[B-Greek] "Word-Guessing" vs. Reading
Mark Lightman
lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 22 14:21:25 EDT 2008
Will,
Yes you should read the Apostolic Fathers in Greek,
but not for the reason implicit in your question. You
should read them because it will help your NT Greek,
but only in the way that practicing on someone else's
bike will help your learn how to ride your own bike,.Only
less so. You should also read them because Holmes'
third edition is nice and portable with a readable font
and a cool marker ribbon. But as to the idea that
your familarity with the English Bible "can be a hindrance
which doesn't allow me to progress," well, I suppose it
CAN be, but it is not. This mistaken idea is at least as
old as Machen, who writes in his preface: "At a later
stage in the study of New Testament Greek, the student's
memory of the English Bible is not an unmixed evil, for
repeated reading of already familar passages will often
fix the meaning of a word in the mind far better than it would
ever be fixed by the mere learning of a vocabulary. But in
the early stages, such assistance will do far more harm than
good." It seems to be the Machen' first sentence is correct,
but his second flys against the face of the best evidence,
namely the experience of the peope on this list. Will anyone
come forward and say, "you know, I sure wish I had never
learned the English Bible; it screwed up my Greek." Reading
unfamilar Greek like the Apostolic Fathers may be HARDER
than reading the Greek NT, but there is no evidence that it
is more helpful, or even necessary to learn NT Greek. Unfamilar
Greek is only unfamilar the first time you read it, and anyway
it's all a matter of degree. Unless you are Jack Van Impe, there
is still enough unfamilar Greek in the NT. If you do want to read
the Apostoic Fathers, you are going to want to read them several
times anyway, and then the argument would be to stop reading
them and read something more unfamilar.
The true basis of Machen's statement (which I think is the only
thing in his grammar that is not wonderful) is a Prussian notion
that learning should be as painful as possible. I think the people on
this list, the
ones who are trying all sorts of things to learn Greek, are
demonstrating that no "assistance" (Machen's word) is
"harmful" if you stick with learning Greek. Even an interlinear.
I did not learn Greek using an interlinear, and I don't want to
get off on that tangent, but it has been said on this list that
if you use an interlinear you will never learn the Greek. But if
you start out with an interlinear you WILL learn Greek if you
stick with it. No one is able to create a perfect control group
of two students, one of whom knows the English Bible and one
of whom does not, one of whom uses Bible works or a Reader's
Edition and one of whom does not, and prove that the one who
is "cheating" learns Greek less well. To quote another preface
to another classic (Metzgar's vocab guide) "According to the
psychologist, one learns by associating the new with the old,
the strange with the familar." I'm glad Randall pointed out
that guesses based on the familar is the way we learn any
language, so why not the Greek NT? Again, by all means read
the Apostolic Fathers because, as Carl might say, they have value
in their own right, but don't feel that reading unfamilar Greek is
magic or even necessary. Re-reading the NT over and over again
and yes using your memory and even looking at all the translations, for
that matter, is still the best way to learn NT Greek.
Mark L.
--- On Tue, 8/19/08, Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Randall Buth <randallbuth at gmail.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] "Word-Guessing" vs. Reading
To: "greek B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>, "Will Dilbeck" <will.dilbeck at gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 1:14 AM
>Hello,
It seems that when I have been reading the Greek N.T. lately I have been
guessing at what certain words are because I have read the English verse so
many times. This is obviously an advantage in some instances, but it can be
a hindrance that doesn't allow me to progress. Should I consider reading
the
"Church Fathers" in Greek? Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Will Dilbeck>
word guessing is a great language learning technique and is most probably how
you learned your first language so well.
It requires two things.
1.The material must be at least partially comprehensible. If the level
is too high
for your current skills it won't work well.
2. It should cover new material about something that you have a practical
acquaintance with. Novels that cover physical movement as opposed to
stream of consciousness are great. Apostolic Fathers would be good.
try Shepherd of Hermas or Martyrdom of Polycarp.
Randall Buth
--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth at gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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