of unfamiliar text is vital to being able to master the language". So, I do a lot of loud reading pronouncing generally speaking with modern pronunciation, but obeying the quantities.  
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>Well, I do not know if that would be useful on the list, so i present it to your evaluation. Thank you for all the help i get from your papers, especially about voice, that i agree with in full!
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>Joaquim Pedro de Azambuja Vieira
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