[B-Greek] grammar-translation

John Sanders john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Thu Aug 6 03:22:44 EDT 2009


Three comments:

I would modify George's observation.  If there is one part of our
communication that is habitually
given in one language and not in another, then if we are asked to converse
in the other language
often think first in the habitually used language and translate.  Let me
give an anecdote.

My wife's native language is Japanese.  She habitually gives prayers in
English.  On one
occasion, when a few Japanese nationals were present, she was asked to give
a prayer and
she decided to do so in Japanese.  She knew the vocabulary and the sentence
patterns in
Japanese, but English came into her mind and she translated into Japanese.
Multi-linguals
can converse in any language without translating from one to the other, not
even in the "back of
their minds".  But if they are in the habit of using one language for one
set of activities at the expense
of another language, then they may find themselves translating on those
occasions, even from
their second language into their native language.  I have other anecdotes,
but I will spare you.

Learning a language may be easier for some and more difficult for others.
But one program is not
designed for the gifted and other programs for ungifted.  When we look at
native speakders of any
language, we see some are gifted and others less so gifted in using that
language.  But even the
less gifted ones are still fluent in their native language.

How do we develop the language skills.  There are not a lot of material
commercially available
to learn the language using oral/aural techniques, but there are some.  Rico
has a book, Dr. Buth has
material (which I think are excellent), although if one could download these
items onto an Iphone or Ipod
or Kindle or Sony E-reader in addition to the discs, that would be better
yet.  But one is not limited
to commercially available items.  When you step outdoors, do you see a hODOS
or do you call it
by another name.  Do you see STAFULH or do you call it by some other name in
another language.
With the dearth of commercially available material one has do it himself
(herself for the PC).  You
can start writing in Greek, not translating, but writing-perhaps simple
diary items.  You may develop
bad habits, but I am thinking that right now bad habits may be better than
no habits.

We should get to know Greek words and sentence patterns.  They should be our
friends.  We should
hang around them often.  Walk with them, talk to them, become familiar with
them.

