Have you learned Latin or Ancient Greek yet?

[Anonymous No.13662007]

What's stopping you from reading the greatest works of mankind?
If you did, how did you learn and what books have you enjoyed so far?

[Anonymous No.13662052]

>>13627137
We come from here.

--Greek--
>Athenaze
Extremely easy/basic, but it is designed for a classroom setting. It intentionally puts some advance shit at start but won't explain it. The teachers book mention where this kind of stuff is but gives minimal explanation. So it might be a bit painful for self study. I used this in a classroom setting with no complaints, my teacher had specific powerpoints that complimented the text, which was nice.

>Cambridge Reading Greek
Has its own individual study guide, the difficulty is medium, texts move from constructed to original greek in a gradual manner. The grammar however is all over the place, IIRC they teach you optative before subjunctive, 3rd declension before 1st declension etc. Might be okay for newcomers, but I found the grammar learning structure weird. I still recommend this though, make sure to get all the books, study guide and teachers guide alongside text and grammar books.

>Learn to Read Greek
Yale's big beast, it is extremely intensive and doesn't hand hold. The exercise book is massive, grammar is detailed and texts are exclusively original. This is a great book but I wouldn't recommend anyone to start from this. However if you have the money, get it. This is the best series to really drill greek. It's also my favorite series. Very difficult, very intensive but very comprehensive and to the point. You do have to email the publisher for answer keys.

--Latin--

>Lingua Latina per se illustrata
Highly recommended by many but it has different learning style. It teaches you ''naturally". The problem is that it assumes you come from an English background. If English is not your first language and you might be annoyed if not outright struggle with it. You should definitely get this book though, I wish they had something like this for Greek (they say Italian version of Athenaze is like this)

>Wheelock
The classic, get the latest edition. Start from this and compliment it with lingua latina. Though Dowling method discourages this, I do believe Wheelock can be nice addition.

>Dowling Method
-First read and learn basic grammar concepts throughly http://www.wcdrutgers.net/Latin.htm
-Then memorize the basic grammar, there is a webpage where you can practice fill the grammar from memory http://www.jonathanaquino.com/latin/
-Then go to Lingua Latina
I understand Dowlings discouragement for Wheelock but if you are confused or want some classic text book, wheelock can really compliment you. Do use Dowling method but check out Wheelock also, maybe go parallel with both.

>Learn to Read Latin
Yale's beast Latin version, again my favorite, again most difficult/intensive. Get this after you finish the others just to revise stuff and learn grammar a bit more in detail.

[Anonymous No.13662075]

>>13662052
Merci beaucoup pour ceux-ci, le Anon based et recherché.

[Anonymous No.13662099]

>>13662052
uwu huc veni et patri paucum suctum da bae

[Anonymous No.13662121]

>>13662007
I'm in the process of trying to remember my Greek from two years ago for this upcoming year. Ahhhh!

[Anonymous No.13662149]

>>13662052
Gratias ago tui. Cum studia mea tardus sum.

[Anonymous No.13662160]

>>13662149
>Cum studia mea tardus sum.

relatable est. ganbare~

[Anonymous No.13662187]

>>13662149
Woops should be "cum studiis meis tardus sum"

[Anonymous No.13662201]

>>13662149
>>13662187
haha cum

[Anonymous No.13662209]

>>13662201
Please: if you are going to resort to naivete and infantile puerile jejune chicanery, we don't want you.

[Anonymous No.13662228]

>>13662201
based

[Anonymous No.13662229]

>>13662201
Cum Nigris tantum futuo

[Anonymous No.13662230]

>>13662209
hey, whats six in latin?

[Anonymous No.13662238]

>>13662230
I don't know Latin: but I am equipped in three other languages to tell you that you are ruining my chances of learning Latin here. I came here for resources and for support in this bitter period of my life: I'm looking for the inspiration which others display so that I may too learn Latin.

[Anonymous No.13662251]

>>13646651
what job? are you a botanist/biologist?

[Anonymous No.13662411]

>>13662238
Bitternes is temporary, the glory of Rome and Latinitas is forever.
Start learning Latin, NOW.
Read the works of the MEN and stop being WEAK.

[Anonymous No.13662416]

>>13662201
haha got em

[Anonymous No.13662449]

“Exercitus noster est magnus,” Persicus inquit, “et propter numerum sagittārum nostrārum caelum nōn vidēbitis!” Tum Lacedaemonius respondet: “In umbrā, igitur, pugnābimus!” Et Leōnidās, rēx Lacedaemoniōrum, exclāmat: “Pugnāte cum animīs, Lacedaemoniī; hodiē apud īnferōs fortasse cēnābimus!”

