Ros's Language Log (Greek)

[ros]

I've never done a language log before, but I'm hoping this will help keep me motivated to make progress in my language study. Some background on my starting point:

Latin: Took 4 years of Latin in school about a decade ago, ending with reading selections from Caesar's De Bello Gallico and the Aeneid. Those classes focused almost entirely on written translation, not composition or dictation. I find that I'm able to get the gist of written Latin documents, but am still lacking a lot of vocabulary and have forgotten many of the word endings. I would like to improve my ability to translate and compose.

Russian: Took 2 semesters of introductory Russian in college and forgot nearly all of it. I can remember basic vocabulary, and I still know the alphabet, but that's about it. It would be nice to revisit Russian; I've got some Russian reading material available in some history books my college library was discarding, but right now I am prioritizing Greek.

Greek: I'm not sure how much of a difference there really is between Attic Greek and Koine, but I had an Attic textbook left over from school when our Latin teacher offered to teach us Greek in our study period. That study period group didn't meet for long, but I still had the book (Introduction to Greek by C. W. Shelmerdine) so it has been my main study material. So far I haven't found significant differences between Attic and Koine, but I have gotten A Grammar of New Testament Greek by Rodney Whitacre, which has done an excellent job of filling in where Shelmerdine's book glosses over confusing grammar quirks. I've also tried out the Biblical Language Center's Greek course, but I'm highly skeptical of any "learn like a child" courses, which theirs are. I feel like I make much faster progress first learning the grammar and then developing a feel for how the forms of words should vary. I've also gotten Spiros Zodhiates' Greek New Testament recordings on the recommendation of Steve on this forum, as well as the 28th edition of the Nestle/Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, so I should have more than enough study materials for now.

Biblical Hebrew: I've attempted to study Hebrew in the past using only free online resources and didn't get very far. I found a few modern Hebrew resources that taught me some of the alphabet, but at the time I was very busy with other things so I didn't even memorize the whole alphabet. This was my first exposure to Anki though, a program that I've found very useful for other languages. Recently I got A Modern Grammar for Biblical Hebrew by Duane Garrett and Jason DeRouchie, which has both a textbook and a workbook. It looks like it'll be a valuable resource, but I'd like to progress more in Greek before starting on Hebrew too.

Using Anki for Latin and Greek has been very helpful, less so for Latin but I retain vocabulary for Greek much better than when I was just doing the exercises in the textbook and checking the glossary as needed. Around chapter 5 I started regularly coming across words from earlier chapters I had forgotten, but the flashcard review has helped a lot. I'm currently building up Anki decks so I can review the cards on my phone as I get opportunities to do so throughout the day. One last thing I've added that has helped is working on declension tables for Greek, which has helped familiarize me with various noun endings. Maybe that works better for me since it's how I learned Latin.

This seems like as good a time as any to try out the progress bar:

Intro. to Greek: 5 / 34

[ros]

Chapter 5 done. I got stuck on this chapter for a few weeks, with life events keeping me from having time to really sit down and work on it until today. I've set a goal of doing one chapter a week, with a break for Christmas, which should have me getting done with the book next May if I'm able to stay on schedule.

Impressions of this chapter: The topics covered in this chapter were the aorist tense and the possessive genitive, both of which seem pretty straightforward. I'm able to translate fairly quickly, but get tripped up on accents. Going from Greek to English is very fast, but going the other direction is slow and painful. My vocabulary is rusty from a three-week unexpected break in studying, and getting the endings correct is also a struggle.

Interestingly, and I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not, but Shelmerdine assigned two sentences using a personal pronoun when the personal pronoun hasn't been covered yet. These were "The Persians trained their horses" and "Xerxes did not trust his soldiers." My attempts at these, after looking up the words for "their" and "his," are "οἱ Πέρσοι ἐπαιδεύσαμεν αὐτῶν ἵππους" and "ὁ Ξέρξης οὑκ ἐπίστευσεν αὐτούς στρατιῶτας."

[Beosweyne]

Interestingly, and I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not, but Shelmerdine assigned two sentences using a personal pronoun when the personal pronoun hasn't been covered yet. These were "The Persians trained their horses" and "Xerxes did not trust his soldiers." My attempts at these, after looking up the words for "their" and "his," are "οἱ Πέρσοι ἐπαιδεύσαμεν αὐτῶν ἵππους" and "ὁ Ξέρξης οὑκ ἐπίστευσεν αὐτούς στρατιῶτας."

