I added the bold.From: Yancy Smith <yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] translation strategies
To: "'B Greek'" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 7:20 AM
I want to add two pence to this discussion from the far left field. My Greek
teacher, Mr. Robert Johnston of Abilene Christian University, used to tell
his students that the didactic categories of Greek grammar taught to
middling students were like the scaffolding built around a building. At some
point in the construction process, the scaffolding becomes a bother and must
be removed. Before that point the scaffolding is probably necessary. I say
"probably," because it all depends on the method of learning. For example,
many students of living foreign language don't get this kind of stuff until
they take a "Contrastive Grammar" course sometime late in the language
learning process. We become hopelessly confused, however, when we think that
our didactic grammar categories represent something like (universally?)
normative grammar rules and binding us to them some sort of description of
reality. Didactic grammatical tags are rather ad hoc for the most part.
Some of us removed the scaffolding some years back and now have become quite skeptical about the value of the scaffolding at any stage of learning. People who teach intro and intermediate often have a preoccupation with the scaffolding.