[Anonymous No.13662493]

“Paucī virī vērōs amīcōs habent, et paucī sunt dignī. Amīcitia vēra est praeclāra, et omnia praeclāra sunt rāra. Multī virī stultī dē pecūniā semper cōgitant, paucī dē amīcīs; sed errant: possumus valēre sine multā pecūniā, sed sine amīcitiā nōn valēmus et vīta est nihil.”

[Anonymous No.13662893]

“Nihil cum amīcitiā possum comparāre; dī hominibus nihil melius dant. Pecūniam aliī mālunt; aliī, corpora sāna; aliī, fāmam glōriamque; aliī, voluptātēs—sed hī virī nimium errant, quoniam illa sunt incerta et ex fortūnā veniunt, nōn ex sapientiā. Amīcitia enim ex sapientiā et amōre et mōribus bonīs et virtūte venit; sine virtūte amīcitia nōn potest esse. Sī nūllōs amīcōs habēs, habēs vītam tyrannī; sī inveniēs amīcum vērum, vīta tua erit beāta.

[Anonymous No.13662928]

>>13662007
i'm still holding out for a based aging monk to teach me latin

[Anonymous No.13663920]

>>13662007
Should I wait to read these greatest works until after I finish studying the language? Or just hope I have enough interest to read them twice?

[Anonymous No.13663929]

I really do want to learn Latin. What's the comfiest book to get as a "reward" for having done so? I hear The Anatomy of Melancholy has lots of Latin and that it's pretty cosy.

[Anonymous No.13664040]

>>13663929
I think learning Latin is a reward in itself.
Horace is pretty comfy.

[Anonymous No.13664057]

>>13663920
If you read them in English, you will miss a lot of nuances. If it's in a Romance language, it's probably o'right, but the patrician choice is to read them in Latin. You can read them while you study.
Most of the manuals come with extracts of bigger works.
You can download Wheelock here so that you can get an idea:
https://epdf.pub/wheelocks-latin-7th-edition.html

[Anonymous No.13664102]

>>13662052
Just to add on a bit: I used the italian Athenaze which like the LLPSI series has a couple of smaller books in addition to the two main volumes.
There's also Zuntz "Griechischer Lehrgang" that puts forth small bits and pieces of more and more original content. I wouldn't use it to begin learning greek but it's an interesting approach and read once you have a grip on the language.
If you know german Wilamowitz "Griechisches Lesebuch" offers passages of original greek over a broad spectrum of authors organized by genre with a short introduction to the text at hand - there are also two books with notes on the text. It's a good measure to check ones ability of the language and progress, while also giving a nice overview of what there is to be read in greek.

[Anonymous No.13664434]

>>13664102
How long have you been learning Greek and what books have you read so far?
What are your plans for the future with this language?

[Anonymous No.13664570]

>>13664434
About a year and a quater. Been "reading" tons of bilingual editions, sort of ran head in first and as soon as I could make any sense of simple sentences started to read original texts with facing translations. Went with Xenophons Anabasis first and got to the point where they yell thalassa, then continued with Herodot and got maybe halfway, following up with Plato, of whom from all the authors I read the most, beginning with the short dialogues like Ion and so forth up to the Symposion, Parmenides, Timaios and the Republic with varying amount of comprehension. I had read them in my mothertongue before so I knew what they were about which helped *a lot*. I think i skimmed through Xenophons Memorabilia and some of Lucians works - the dream, true stories and a few dialogues. Got my hands on Aristotles Poetics, parts of the Organon and Metaphysics. Again, all those were bilingual editions. At some point I acquired the works of Plutarch, but only in greek - with which I struggle to this day. Some parts of some biographies and some essays I understand, others I feel lost pretty soon.
The last couple of months I got into the tragedies, starting with Sophocles, namely the Oidipous/Theben plays and Aias I think, which went actually a lot better than I expected/feared. I continued with Aischylos Oresteia. Now the chorus parts are in essence incomprehensible to me, and it's really hit or miss elsewhere, but after getting into it it's doable - I quite vividly remember the scene in the Persians where the Angelos describes the battle.
Lastly I tackled the Ilias which was quite something - like the tragedies it took a bit to get into it and *a lot* flew over my head but it was great nevertheless. It feels like these works use a very constrained way of using the language which helps a lot.
At the moment I feel a bit lost as to what to read next - began the Odyssee but somehow my drive is gone and I don't feel like struggling through it; I thought of getting a translation of Plutarchs Lifes so I could read one translated biography and then the original greek, but I'm not sure whether I would actually commit to it. Perhaps some Aristotle like the Physiks.

