[B-Greek] Need for simple, see Jane run Greek on line ( was Apostolic Fathers Greek vocab list
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Sun May 1 11:20:05 EDT 2011
I'm not sure that those "sentences" are totally contrived. I can see a mother
with a small child at some affair pointing and saying "See Dick", etc.
Nevertheless, I rather imagine that Dick & Jane were part of the reason that I
had difficulty in school my first year. It wasn't until I moved to the country
where they began school earlier than in the city and I had about 1 month of work
to catch up that I began to get into the swing of school. I think a challenge
is helpful so it isn't good to make things so simple as to be boring, but one
certainly doesn't begin by reading Homer or Plato.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
________________________________
From: Jeffrey T. Requadt <jeffreyrequadt_list at hotmail.com>
To: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>; George F Somsel
<gfsomsel at yahoo.com>; Refe Tuma <refetuma at gmail.com>; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sun, May 1, 2011 8:00:26 AM
Subject: RE: [B-Greek] Need for simple, see Jane run Greek on line ( was
Apostolic Fathers Greek vocab list
That really would be helpful. Then someone like me would stand a chance at
learning to read Greek without spending hours every day that we don't have. The
only time I have enough time to really study Greek is during the summer. Not
having appropriately leveled reading material has been my bane (or perhaps just
not seeing it if it is there). With regards to simple exercises, I hope that
whoever has the ability to do this will be able to do it with real Greek. The
sentences that George referred to, which were a staple of American reading for
so long, were contrived but not authentic. No ever used to say (as far as I can
tell from real English primary documents and literature) "See Bob. See Jack. See
Bob walk." We would say, "Look at Bob. Look at Jack. Watch how Bob walks." (Or
something similar). It was contrived, false, imitation English. It worked (many
educational researchers would argue with the truth of that statement) because
the people learning to read (American children) already had the vocabulary and
the language syntax in their brain. They had a way to construct meaning out of
otherwise nonsense sentences. But the sentences themselves were not standard,
conventional English.
Is anyone aware of any Greek children's literature? If not in Ancient Greek,
then in Modern? If so, could someone who is proficient in both be able to adapt
the Modern Greek children's literature into Ancient Greek children's literature?
I am certainly not that person, unfortunately. But if someone is willing to work
on the text, I would be willing to help them think along
educational/developmental lines.
Jeff Requadt
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Mark Lightman
Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2011 7:36 AM
To: George F Somsel; Refe Tuma; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Need for simple, see Jane run Greek on line ( was
Apostolic Fathers Greek vocab list
Yes, George, I agree with too, and have made this point on list, a point already
made by Paula Saffire a while ago. This is precisely the kind of thing that
amateurs can produce, post some where and provide a link. Sometimes, late at
night, I am too tired to read anything BUT Dr. Seuse Greek, and if it is late
enough even Morrice's Easy Attic Stories is too hard. I'd love to see pages and
pages of really simple, yet unfamilar Greek, NOT graded.
Hopefully someone who is reading this is already working on it.
Mark L
FWSFOROS MARKOS
________________________________
From: George F Somsel <gfsomsel at yahoo.com>
To: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>; Refe Tuma <refetuma at gmail.com>;
b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sun, May 1, 2011 8:22:12 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Apostolic Fathers Greek vocab list
I realize that Carl is particularly opposed to "made up" exercises, but I tend
to think that such is precisely what we need. If we start to read Ignatius or
Paul or even John at the very beginning, it is equivalent to throwing a
non-swimmer into the deep end of the pool on the very first day. What is needed
is an equivalent to
See Dick.
See Jane.
See Spot.
See Spot run.
Run, Spot, run.
Once one had mastered some of the basics, he can then move on to more
complicated sentences.
george
gfsomsel
… search for truth, hear truth,
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth,
defend the truth till death.
- Jan Hus
_________
________________________________
From: Mark Lightman <lightmanmark at yahoo.com>
To: Refe Tuma <refetuma at gmail.com>; b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Sun, May 1, 2011 4:45:05 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Apostolic Fathers Greek vocab list
Hi, Refe,
This resource that you are making available is helpful and fills a real need.
Ignatius is the first Greek outside the NT that should be read. You are
essentially making a Reader's Edition of Ignatius, something as far as I know
hitherto unavailable.
There are two schools of thought on how a Greek text should be read. School One
says you should read the text straight and try to figure out what the unfamiliar
words mean by the context and maybe by knowing the roots. Then you should look
them up in an unabridged Lexicon. School Two says that you should get a list of
rare words and glosses in your text from some tool, Perseus, a Reader's Edition,
a commentary, wherever, and learn the words BEFORE you read the text.
The rationale for School One is that this is how we read English. We figure out
the words in context and look them up in a dictionary if we have too. In Greek,
you have to learn how to work backwards to the lexigraphical form, and you don't
want the decision of which meaning to choose to be made by someone else.
School Two responds by saying that Ancient Greek is so hard that you need some
help. Unfamiliar words cause you to struggle to process the basic structure of
the sentence. By learning the words first, or by having the glosses quickly
available, you are able to focus on the really hard part of Greek, which is
figuring out the syntax of the sentence, what the endings are trying to say to
you, what goes with what. A big unabridged lexicon is fine for word studies,
says School Two, but slogging through a lexicon breaks up the flow of reading.
Let someone else do that work and you focus on more rapid, uninterrupted
reading.
I don't know which school is correct. I have read, I do read, Greek both ways.
But I think Refe's contribution here is what the on-line Greek community is all
about. Create and share as many resources as possible which will help us learn
Greek. I'd like to see every Greek text available in a good Reader's Edition,
and this can only be done if more people do what Refe is doing. His vocab list
is thoughtful, includes some parsing info, and helps him at the same time as it
helps us. Youngsters on the list won't believe this, but it wasn't that long
ago that what Refe is doing could not be done. This is why Al Gore invented the
Internet.
Mark L
Φωσφορος
FWSFOROS MARKOS
________________________________
From: Refe Tuma <refetuma at gmail.com>
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thu, April 28, 2011 1:12:37 PM
Subject: [B-Greek] Apostolic Fathers Greek vocab list
I have begun putting together a simple list of rarer vocabulary in the
letter of Ignatius to the Magnesians, with the intention of continuing to do
this for the remaining letters of Ignatius and eventually other books in the
Apostolic Fathers collection. I thought this might be helpful for some folks
since there aren't too many resources out there for reading or translating
this collection other than the Michael Holmes volume. I shared it over at
Textkit and got some good feedback, so I thought I would share it on B-Greek
as well. You can find it at the link below, and if you can actually create a
log in to be able to edit it like a wiki. All definitions are from BDAG,
with the exception of the rare instances where BDAG doesn't include them, in
which case they are defined according to Liddell & Scott. If you find it
helpful make sure to check in every once in a while as it will be updated a
few times per week.
http://www.greekingout.com/groups/translation/docs/ignatius-to-magnesians-vocabulary-list
Thanks,
Refe
www.greekingout.com
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