[B-Greek] Learning Greek (ad nauseam and for the umpteenth time)
manuchon1 at free.fr
manuchon1 at free.fr
Thu Jul 17 03:27:57 EDT 2008
Dear all,
First of all, I'm french, and I don't have a lot of opportunity to communicate in English. So I beg your pardon if I'm not clear and for all the remainig mistakes. If someone is willing, he can correct me offlist, I will greatly appreciate.
My goal is in line with all that Dr Conrad expressed. I want to be able to read the new testament in greek and comprehend it. I would like also to read "historical" christian (in a broad sense) documents. I don't care about translating the text, there are a lot of texts in English that I couldn't translate but that I can understand and explain to others, that's all that I want.
During nine years, I studied english in school in learning grammar and the rest, but after all this I was able to read virtually nothing and was utterly unable to express something. Later, I realized that informations are a lot more available in English, so I began to read in English. The first months were very painful, even if I read the same author and short articles, I spend most of my time in a dictionary, struggling to figure out what the author wanted to say. It seems to me that for every articles, I spend thirty minutes to read the english and at least one hour in the dictionnary. Now, I can read English as if it's french (at least in the theological domain, I lack of vocabulary, especially everyday words). Sometimes, I read and hear so much in english that I can see myself thinking in English, or sometimes it's funny, I want to speak french, I know how I would say what I want to say in English, but nothing come in french!!!
So I'm in line too with the "how" to achieve my goal: with "painful" but rewarding labor, reading again and again a lot of greek.
So, my question is more WHAT to read? With all that I've read of you, it seems to me that reading classical greek is interesting. The point seems to be that, in reading, you will encounter a lot of expressions, ways of saying things, not so common in the new testament, so when you see them you are not surprised by them but have mastered them. For the common expressions, ways of saying things, because they are common in the new testament, you will encounter them and will have the opportunities to master them!
For the moment, I went through Mounce, have read about 2/3 of Wallace. In my lybrary there are : BDF, BAGD, Robertson is in its way. I try to read the pauline epistles, but I see that I can understand, not because I understand the greek but because I know some english or french translation of it. This is not really what I want...
So, what are your advices? Are there some good reading course (Athenaze???) ? Or have I to buy Liddle-Scott, a classical grammar (Smyth?) and merely read anything I want? Is there some Author or texts that your recommend (because of the vocabulary or anything else)?
Thanks to all who will help me!
Emmanuel Hechon
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