[Anonymous No.13666296]

What's the experimental literature of the Latin world?

[Anonymous No.13666462]

I'm debating between studying either latin, greek or akkadian. What Kind of literature has been written in those 3, to warrent studying one of them years?

[Anonymous No.13666484]

>>13666462
Latin and Greek will have the most interesting literature for sure. Akkadian will be mostly bureaucratic texts

[Anonymous No.13666487]

>>13666296
Horace

[Anonymous No.13666527]

>>13666462
latin, then greek. you can try greek first if you want but you'll probably have a rough time if you've not had any experience with learning languages. latin is rough too but it's the easiest ancient language to learn. fuck akkadian.

[Anonymous No.13667353]

learning latin with dowling
though i feel like writing those tables 200 times is a complete waste of time, after writing them 30 times i can reproduce them perfectly without stopping to think, so i just do the rest of the repititions verbally while still writing them once per day
pretty sure that'll be sufficient

[Anonymous No.13667536]

>>13667353
never gonna make it

[Anonymous No.13667566]

>>13667536
correct, he fell for the "grammar first" meme and now all he can possibly become is yet another brainlet translator that laboriously decodes latin at the speed of 1 page/hour but will never actually read it like a normal language. take the krashen pill already

[Anonymous No.13667573]

>>13662007
I was formally schooled. I've read the Aeneid and I've been reading Lucretius' De Rerum Natura on and off

[Anonymous No.13667647]

>>13667566
>>13667536
lingua latina is part of dowling and literally based on the input hypothesis of comprehensible input

[Anonymous No.13667818]

>>13667566
Glad to see at least one other person here knows how to learn languages. I recently read Seamus Heaney's "translation" of Beowulf and in the introduction he admits he needs to sit down with a dictionary and grammar to read Beowulf--he doesn't even know Old English! All academics are like that these days. These same utter hacks are, for example, the ones producing endless new garbage translations of the Bible.

Some of the best advice you could have when trying to learn a new language is always do the opposite of what contemporary professors and academics say.

[Anonymous No.13667845]

>>13667647
except everything that dowling tells you to do with llpsi is the exact opposite of comprehensible input and the findings of krashen's second language acquisition research in general. advice like "don't even dare to look at real latin before you've memorized every grammar table in wheelock" and "never move on from a sentence before pedantically analyzing the grammatical form of every single word" are precisely the things comprehensible input theory warns you against. dowling's aim is supposedly to stop people from treating latin like a puzzle and start actually reading it but then his actual instructions aim at the total opposite. where did you people even find his guy, he seems thick as fuck. his basic diagnosis of the problem (that people fail to read latin properly because there's too much inflection) is instantly debunked by, like, the existence of russian. and then he fucking claims to have invented a "method", which he named after himself but which literally consists of using two textbooks, neither of which he wrote. here's my "anon's patented method for learning french": read asterix.

[Anonymous No.13667876]

>>13667818
i already learned two second languages to fluency, english and japanese
i'm also well aware of krashen's ideas and i completely stand behind them since that is exactly how i learned those languages, i just consumed the media that i was interested in and never really bothered with grammar explanations
all dowling says to do differently is to learn some conjugation tables beforehand so you're not completely fucked and can get the most out of lingua latina, which i think is fair enough and that's why i'll try it

>and then he fucking claims to have invented a "method", which he named after himself but which literally consists of using two textbooks, neither of which he wrote. here's my "anon's patented method for learning french": read asterix.
i don't understand your issue here because he's not selling anything, like you said the books are not even his own
all he's doing is to explain how he himself learned latin

[Anonymous No.13667882]

>>13667876
obviously meant for >>13667845

[Anonymous No.13667904]

>>13667818
>Some of the best advice you could have when trying to learn a new language is always do the opposite of what contemporary professors and academics say.
embarrassing post.

[Anonymous No.13667907]

>>13667904
Enjoy never being able to read without a dictionary.

