At 9:58 PM -0400 5/12/98, Chuck Tripp wrote:
>B-Greekers
>
>I have been following with some interest the discussion on the value of
>lists. I have sort have been working on greek for some three years now on
>my own. I too have the same problem with the vocabularies. I can go
>through a whole stack of cards and get almost all of them. Yet when I read
>a text, often even though most of the words should be familiar to me, I
>have to really concentrate on what the sentence means.
>
>What I have done here lately, is look to analyse a sentence as far as I can
>without looking at references to the point of forming hypotheses as to what
>a word means based on how it is used in the sentence. Often, this goes
>into a notebook. Then I start looking at lexicons and my references. I
>have found these sessions to be great learning experiences.
>
>I noticed some discussions as to good lexicons. I have a lexicon by Joseph
>Thayer. Any opinions of it compared to others? Also, I was thinking of
>tackling some classical greek texts, any suggestions for a general lexicon
>as opposed to one which focuses on the N.T.
There is no substitute for Liddell-Scott-Jones with the latest addendum by
Glare. That's the unabridged; the older LSJ is on-line at the Perseus
website and you can even configure your browser to read it in Greek. As it
seems relevant to the current discussion of learning vocabulary, I'm going
to re-post here something I originally wrote and sent to list in January
1996; the key point is STUDYING lexicon-entries; I'm convinced that this
and reading vast amounts is the only ultimately useful method of acquiring
vocabulary. Here's the older piece:
----------------
=46rom: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 08:13:25 -0600
Subject: using lexicons and learning Greek
Please forgive the patronizing tone of this. I have been tutoring a few
students in NT Greek recently and meditating much over the attitudes that
foster success in learning it and that inhibit success in learning it. For
what it's worth, I'd just like to offer the following thoughts, most of
which are probably obvious to many list readers.
Many on this list are accomplished scholars in the GNT, but many are also
in the process of learning the Greek of the NT, and in a deeper sense, I'd
say we are all in the process of learning the Greek of the NT. So I want to
offer some thoughts on means and ends in learning the Greek of the NT with
regard to texts and lexicons that I hope may be helpful, particularly when
one considers the number of hours that are spent puzzling through texts
that begrudge you their meanings and poring over lexicon entries that seem
to be pages long and (superficially) as meaningless as the sequence of
names in a telephone directory.
A student of the New Testament can readily come to hate an unabridged Greek
lexicon. She or he is endeavoring to learn Greek with the primary if not in
fact sole purpose of reading the GNT. In itself that is a reasonable and
laudable objective, but it has to be understood and actualized in a much
broader context for the obvious reason that the Greek language really
wasn't created for the purpose of writing the GNT (however much one wants
to praise (or blame) God for choosing to have the NT written in Greek). One
has to see that the NT is one complex of documents written in a language
used by people over a very broad geographical area for every purpose for
which one uses any language. Consequently, although one may aim ultimately
at reading of the NT with one's acquired facility in Koine Greek, one must
learn the language and make learning the language--for the time
being--one's primary objective. What this means is that any text--be it
from the NT, from the LXX, from an Apostolic Father, or from a papyrus
letter--any text that you undertake to read must be seen not as an end in
itself but as a means to learn some more Greek. So one isn't aiming at
working out an acceptable English equivalent of that text; rather you're
aiming at understanding the Greek of that text and increasing one's
knowledge of Greek through that text. The lexicon is one's friend, and the
fuller the lexicon entry on a noun, verb, or whatnot, the greater the
opportunity one has to expand his or her knowledge of Greek. If one views
it as a hindrance, as a mass of verbiage to scan in order to find the one
workable gloss that matches the phrasing of your text passage, then one
won't learn anything from it and is likely to miss most of what he or she
could have learned from consulting the lexicon on that word. One needs to
labor "lovingly" (I use the word deliberately) over the array of structured
meanings and relationships between meanings suggested in a lexicon entry
and one should seek to ascertain the logic and psychological probabilities
accounting for the ramifications of meanings from the primary to secondary
and tertiary levels. A word, after all, is not, however much similarity it
may have to a mathematical sign, is not a mathematical sign, but a page or
a chapter in the history of human experience, loaded with metaphorical
leaps and powerful emotional overtones and undertones. Words have
personalities that need to be learned, as best one can learn them, and just
as it is hard, perhaps impossible to know fully (EPIGNWNAI?) the spouse one
has lived with for decades, so it is impossible to acquire any sense of a
word whose lexicon entry one scans superficially in order to find a meaning
that "fits" the context of what one's reading.
