[B-Greek] grammar-translation

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Aug 4 11:30:07 EDT 2009


On Aug 4, 2009, at 10:59 AM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

>
> Last night I had an opportunity to view samples of the DVDs from D.A.
> Black's intro class. I watched portions of the first session and
> portions of session 24 on the imperative . I know know why this method
> of teaching is called grammar-translation. Transaltion is a central
> feature of the discussion. Every thing is explained by looking at
> translation alternatives. I had never see this method in action
> before. Well perhaps I have, once. I think a while back I watched
> something by Mounce on his web site.

It is ,alas -- my reaction, shared, I suspect by very few --,  the  
wave of the future in Biblical Greek pedagogy -- less so in Classical  
Greek pedagogy. There is no pretense of such fool notions as "thinking  
in Greek." Rather, it is: Parse, decode, and use the glosses to  
convert to woodenly-literal English, somewhat like an attempt to  
describe the taste of a cucumber or broccoli that one has only  
sniffed. Granted, this is a gross exaggeration, but there is, I think,  
more than a little truth in it.


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






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