[Anonymous No.13667950]

>>13662052
Athenaze was a lot of fun in school.
>O DIKAIOPOLIS ESTIN O AUTOURGOS
>ELAUNEI TOUS BOUS
>PHILLIPOS PHEMIN, "TI SKOTOS ESTIN;" TUPHLOS GAR GEGONEN

[Anonymous No.13668001]

>>13667907
>just read it bro who cares about rigor bro it's just grammar bro
enjoy never actually understanding the language you're "reading".

[Anonymous No.13668238]

>>13668001
every human on planet earth proves you wrong because they all learned their native languages as dumb babies without an ounce of rigor and spoke them fluently long before knowing what a "noun" even was. and before you try to sell me some bullshit about babies having magical brains, i taught myself russian as an adult in 18 months, i've just been listening to a philosophy podcast in russian and understood everything despite still not knowing what their grammatical cases are even called. linguistic terms and paradigm tables are an effort to consciously DESCRIBE language which is used instinctively and relying on them to GENERATE language turns the whole thing upside down and has a crippling effect on language acquisition, as evidenced by all those veteran classicists still not being able to fluently converse in latin.

[Anonymous No.13668255]

>>13662201
Unspeakably based

[Anonymous No.13668275]

>>13662201
One time in Latin class I asked a question about the word "dum," and I said I had googled it and gotten some contradictory information, and the teacher laughed and said "I hope you didn't do an IMAGE search! Haha!" and I nervously half-laughed and kept going, and he realized I had said DUM not CUM, and went "Oh, dum."

[Anonymous No.13668276]

>>13668001
This, they Just learn to read each individual Text they're trying to read. That way they won't gain the same insight into the language as if they actually studied its grammar. You should gain at least a basic understanding of a language before starting to read literature in it. You can so the rest while reading texts on your spare time, but simply skipping learning a language's grammar is retarded.

[Anonymous No.13668287]

>>13667876
i'm reacting to the basic arrogance of ostentatiously putting your name on something that is entirely other people's work. and he is telling you to do things differently as i'm pretty sure you weren't pausing your animus to perform a full grammatical breakdown of every single sentence and that's what he insists you do with latin.

[Anonymous No.13668297]

>>13662201

quality poster

[Anonymous No.13668309]

>>13667907
My highschool teacher could fluently speak several dead languages(including ancient greek and latin) and she learned the langauges through courses at university. Just because someone starts with grammar does not mean "they fucked up" you imbecile.

[Anonymous No.13668351]

>>13662052
utterly based anon

[Anonymous No.13668442]

>>13668275
Dum is a word as well though

[Anonymous No.13668682]

>>13667907
People read english using a dictionary, it doesn't mean that they don't understand it. Why would you apply that same logic to other languages?

[Anonymous No.13668810]

>>13668442
I cum dum cum tua matre

[Anonymous No.13668817]

>>13668682
His point isn't about understanding, but reaching a level of fluency where you can have converstaions without any problems.

[Anonymous No.13668828]

>>13662007
https://discord.gg/az3CXnJ

[Anonymous No.13668851]

>>13668276
the problem is that you're confusing knowledge (ie acquisition) of grammar with knowledge of descriptions of grammar and they're not the same thing.

there's this viral russian song "кpoкoдил" that russian kids went crazy for. there's a bunch of stuff going on in there but basically what the kids love is the dumb pun in the chorus where the noun crocodile happens to have the same word ending as a past tense verb so you can then generate the other tenses of this non-existent verb "to crocodile" for comedic effect. it's dumb but it's certainly derived from a subtlety of russian grammar.

a russian kid, upon hearing this pun, will laugh instantly and so will a comprehensible input student with enough reading under his belt. a dutiful second year student of college russian, on the other hand, will start looking for "to crocodile" in the dictionary and eventually conclude that there might be some kind of a joke in there. i know because i've seen it happen.

the point is that the child laughing shows perfect insight into russian grammar and all he lacks is the terminology to describe it: verb, noun, tense. but that knowledge is trivial to obtain once you have that instinctive grasp of the language. that's the challenge, that's what comprehensible input methodology offers, that's what grammar-first approaches have consistently failed to achieve. they fail because they're backwards: they teach you how to explain jokes but not how to get them.

[Anonymous No.13668871]

>>13668682
because this is a literature board and appreciating foreign literature requires fluency. if you just want to ask where the bathroom is you can use google translate.