May I suggest, therefore, that language learning be treated as an end in
itself while one is in the process of learning it. The passage that one is
reading and the lexicon that one consults are means to that end and should
be exploited toward that end. The translation of the passage is at best a
by-product of learning; much to be preferred is an understanding of how the
passage conveys its thoughts and feelings through the linguistic medium it
employs; it is to be viewed and grasped as an expression of a
Greek-thinking person and one should endeavor to make it a means to assist
one to become a Greek-thinking person onself. Ultimately this may be
helpful when one endeavors to read and interpret the inspired texts
transmitted to us by the Greek-thinking persons who put into writing our
New Testament.
----------------------
>Also, I noticed a discussion of "principal parts". In three greek books
>I've used so far, one used the notion of "principal parts" to expain how
>the verbs work. The other two attempt predict what the verbs will look
>like starting with the stem. I personally find the principal parts thing a
>little heavy on the memorization. Any thoughts on the value of one system
>over another?
Mounce calls them something else, I don't recall, but he does retain them.
You don't need to know the principal parts for regular verbs--and most
verbs really are regular, even if they are deficient (lack forms) in some
tenses or voices. But there are about 60+ verbs (perhaps fewer for Koin=E9;
that's my figure for Attic) that one really needs to know in order to
recognize TENSE STEMS for the present, future, aorist active/middle,
perfect active, perfect middle/passive, and aorist reflexive/passive. Yes,
it's a lot of memorization, but the effort is worthwhile. Memorize them,
but memorize them in such a way that you can instantly break apart a form
like EPRACQHN and see how it is a form of PRATTW, or ETEQHN and see how it
is a form of TIQHMI. The most difficult of all is perhaps hIHMI, which has
forms in which the only discernible remnant of the root is -H- or -E-; this
difficulty is somewhat alleviated in Koin=E9, however, by the fact that the
thematic form AFIW is replacing and for the most part has replaced the
older athematic AFIHMI--but this is a pretty important verb, associated as
it is with the "remission" of sins.
Most teachers of grammar really do try to simplify the learning of Greek as
much as possible, but beyond a certain point simplification becomes
increasingly omission of what is essential. So do the drudge work, learn
the Greek the hard way like anyone who ever really learned Greek other than
as a native language has had to do. It still PAYS to do so.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
--============_-1317052871==_ma============
Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
At 9:58 PM -0400 5/12/98, Chuck Tripp wrote:
>B-Greekers
>
>I have been following with some interest the discussion on the value
of
>lists. I have sort have been working on greek for some three years
now on
>my own. I too have the same problem with the vocabularies. I can go
>through a whole stack of cards and get almost all of them. Yet when I
read
>a text, often even though most of the words should be familiar to me,
I
>have to really concentrate on what the sentence means.
>
>What I have done here lately, is look to analyse a sentence as far as
I can
>without looking at references to the point of forming hypotheses as to
what
>a word means based on how it is used in the sentence. Often, this
goes
>into a notebook. Then I start looking at lexicons and my references.=20
I
>have found these sessions to be great learning experiences.
>
>I noticed some discussions as to good lexicons. I have a lexicon by
Joseph
>Thayer. Any opinions of it compared to others? Also, I was thinking
of
>tackling some classical greek texts, any suggestions for a general
lexicon
>as opposed to one which focuses on the N.T.
There is no substitute for Liddell-Scott-Jones with the latest addendum
by Glare. That's the unabridged; the older LSJ is on-line at the
Perseus website and you can even configure your browser to read it in
Greek. As it seems relevant to the current discussion of learning
vocabulary, I'm going to re-post here something I originally wrote and
sent to list in January 1996; the key point is STUDYING
lexicon-entries; I'm convinced that this and reading vast amounts is
the only ultimately useful method of acquiring vocabulary. Here's the
older piece:
----------------
=46rom: "Carl W. Conrad" <<cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 08:13:25 -0600
Subject: using lexicons and learning Greek=20
Please forgive the patronizing tone of this. I have been tutoring a few
students in NT Greek recently and meditating much over the attitudes
that foster success in learning it and that inhibit success in learning
it. For what it's worth, I'd just like to offer the following thoughts,
most of which are probably obvious to many list readers.
Many on this list are accomplished scholars in the GNT, but many are
also in the process of learning the Greek of the NT, and in a deeper
sense, I'd say we are all in the process of learning the Greek of the
NT. So I want to offer some thoughts on means and ends in learning the
Greek of the NT with regard to texts and lexicons that I hope may be
helpful, particularly when one considers the number of hours that are
spent puzzling through texts that begrudge you their meanings and
poring over lexicon entries that seem to be pages long and
(superficially) as meaningless as the sequence of names in a telephone
directory.
