Plflwr's Log - Ancient Greek, French, & Bengali

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Plflwr
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue May 11, 2021 5:56 am
Languages: English (N), French (Beginner-Intermediate)
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Plflwr's Log - Ancient Greek, French, & Bengali

Postby Plflwr » Tue May 11, 2021 1:09 pm

Hi, I will be focusing a lot of attention in this log to my study of Ancient Greek! Less so French, but I will give some updates on progress with it. Bengali looks interesting! I just wanted to look to the future, so I looked at a list of world languages and it stood out to me. I might start with the writing system and then ignore it until I am ready to dedicate more time to yet another language. I thought it might not be possible to update post titles (I don't know?) so I figured I would get it in there while I still have the opportunity.

Short intro to my past and present language learning efforts

Hello! I had the itch to return to my adventure learning French recently. Since returning to my study, I am really getting a glimpse of how much passive vocabulary I have retained that I, for whatever reason, could not see the benefit of in the past. It is weird how the brain works sometimes!

Whereas I used to find it difficult to get through short, simple texts, I am now able to comprehend and decipher a lot more in less time. I am using a dictionary sparingly, and I am currently finding it helpful to be selective about any vocabulary I would like to add - not that I was ever terribly set on memorizing too much at once.

As I move forward I am brushing up on bits of grammar I should probably already have mastered by now.

One thing about me, I have suffered from memory problems in the past but at press time I am actually doing quite well, and I have known for a good while now that I have improved. Finally getting back into the kick of things with French has only further evidenced that.

Anyway, I didn't really want to start this log to talk a whole lot about French, but it would be a waste of what I have already learned if I didn't continue with it, so I guess I'll be giving some infrequent updates about it here.

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For a number of years now, I've wanted to learn some Greek. I had purchased some materials in that time, but never really got started aside from some bit of introduction to the alphabet. I was able to memorize a recitation of it, and learn much of the lowercase letters in print.

My primary purpose is to read and study some New Testament texts (if not all of them) and so I will be focusing a lot on the Koine variety, allowing me to also read from the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) and the Church Fathers. All that said, I am not really putting all of my energy into Koine and nothing else. I think a having a base in Attic Greek would do me some good. But I'm fine putting most of my effort into Koine for the time being, so I will be heavily drawing from Koine-specific learning materials.

Since I have briefly returned to Greek I have learned a few new things. I have pretty much mastered recognition of the lowercase letters whereas before there were a few I hadn't mastered (such as Xi.) I am also getting a firmer grasp on those uppercase letters I had trouble with.

I have made meager inroads in pronunciation. I have updated my basic pronunciation of the Greek alphabet so that it closer reflects the Koine pronunciation (i.e. not Erasmian pronunciation.) While Erasmian is still widely used, I simply prefer the sounds of the Koine pronunciation as we have it today. It sounds better to my ears, that is. It is also my position that in the future we should use Koine pronunciation as a point of accuracy. I have learned a bit about the diacritical marks, but not to perfection.

In my next post in this log I will focus more on the future of my learning. If anyone is willing to give tips on how to give my log better readability, please do so. I will actually be searching how to achieve that anyway,but in terms of what you think helps, or anything you like about the other logs here please feel free to let me know (or don't.) I will try to spend some time reading the other logs because it is courteous and I want to show interest (I am genuinely interested), but maybe it will help me out as well.
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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Plflwr's Log - Ancient Greek, French, & Bengali

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Tue May 11, 2021 5:30 pm

Hi, Plflwr, and welcome to LLORG.
To improve your log, you already found the solution: read the logs of other members. I recommend reading widely at first, because there are a lot of different points of view here. Further, be prepared to spend a few weeks or more doing this, because there is a lot of material in these logs. Not that you should stop your own log just to read the logs of others. Finally, there is no specific blueprint to follow, but after reading just a few logs you will discover that on your own.
Ancient Greek is one of my languages, though I don't know much about koine. French is another, though others here are far ahead of me. I look forward to reading about your progress. Happy studies.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson


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