Hi ros. Where in English we would write possessive pronouns like his/thier/etc., often in Greek the definite article serves the same purpose, particularly if the identity of the possessor is clear from context. So your first statement can just as well be written "οἱ Πέρσοι ... τούς ἵππους". Now if you particularly wanted to emphasise that it is the Persian's horses, then αὐτῶν would be a more precise option to use. (By the way the 3rd person plural verb ending there is -σαν.) There is a note about omitting the possessive pronoun in Smythe's grammar right at the bottom of section 1199.

The verb πιστεύω (trust) in your second statement is one of those odd Greek verbs requiring its object to be in dative case, rather than accusative, so the 'trustee' in this case should be τοῖς στρατιώταις. To place an emphasis on the possessor, it is OK to write στρατιώταις αὐτοῦ instead. Also check the aorist form of πιστεύω, as it isn't supposed to contain a sigma.

[jeffers]

I've also gotten Spiros Zodhiates' Greek New Testament recordings on the recommendation of Steve on this forum

I used a workbook made by Spiros Zodhiates, and it was excellent. One thing you should bear in mind, he uses modern Greek pronunciation for his Biblical Greek (EDIT: I haven't heard his recordings of the Greek NT, but I know he strongly advocates for modern Greek pronunciation). In some ways that makes perfect sense, because you're almost learning modern Greek at the same time, but if you want to read and discuss ancient Greek with other people, they'll likely be confused by your pronunciation. That being said, I've heard two recordings of the Greek New Testament in the "Erasmian" pronunciation, but both of them were read with strong American accents, so were worse than useless in my opinion. In addition, they were read without any feeling for the text, basically what you would expect from someone who had learnt to read Greek but didn't know the meaning.

[Herodotean]

Interestingly, and I'm not sure if this is a mistake or not, but Shelmerdine assigned two sentences using a personal pronoun when the personal pronoun hasn't been covered yet. These were "The Persians trained their horses" and "Xerxes did not trust his soldiers." My attempts at these, after looking up the words for "their" and "his," are "οἱ Πέρσοι ἐπαιδεύσαμεν αὐτῶν ἵππους" and "ὁ Ξέρξης οὑκ ἐπίστευσεν αὐτούς στρατιῶτας."

Hi ros. Where in English we would write possessive pronouns like his/thier/etc., often in Greek the definite article serves the same purpose, particularly if the identity of the possessor is clear from context. So your first statement can just as well be written "οἱ Πέρσοι ... τούς ἵππους". Now if you particularly wanted to emphasise that it is the Persian's horses, then αὐτῶν would be a more precise option to use. (By the way the 3rd person plural verb ending there is -σαν.) There is a note about omitting the possessive pronoun in Smythe's grammar right at the bottom of section 1199.

The verb πιστεύω (trust) in your second statement is one of those odd Greek verbs requiring its object to be in dative case, rather than accusative, so the 'trustee' in this case should be τοῖς στρατιώταις. To place an emphasis on the possessor, it is OK to write στρατιώταις αὐτοῦ instead. Also check the aorist form of πιστεύω, as it isn't supposed to contain a sigma.

A few clarifications:

• Πέρσαι, not Πέρσοι (ὁ Πέρσης, τοῦ Πέρσου)
• note the shift in accent when changing ἐπαιδεύσαμεν to ἐπαίδευσαν
• the aorist of πιστεύω does indeed contain a sigma; did you mean to write "imperfect," Beosweyne?
• if adding a possessive, retain the definite article: οἱ Πέρσαι ἐπαίδευσαν τοὺς ἵππους (αὐτῶν), Ξέρξης οὐκ ἐπίστευσε τοῖς στρατιώταις (αὐτοῦ).

[ros]

Also check the aorist form of πιστεύω, as it isn't supposed to contain a sigma.

What should it be? I've been using Myosotis to check myself and it recognizes ἐπίστευσε as the 3rd person singular aorist of πιστεύω. According to Shelmerdine, the aorist is formed (at least for verbs covered so far) by putting ἐ in front, like for the imperfect case, adding σ after the stem, and then using one of α, ας, ε(ν), αμεν, ατε, αν, with no note on when to use ε versus εν for 3rd person singular.

Thanks for the other note on the definite article being able to stand in for the possessive pronoun, I thought that was what the student was intended to use here but didn't realize it was a valid substitution.