A student of the New Testament can readily come to hate an unabridged
Greek lexicon. She or he is endeavoring to learn Greek with the primary
if not in fact sole purpose of reading the GNT. In itself that is a
reasonable and laudable objective, but it has to be understood and
actualized in a much broader context for the obvious reason that the
Greek language really wasn't created for the purpose of writing the GNT
(however much one wants to praise (or blame) God for choosing to have
the NT written in Greek). One has to see that the NT is one complex of
documents written in a language used by people over a very broad
geographical area for every purpose for which one uses any language.
Consequently, although one may aim ultimately at reading of the NT with
one's acquired facility in Koine Greek, one must learn the language and
make learning the language--for the time being--one's primary
objective. What this means is that any text--be it from the NT, from
the LXX, from an Apostolic Father, or from a papyrus letter--any text
that you undertake to read must be seen not as an end in itself but as
a means to learn some more Greek. So one isn't aiming at working out an
acceptable English equivalent of that text; rather you're aiming at
understanding the Greek of that text and increasing one's knowledge of
Greek through that text. The lexicon is one's friend, and the fuller
the lexicon entry on a noun, verb, or whatnot, the greater the
opportunity one has to expand his or her knowledge of Greek. If one
views it as a hindrance, as a mass of verbiage to scan in order to find
the one workable gloss that matches the phrasing of your text passage,
then one won't learn anything from it and is likely to miss most of
what he or she could have learned from consulting the lexicon on that
word. One needs to labor "lovingly" (I use the word deliberately) over
the array of structured meanings and relationships between meanings
suggested in a lexicon entry and one should seek to ascertain the logic
and psychological probabilities accounting for the ramifications of
meanings from the primary to secondary and tertiary levels. A word,
after all, is not, however much similarity it may have to a
mathematical sign, is not a mathematical sign, but a page or a chapter
in the history of human experience, loaded with metaphorical leaps and
powerful emotional overtones and undertones. Words have personalities
that need to be learned, as best one can learn them, and just as it is
hard, perhaps impossible to know fully (EPIGNWNAI?) the spouse one has
lived with for decades, so it is impossible to acquire any sense of a
word whose lexicon entry one scans superficially in order to find a
meaning that "fits" the context of what one's reading.
May I suggest, therefore, that language learning be treated as an end
in itself while one is in the process of learning it. The passage that
one is reading and the lexicon that one consults are means to that end
and should be exploited toward that end. The translation of the passage
is at best a by-product of learning; much to be preferred is an
understanding of how the passage conveys its thoughts and feelings
through the linguistic medium it employs; it is to be viewed and
grasped as an expression of a Greek-thinking person and one should
endeavor to make it a means to assist one to become a Greek-thinking
person onself. Ultimately this may be helpful when one endeavors to
read and interpret the inspired texts transmitted to us by the
Greek-thinking persons who put into writing our New Testament.
----------------------
>Also, I noticed a discussion of "principal parts". In three greek
books
>I've used so far, one used the notion of "principal parts" to expain
how
>the verbs work. The other two attempt predict what the verbs will
look
>like starting with the stem. I personally find the principal parts
thing a
>little heavy on the memorization. Any thoughts on the value of one
system
>over another?=20
Mounce calls them something else, I don't recall, but he does retain
them. You don't need to know the principal parts for regular verbs--and
most verbs really are regular, even if they are deficient (lack forms)
in some tenses or voices. But there are about 60+ verbs (perhaps fewer
for Koin=E9; that's my figure for Attic) that one really needs to know in
order to recognize TENSE STEMS for the present, future, aorist
active/middle, perfect active, perfect middle/passive, and aorist
reflexive/passive. Yes, it's a lot of memorization, but the effort is
worthwhile. Memorize them, but memorize them in such a way that you can
instantly break apart a form like EPRACQHN and see how it is a form of
PRATTW, or ETEQHN and see how it is a form of TIQHMI. The most
difficult of all is perhaps hIHMI, which has forms in which the only
discernible remnant of the root is -H- or -E-; this difficulty is
somewhat alleviated in Koin=E9, however, by the fact that the thematic
form AFIW is replacing and for the most part has replaced the older
athematic AFIHMI--but this is a pretty important verb, associated as it
is with the "remission" of sins.
Most teachers of grammar really do try to simplify the learning of
Greek as much as possible, but beyond a certain point simplification
becomes increasingly omission of what is essential. So do the drudge
work, learn the Greek the hard way like anyone who ever really learned
Greek other than as a native language has had to do. It still PAYS to
do so.=20
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
--============_-1317052871==_ma============--