John Sanders
Suzhou, China

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:11 AM, Will Dilbeck <will.dilbeck at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great responses everyone, I appreciate all the comments. One of the things
> I
> have been doing recently is learning biblical Hebrew. When I work through
> my
> exercises, I sometimes check them with the LXX. I realize there are certain
> problems with this such as the sometimes "interpretive translating" of the
> LXX translaters not to mention the other larger differences between the BHS
> and the LXX. My point is that using the LXX in this way is a very good
> exercise since it helps me to see the Hebrew in light of the Greek. Thus I
> associate the Hebrew *adonai *with KURIOS rather than with the English
> "Lord" and so on. For whatever reason, this seems to have began a process
> of
> thinking in Greek which I have not had before. Of course, I feel that I
> have
> barely even scratched the surface ever wanting to bridge the gap.
>
> Jeffrey, I though the quote from C.S. Lewis was very helpful. One of the
> things I find myself struggling with every day is how accurate is it to
> render Greek words into our English words? Obviously, there are ideas or
> objects in every language and they are to be expressed by a word in a given
> language. Thus, LOGOS is sometimes translated as "word" but LOGOS and
> "word"
> are not semantically equivalent. This fact alone ought to make every
> potential learner of ancient Greek (or perhaps any language) desire to more
> than just simply use a gloss from our own language. That being said, the
> mountain still remains for me to climb, but I very much want to do this.
>
> Thanks again,
> Will
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Matthew Dent <dentm42 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > While I generally agree, I think there are numerous things that can
> > significantly help us to "think in Greek".  One of them is to do as much
> > "decoding" in Greek as possible and bring in glosses as late as possible
> > into the process.  One way to do this is to actually diagram sentences IN
> > GREEK and determine the relationships between words based as much as
> > possible on the GREEK structure.  A book I've found helpful in this
> regard
> > is Diagrammatical Analysis by Lee L. Kantenwein.
> >
> > A second thing that I believe would help is READ-READ-READ-READ-READ ---
> IN
> > GREEK -- avoiding sub-vocal translation as much as possible.
> >
> > Overall, I think the main reason we can't get ourselves to "Think Greek"
> is
> > that the necessary resources remain non-existent.  For example, as far as
> I
> > know, there doesn't exist a GREEK--GREEK Thesaurus of synonyms and
> antonyms
> > - Louw and Nida's Lexicon by Semantic Domains is helpful, but I would
> prefer
> > a similar resource based not on classifying Greek words under English
> > headings, but a resource that is entirely in Greek.
> >
> > If anyone knows of such resources, please do share!!!
> >
> > This is something I've been thinking about for years now -- and my
> > conclusion is that Greek remains a dead language because we continually
> > treat it as a dead language.  I firmly believe it is POSSIBLE to
> resurrect
> > it, but that the necessary groundwork has not been laid ---- and, sadly,
> it
> > will take at least 3 generations of active effort to accomplish it.
> >
> >
> >
> > Matt Dent
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
> > To: pastor at ruggleschurch.worthyofpraise.org; Elizabeth Kline <
> > kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
> > Cc: greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> >  Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2009 3:38:33 PM
> > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] grammar-translation
> >
> >
> > A belated welcome to the Society of the Plodders.  I think we all more or
> > less plod along.  When we speak of "thinking in Greek" without any need
> to
> > translate, I think we are somewhat fooling ourselves.  Our brains are
> rather
> > hard-wired to our mother tongue unless we become totally immersed in
> another
> > language.  This needs to be not simply for a class session of for a
> couple
> > of weeks but for our day-to-day lives.  We DO TRANSLATE even though we
> may
> > not do so consciously.  When we become immersed daily in another language
> we
> > simply do the translating in the background and at a faster rate.  Don't
> > give up.  Just keep plodding along.  Slow and sure wins the race (Now
> where
> > have I heard that?)
> >  george
> > gfsomsel
> >
> >
> > … search for truth, hear truth,
> > learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
> > defend the truth till death.
> >
> >
> > - Jan Hus
> > _________
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Martin F. Daly <pastor at ruggleschurch.worthyofpraise.org>
> > To: Elizabeth Kline <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
> > Cc: greek B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2009 11:25:48 AM
> > Subject: Re: [B-Greek] grammar-translation
> >
> > I find myself sadly discouraged and must make definite effort to press
> > on with my desire to be able to read my Greek New Testament.
> > I set that as a 10 year goal for myself 6 years ago and realize that I
> > gave myself too much credit. I am miserably plodding along, yet am not
> > wanting to give up.
> > I have no grand illusions that I will ever achieve the level of some on
> > this list, but am committed to a life of continued meditation in the
> > text, relishing in the joy of
> > discovery as new understanding dawns.
> >
> > EN CHARIS,
> > --- marty ---
> >
> > Elizabeth Kline wrote:
> > > On Aug 4, 2009, at 8:30 AM, Carl Conrad wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> 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,
> > >
> > > I agree, it is "the wave of the future in Biblical Greek pedagogy"
> > >
> > >
> > > On Aug 4, 2009, at 9:28 AM, Will Dilbeck wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>  "Pragmatically, how can I go from translation to reading/thinking
> > >> in Greek?"
> > >>
> > >
> > > Will,
> > >
> > > The only evidence I can see that I have "internalized" greek is errors
> > > in my english syntax. I tend to drop the verb "to be" and my use of
> > > the articles has suffered. I also use some really strange word order
> > > and drop out constituents which are not "optional" in english.  But I
> > > make lots of other errors which don't lend themselves to this
> > > explanation. I don't even dream of thinking in Greek, it isn't going
> > > to happen. My aptitude for SLA is marginal to poor. I didn't do well
> > > in modern languages when i was in school.
> > >
> > > Aptitude is one issue that Buth seems to have completely ignored. This
> > > is a common fault found in "gifted people". They just cannot
> > > understand what the majority of the populace is up against. Must of us
> > > are not gifted people and learning Greek, Latin or Hebrew requires a
> > > ridiculous level of time investment. Those who choose to avoid the
> > > whole problelm and just use english tools for exegesis have a strong
> > > pragmatic argument in thier favor. Why bother investing thousands of
> > > hours to become a mediocre reader of Koine?
> > >
> > > .
> > >
> > > Here is a text David Black uses to illustrate the imperative
> > > .
> > > John 14:1 Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία·
> > > πιστεύετε εἰς τὸν θεὸν καὶ εἰς ἐμὲ
> > > πιστεύετε.
> > > .
> > > JOHN 14:1 MH TARASSESQW hUMWN hH KARDIA· PISTEUETE EIS TON QEON KAI
> > > EIS EME PISTEUETE.
> > > .
> > >
> > > Black used intonation and/or paraphrase in english to illustrate how
> > > an exegetical decision about the ambiguous form PISTEUETE would play
> > > out in four possible combinations of indicative vs. imperative
> > > readings of PISTEUETE. It would be an interesting exercise to come up
> > > with an alternative teaching method that could illustrate this point
> > > without using translation alternatives.
> > > .
> > >
> > >
> > > Elizabeth Kline
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ---
> > > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> > > B-Greek mailing list
> > > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> > >
> >
> > ---
> > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> > B-Greek mailing list
> > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> > B-Greek mailing list
> > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> > B-Greek mailing list
> > B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
> >
> ---
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>



-- 
John Sanders
Suzhou, China



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