[B-Greek] Understanding? Greek?
John Sanders
john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Wed Mar 12 23:22:20 EDT 2008
I apologize to those who have written me asking for the nuts and bolts of
achieving fluency in Hellenistic Greek, I am not always in a position to
answer quickly. I will take time and answer some of the questions posed to
me in this public forum, if that is acceptable.
I do not think there is any specific "right way", but there is one method
that may be useful to one individual and another method useful to another
individual. Given that, I will give you some thoughts that I have, others
can give more useful and effective methods.
The basic unit of language is the sentence or phrase, and these sentences
and phrases are constructed on a few simple patterns. Fluency is to become
adept at using these patterns flexibly. To make these patterns useful, one
needs an adequate vocabulary to fill in the specifics. One does not need to
know how these patterns work, just being adept at using them is sufficient.
(Just as knowing the mechanics of solids is not necessary to being a good
carpenter, but knowing the physics of solids may make your understanding of
carpentry better).
Given that as the basis of my understanding of learning languages, one needs
to follow a program that will drill you in the use of patterns and
acquisition of vocabulary.
I prefer using oral language as the primary learning object at the
beginning, using visual language as a secondary object in learning. But I
do use both together.
In learning Biblical Greek, I have gone through the GNT and culled those
units of conversation, especially when there is some dialogue involved, but
even one liners are adequate; and I use those as a basis for memorization. For
instance, in the first chapter of John, where Jesus tells the paralytic to
extend his hand, I memorize that phrase. I then play act it myself. It
would be better if you have someone you can work with; a small group is
better yet.
Immersion is useful, but it is not a miracle worker. There are individuals
here in China who are immersed 24 hours a day, and have been here for years
on end and who still cannot speak Chinese in any meaningful way. Immersion
still requires you to make an effort.
If I were going to develop a good program for learning Greek (classical or
Hellenistic), I would go somewhere in Greece where they have a group of
people still speaking some form of Attic Greek on a daily basis (you know,
the stuff that is not Demotic). I will differ with Iver, Classical Greek is
not a different language than Koine Greek. Learning a formal way of
speaking does not inhibit and individual from acquiring colloquial
competence.
--
John Sanders
Suzhou, China
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list