One thing you should bear in mind, he uses modern Greek pronunciation for his Biblical Greek

Yes, and he uses modern Greek for his pronunciation on the CD too. Personally I'm more inclined towards Buth's reconstructed pronunciation, but most of the material using his pronunciation is on his Biblical Language Center website. Given that when I originally signed up for a free trial there the free trial account got stolen within 12 hours (password and email changed without me ever logging in) and two emails to the admin trying to recover the account went unanswered, I don't think I would ever trust them with payment information.

if adding a possessive, retain the definite article: οἱ Πέρσαι ἐπαίδευσαν τοὺς ἵππους (αὐτῶν), Ξέρξης οὐκ ἐπίστευσε τοῖς στρατιώταις (αὐτοῦ).

Thanks, this was something I was wondering about as well.

[Herodotean]

Also check the aorist form of πιστεύω, as it isn't supposed to contain a sigma.

What should it be? I've been using Myosotis to check myself and it recognizes ἐπίστευσε as the 3rd person singular aorist of πιστεύω. According to Shelmerdine, the aorist is formed (at least for verbs covered so far) by putting ἐ in front, like for the imperfect case, adding σ after the stem, and then using one of α, ας, ε(ν), αμεν, ατε, αν, with no note on when to use ε versus εν for 3rd person singular.

ἐπίστευσε(ν), as you wrote originally, is the aorist active indicative third-person singular form of πιστεύω. See Smyth 134-35 on the moveable nu (ν ἐφελκυστικόν).

[Beosweyne]

Also check the aorist form of πιστεύω, as it isn't supposed to contain a sigma.

What should it be? I've been using Myosotis to check myself and it recognizes ἐπίστευσε as the 3rd person singular aorist of πιστεύω. According to Shelmerdine, the aorist is formed (at least for verbs covered so far) by putting ἐ in front, like for the imperfect case, adding σ after the stem, and then using one of α, ας, ε(ν), αμεν, ατε, αν, with no note on when to use ε versus εν for 3rd person singular.

You're perfectly right ros, that is the aorist form. As Herodotean correctly guessed, I had the imperfect tense in mind at the time!

[ros]

Chapter 6 done. This one was fairly short, only two sets of exercises encompassing infinitives and neuter nouns. I'm pretty sure one of the exercises was supposed to be for the next chapter: "Is it difficult to train the horses with words?" (adjectives, including "difficult," and the verb "to be" aren't covered until the next chapter).
My attempt: ἐστὶ χαλεπὸς παιδεύειν τοὺς ἵππους τοῖς λόγοις;

I got a copy of William Sanford LaSor's Handbook of New Testament Greek, which Whitacre mentions on his website as being "the main inductive method," albeit out of print. I was able to get it through my university's library, although the loan is short enough that I won't have time to do much more than go through a few lessons and get a general feel for the book, after which I'll decide if it's worth paying for a used copy. First impressions: the book's formatting is unusual, like someone typed the whole thing on a typewriter and that was used as the master copy; there are a few places where a typo was made and another letter was typed over it, or where the ink smeared a little. It doesn't detract from the book, it's just an interesting detail. I haven't read through more than the first two lessons or so, so I haven't been able to form much more of an impression than that.

[ros]

Day 2 of fighting with LaSor's Handbook of New Testament Greek (not including the previous post where I just flipped through a couple of the "learn the alphabet" lessons) is not going well. While I've made it through all of Acts 1:1, it's very slow going, and I keep getting stuck on unfamiliar forms. Take ἐντειλάμενος, for example. Here is the entry for this word:

⁴ἐντειλάμενος ] A participle (ptcp., not part. which could stand for particle), cf. §24.182, 'having given commandment' (#1781). GNC is m.s.n. in concord with its antecedent Ἰησοῦς.

The worksheet for participles wants you to write down the participle, its tense, the "main verb," and its tense. This is the first participle to show up, so its entry is shown on the author's example worksheet: the tense is aorist, the main verb is ἀνελήμφθη and its tense is also aorist. But without this example, I would only be able to infer that information from the English translation, and that would still tell me nothing about why the form of this word indicates that it's in the aorist tense. Section 24.182 of the grammar just tells you what a participle is and refers to another section on tense. That section just tells you what tense is and lists the different ways a verb stem can be modified to show tense, but doesn't tell you which tenses each modification can indicate. Also, I don't understand the purpose of the main verb, and it isn't explained anywhere in the introduction that I've seen. All I can think is that the point is to get you to recognize larger structures within the sentence.

My last-ditch effort to make this study method work is to avoid writing down any types of words that have not been introduced as the main focus of the lesson. The first couple of lessons say their focus is to introduce the study of noun morphology, then the next couple are for verb morphology, and so on. Maybe limiting myself to the main focus of each lesson will be more productive. If that fails, I may just write off this method, because so far I've spent about as much time getting through a verse and a half as I did getting through several chapters of Shelmerdine.