[Anonymous No.13670131]

>>13662411
>I shall now enter the realm of TRVE MASCVLINITY
>I will do this by reading the scribblings of limp-wristed intellectuals and the pornographic fantasies of a decadent aristocracy
>To illustrate my journey I will use an aggressively homoerotic sculpture by a known British homosexual that never touched women and used his artistic career as a means of gaining sexual access to younger men
Glorious. The spirit of Rome will live on as long as there is sodomy in the world.

[Anonymous No.13670399]

>>13670131
>Never read GAIUS IULIUS CAESAR

[Anonymous No.13670420]

Why do I not see people recommending the Cambridge Latin Course? I found it to be extremely easy, comfortable and instructive. At the time when I read a bit of the first volume I had decided that if I was going to undertake a self-taught learning in Latin, I would use that series.

[Anonymous No.13670573]

>>13664570
What bilingual editions you refer and how do you get them? buying them or being a ''rover''?
What knowledge have you arrived to through the process of learning Greek and how do you think it has changed?
What do you think of Plato and Aristotle and each of the pieces you've read written by them?
How do you see your future with the language? I mean in the long term

Thank you very much for your previous and detailed answer. It seems you have put a lot of effort and are starting to reap its rewards.

[Anonymous No.13670589]

thanks to the anon who suggested this book. through it i discovered others in the bibliography that might help me with the difference between the dialects (it also has a chapter focused on the difference between attic and doric)

books are (can be found on libgen):
studies in ancient dialects
greek dialects and the transformation of an indo-european process
a brief history of ancient greek
a historical greek reader: mycenean to the koine

[Anonymous No.13670596]

>>13670589
actually it's a chapter about ionic ("ionic and other dialects")

[Anonymous No.13670611]

>>13670420
probably because lingua latina per se illustrata is a more popular and respected textbook with a similar methodology so that's people's first choice when they want to learn latin that way.

[Anonymous No.13671077]

>>13670573
>What bilingual editions you refer and how do you get them? buying them or being a ''rover''?
Loeb for greek-english; Tusculum, Reclam, WBG and Meiner for greek-german (my mothertongue). I buy them almost exclusively used via zvab or abebooks. They're still rather expensive though. The french Les Budés seems top notch, but I don't know french.
>What knowledge have you arrived to through the process of learning Greek and how do you think it has changed?
In terms of understanding a foreign language: Context matters. Once you get a sense of what the text is about, things usually start to fall into place easly.
>What do you think of Plato and Aristotle and each of the pieces you've read written by them?
Plato I had read before, so I knew the "framework" - i.e. dialogues, a rough knowledge of his philosophy. I was pleasently surprised how easy to understand some passages are and how nicely the dialogue seems to flow - not everywhere for me of course, but still enough that I can suspect the masterful command of the greek language that's often attributed to him. The Symposion for instance struck me as quite beautiful - as far as I can tell.
Aristotle was new to me and I read him mostly after Plato, so it was quite a distinct difference in style. He seems to have a much more constrained vocabulary and compacted sentences, that one the one hand make him easy on the surface, but on the other difficult to really understand - it's interesting to see how the translator chooses to translate and "unpack" these sentences. They're both insightful in regards to learning the language, since they really pin down some terminology. Plato's dialogue of course makes him partly very intuitive and almost natural to understand. I've read him rather extensively and truth be told got a bit tired, but I'm sure I'll read him over and over again - which will mostly be a pleasure.
>How do you see your future with the language? I mean in the long term
Learning this ancient language is obviously something that takes a lifetime - and I hope and intend on continuing. A key role is to reread a lot, a point to which the classics are very favourable, as I think they need to be read more than once anyway. Like I said, I'm a bit at a loss right now as to where to go next, since I've touched on most texts that drove me to learn. It's high time I revisit some kown texts. I more than once played with the thought of studying "philologie" at university, but always shied away because on the on hand it's been a very personal and almost intimate undertaking from the get-go. I've never expressed what I've read and though to have understood with anyone. Secondly and likely because of that I've always doubted the academical "validity" of my knowledge of greek.
>It seems you have put a lot of effort and are starting to reap its rewards.
It truly is awesome to read "die Alten" in their language even with my very limited understanding - you sense something there that speaks to you.

[Anonymous No.13671330]

>>13670573
>>13671077
Just on a tangent, I always found the different fonts of different publishers interesting.

[Anonymous No.13672382]

should I just jump straight into Lingua Latina or should I seriously do the Dowling Method of writing declension tables for 6 months?

