Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

How can I learn to express my ideas in clear and intelligible Greek?
Devenios Doulenios
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Devenios Doulenios »

που γαρ η αγορα νεα εστιν;
Dewayne Dulaney
Δεβένιος Δουλένιος

Blog: https://letancientvoicesspeak.wordpress.com/

"Ὁδοὶ δύο εἰσί, μία τῆς ζωῆς καὶ μία τοῦ θανάτου."--Διδαχή Α, α'
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Devenios Doulenios wrote:που γαρ η αγορα νεα εστιν;
ὁ ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ τόπος ὅπου εὑρίσκεις τὸ νέον νῆμα, ἐν τμήματι ἐκπαιδεύσεως ἐστίν. τούτ δὲ τῷ νήματι τὸ ὄνομα <<Basic Greek Composition 2015>> ἐστίν.

νῆμα - thread
τμῆμα -part, a division (speaking in general terms, we might say it is specifically something marked off but not physically separated from the whole, cf μέρος - part, piece (independent, separated from something else / other things), μέλος - part (dependent on and connected to other μέλη within a whole))
πρωτόπειρος (Hellenistic and Modern Greek) - novice, somebody making a first attempt at something
ἀρχάριος (Hellenistic and Modern Greek) - beginner, somebody starting to learn something
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Devenios Doulenios wrote:που γαρ η αγορα νεα εστιν;
It is not yet visible, I will open it up in about a week. Wes can't join us until then, and I want to wait so that he can be in at the beginning since I'm doing this at his request.

I expect this subforum to be:
  • Based on biblical texts.
  • Geared toward people who have not done much Greek composition, not dominated by people accustomed to writing in Greek. We want to start with basics, and assume that these are not people who have hung out on sites where people speak / write in Greek.
  • Based on reading and responding to the text, exploring various ways to do this by writing in Greek.
  • An opportunity for feedback, getting help in the areas where people have difficulty composing at an individual level.
Any thoughts on how best to do this?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:Any thoughts on how best to do this?
Creating speech and creating it with a direction and purpose in a foreign language is a difficult task. Most foreign language learners say whatever they can string together, rather than what they really want to say. That leads to two things, either they are characterised according to what they do say, or the get frustrated by not being able to say what they want to say.

There are various ways of directing that:

Questions could be posed with model answers. Τίς εἶπεν; (Ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἶπε). Alternatively, if people like abstract explanations, something like; “The answer should be in the nominattive and the verb sbnnhould be repeated as is.” Others who like to learn by example and they would be denefited by watching those with some idea about what is expected to be done doing it (and might gain some confidence to see how many mistakes get made.)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Michael Abernathy
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Michael Abernathy »

I expect to be quite embarrassed by my lack of practice but count me in.
Michael Abernathy
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Michael Abernathy wrote:I expect to be quite embarrassed by my lack of practice but count me in.
Michael Abernathy
Will do, I'll add you to the list. You'll see it when it opens up.

And I'm sure I'll be embarrassed too, that's why it's a closed forum.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Besides the well known North and Hillard, Greek Prose Composition available from Textkit, there is also the 1891 work by Frank Edward Woodruff, New Greek Prose Composition, which appears to me to be a little easier. It is available on Google books.

The keys forboth North and Hillard and Woodruff (1905) are available as Google books or via reprints in booksellers. Woodruff in Amazon

I think that the same logic holds for beginners in composition as for beginners in reading. Get a structured textbook and start working through it. There is no easy way to composition either.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Besides the well known North and Hillard, Greek Prose Composition available from Textkit, there is also the 1891 work by Frank Edward Woodruff, New Greek Prose Composition, which appears to me to be a little easier. It is available on Google books.
Those both take a different direction than what I suggested. I would really prefer something based on writing in response to biblical texts, starting with very basic skills and working our way up. But maybe these could be used to help construct exercises around the biblical texts.

If there are several different visions for this, and sufficient interest in each, we could consider having more than one such private subforum. For instance, we could set up a private subforum for working through either of those books, letting people's posts expire after a couple of weeks so they don't come back to haunt us.

But I'd like to get one going along the lines I've stated before spawning others. There are several different visions in this thread, I think it's important to have one clear vision for the subforum.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Whatever you might like to have, what you do have at the moment for the first time on B-Greek is interest by some members, who have some skill to discuss things and to try simple compositional exercises and they seem willing to do it publicly.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Thomas Dolhanty
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Re: Measuring Interest in Basic Greek Composition

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Whatever you might like to have, what you do have at the moment for the first time on B-Greek is interest by some members, who have some skill to discuss things and to try simple compositional exercises and they seem willing to do it publicly.
Jonathan, I understand your dilemma and certainly no one is going to "jump" if he thinks there might be rocks at the bottom. Nobody wants to make a fool of himself, especially one who is considered to be accomplished in Greek to some degree or the other.

Nevertheless, I think Stephen makes a very good point. To protect too much might be to "kill with kindness". This is a new area, and most of use are barely crawling, so there are few "experts" around. As someone very graciously said to me on another site, "ἡμεῖς, οἱ γράφοντες τὴν Ἑλληκικὴν γλῶσσαν, παῖδές ἐσμεν πάντες."

The energy and interest are important, and I would really hope that the private forum would be very much a temporary measure. The fact that very few have very much skill here should encourage all to "jump in" and should encourage those who do have some facility to be gracious and patient - and pedagogical.
γράφω μαθεῖν
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