[B-Greek] "WRITE, WRITE WRITE' (was "Suggestions Please!")

John Sanders john.franklin.sanders at gmail.com
Tue May 31 06:08:56 EDT 2011


I recall from Gibbon's memoir that he employed a similar exercise.  This was
when he was a young man (a teenager) in Switzerland.  He wished to model his
Latin after Cicero and a few other notable Latin writers and his French on a
Notable French writer (Tissot, if I recall correctly).  He would take a
section from Cicero and translate it into French or something in French and
translate it into Latin.  He would French.  He would then analyze his back
translation to the original.  He wrote that he studied out the differences
very carefully, so that his mind would be molded to writing in the manner of
his mentor.

One thing to keep in mind.  He was not learning to write either Latin or
French.  He was in a position to cast a sentence in Latin or French, easily
and competently.  He was now working on how to develop a style that
impressed himself.

John Sanders
Suzhou, China

lOn Tue, May 31, 2011 at 3:58 AM, Ken Penner <kpenner at stfx.ca> wrote:

> In response to George's caution below, I might suggest back-translating a
> text into Greek, then comparing what you wrote to the Greek original. I did
> something similar when trying to keep up my Greek and Hebrew over the
> summer: I translated Ruth from Hebrew to Greek, then compared my translation
> to the Septuaginta to see where I had misjudged vocabulary equivalences or
> syntactic structures.
>
> Ken
>
>
> Ken M. Penner, Ph.D.
> Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic vocabulary memorization software:
> http://purl.org/net/kmpenner/flash/
> kpenner at stfx.ca
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:
> b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of George F Somsel
> Sent: May-29-11 6:59 PM
> To: Carl Conrad; John Barach, Sr
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] "WRITE, WRITE WRITE' (was "Suggestions Please!")
>
> While I don't wish to imply that writing is not a valuable tool in learning
> a
> language, I would be rather cautious in advocating its use.  Without a
> qualified
> mentor to correct missteps, it can result in bad practices becoming
> ingrained.
> As one begins to write by simply coverting an English idiom into Greek
> without
> regard for whether Greek would ever have used such an idiom and then
> compounds
> it by repetition, one does not truly learn Greek as it was spoken /
> written.  It
> is somewhat synonymous to the inmates running the assylum.
>
>  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: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
> To: "John Barach, Sr" <jbarach at motorera.com>
> Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Sun, May 29, 2011 10:21:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] "WRITE, WRITE WRITE' (was "Suggestions Please!")
>
>
> On May 29, 2011, at 12:10 PM, John Barach, Sr wrote:
>
> > While I don't disagree with those who advocate extensive reading and
> > writing in Greek, may I suggest memorizing passages in Greek.
> > When I studied German and French, it was required to memorize long
> > passages. Although that was some 55 years ago, I think I could still
> > quote those passages even though I don't use those languages much
> anymore.
> > However, when I started to learn Greek 50 years ago, I had to walk
> > several kilometres to church. I decided then that I should memorize the
> > Gospel of John as I walked. First, I did it in English; but then I began
> > in Greek. Although I memorized only a few chapters in Greek, the text is
> > still with me.
>
> Yea, verily. Memorization of good texts is a valuable procedure. The gospel
> of John is a fine choice. Other NT choices: 1 Cor 1-4 and/or 12-14, Acts 7,
> Matthew's and Luke's Nativity narratives. Those are arbitrary choices out
> of a number that one might mention.
>
> Outside the NT: Memorize Plato's Apology of Socrates, Epictetus'
> Enchiridion, Homer's Odyssey 6 -- to mention but a few "memorable"
> gems of Greek literature.
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
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-- 
John Sanders
Suzhou, China


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