[Anonymous No.13672396]

No way dude, if I start learning latin I will feel too much like a pedophile 80 years old catholic priest

[Anonymous No.13672548]

>>13672382
please don't do that to yourself. this dowling thing is self-evidently retarded, backed by nothing other than "because i say so" and contradicted by modern research on pretty much all points. don't ruin orberg's brilliant work with this horseshit.

[Anonymous No.13672641]

>>13672382
The thing is: they should be used at the same time. You should be reading Latin naturally, but also memorizing paradigms. I'm pretty sure Lingua Latina has paradigms in the back of each chapter.

[Anonymous No.13672672]

>>13672382
>writing declension tables for 6 months?
what the fuck? you can memorize them in a single day

[Anonymous No.13672913]

>>13672396
Let me tell you about this thing called "the Second Vatican Council." The Catholic Church is gone and the people calling themselves "Catholic priests" these days barely study Latin and they certainly don't know or read Latin.

[Anonymous No.13673119]

>>13671077
Man, thanks for your insight.
Weren’t there moments where you thought about dropping out your study of Greek?
Have you thought about learning other languages? You know how the mind works, the moment you know sth, you start seeing greener pasts in other places.
Have you ever talked to yourself or thought in Greek?
In which ways has it changed the way you feel the world and which greek pieces you think are underrated or not known as much as they should be?

[Anonymous No.13673198]

Anyone else here learning Sanskrit?

[Anonymous No.13673218]

>>13673198
which book or website are you using?

[Anonymous No.13673358]

>>13673198
based HUWITE language

[Anonymous No.13673392]

>>13673218
Cambridge introduction to Sanskrit

[Anonymous No.13673435]

>>13673119
>Weren’t there moments where you thought about dropping out your study of Greek?
Oh yes, but mostly in the beginning. I had studied latin using the LLPSI series for about a year prior to starting greek and was admittedly a bit spoiled by it since it came easier than greek - I have had latin in school too, so although it wasn't all smooth sailing, the language seemed more familiar. For greek I first got the english Athenaze, of which I more or less reread the first volume to the point where I knew it mechanically - after which I was quite at a loss about what to do, since for latin rereading the LLPSI books chapter by chapter was sufficient, but not so here. I think I even got the greek and latin edition of "The little prince" and read them simultaneously sentence by sentence in an attempt to leverage my latin knowledge to gain some in greek. This too seemed futile and I was pretty disheartened. At some point I decided to buy the italian Athenaze with all its accessory books and just plow through them and using the momentum I immediately continued with simple bilingual texts.
Every now and again I suspiciously ask myself whether I'm actually able to "pull it off" - especially when coming across a seemingly simple sentence that completely befuddles me. But then again I sometimes don't even truly understand the translation so I suspect this is something to be dealt with anyway.
>Have you thought about learning other languages?
Yeah, french would probably be my first guess. Would be interesting to again learn a "living" language - I can't really remember learning english that well, since I started early on. I don't know if I would go "all in", i.e. also listening and eventually speaking, or do the bare bone approach of reading comprehension only.
>Have you ever talked to yourself or thought in Greek?
Thought definitely not - that's really something I seriously doubt to ever be able to do. I sometimes read aloud and maybe occasionally remember a phrase like "kai su, teknon" but that's about it.
>In which ways has it changed the way you feel the world and which greek pieces you think are underrated or not known as much as they should be?
I'm not quite sure I understand what the first part actually means, let alone answer it. Reading tragedies like Oidipus Rex, the Persians or the Oristeia do seem to have a kathartic effect - but I cannot speak to lasting changes, though there may very well be some. Generally it's fascinating and comforting to know what people so far back have thought and felt, it draws upon something common.
I've only read pretty mainstream works but I have to say that Sophokles and Aischylos, as well as the Ilias impressed me immensely - having known their reputation beforehand and not being too receptive of poetry usually, they, the more I reflect upon them, made a lasting impression.

[Anonymous No.13673441]

>>13673119
Buddy he is reading the texts in english and vaguely connecting some dots in greek. He does not even remotely know the language. No intuitive power will unfold the given form of a verb back into the first person present (the form given in dictionaries), which is no more than a humble first step. Knowing virtually all grammar is the necessary precondition for actually working on a text.

T. 4th year classics student

[Anonymous No.13673514]

>>13671330
4th font is good the rest is a big yikes desu

[Anonymous No.13673530]

>>13673435
>>Have you ever talked to yourself or thought in Greek?
>Thought definitely not - that's really something I seriously doubt to ever be able to do. I sometimes read aloud and maybe occasionally remember a phrase like "kai su, teknon" but that's about it.
how can one master one language if you don't wire your brain to think in it?

[Anonymous No.13673532]

>>13673441
and german, but you're probably right as far as connecting the dots, but I don't see how you would learn a language any another way. I'm not in the business of writing flash cards and memorizing tables - it may very well be that therefore I never fully "know" the language. I do it so I get something out of the texts and I can tell you that I do - be it some vague connection, since it's, like I said, a private and intimate undertaking, it's "enough" for me.
By the way, having only had latin in school, we were taught to give the infinitive and not the first person singular, is this something like the order or the cases and varies by convention?

[Anonymous No.13673615]

>>13673441
>back into the first person present
It's done in greek too? I thought that was just common for akkadian ones.

[Anonymous No.13673618]

>>13673532
>I'm not in the business of writing flash cards and memorizing tables

it's not that hard, why not just do it? it will improve your understanding of the language and your ability to think in it tremendously, contra the retards in this thread telling you to not to bother with it and grammar. at first, it feels like going through a list in your mind when conjugating, declining, etc. but after a while, you just pick them out instantly as you would in your own language, though it naturally takes longer in the case of ancient languages. it takes time but it's worth the effort. you can enjoy absolute certainty as to your knowledge instead of just reaching in the dark.

[Anonymous No.13673635]

>>13673530
No, but it's not mastering I strive for. If that's your goal I'd say you're likely set up to fail. I think thinking in a foreign language comes mainly through talking in it and I don't see this as a viable option. I'm satisfied with understanding something I read.

[Anonymous No.13673669]

>>13673635
>I think thinking in a foreign language comes mainly through talking
i think it's the other way around.

[Anonymous No.13673721]

>>13673618
I have thought about learning the grammar rigorously (more or less that is), I'm lazy in that regard. You're right in that it would help, especially since I do "vaguely" know/understand some greek. I've mostly regarded grammar something that comes after the fact of vague understanding. But what I really cannot persuade myself to do is learning vocabulary by memorizing flash cards.

[Anonymous No.13673749]

>>13673392
Is that good? I wanna try it

[Anonymous No.13673751]

>>13673514
I kinda liked the 2nd at first glance, and learned to appreciate the 1st.

[Anonymous No.13673793]

>>13662007
learned it in high school/grammar school whatever you call it in english. it learned me to think in a certain way but i'm still the same partially retarded autist I was before I learned any of it.

[Anonymous No.13673800]

>>13673532
Firstly, I apologize for my previous post because its tone was unnecessarily mean.

Secondly, regarding the proper way to learn greek. As I have already said, the precondition for working on a text is the (almost) complete knowledge of grammar. The following step is to work on the original text without addressing a translation. The Geoffrey Steadman editions come to mind - the vocabulary is given and the difficult sentences explained.

But if your desire is to read in english/german and connect the dots in greek, that is a noble pursuit in itself. Either way, I would recommend you to print out 5 pages of greek from a plain author such as Xenophon and give it a go.

The standard in both latin and greek dictionaries is to first provide the first person singular present indicative. What follows in latin is the infinitive which signifies the conjugation the verbs belong to, followed by the first person singular perfect and finally the participle in nominative sg. neutrum. In greek you are given all the tenses the verb has, once again in the first person singular indicative.

For example: cognosco, 3. cognovi cognotum /// gignwskw, gnwsomai, egwn, egnwka, egnwsmai...

[Anonymous No.13673808]

>>13673793
taught* srry

[Anonymous No.13673978]

>>13673800
That's alright, thanks for the info on the conjugations given. Not to sound mean myself but I couldn't help but notice that you didn't talk about "reading" but "working" on a text. But you're right, and that's why I think for learning the context matters immensely because it can substitute a lack of (almost) complete knowledge of grammar to a certain degree, by which ideally you eventually learn in what circumstance what is used.
Just to test myself, egwn sounds off to me by a letter.

[Anonymous No.13674061]

>>13673978
I can only read the occasional passage (when I am familiar with the vocabulary and the structure of the sentences is not a nightmare). However, after having analyzed a chunk of text I am able to read it.

Yeah it's egnwn, I'm phoneposting.

[Anonymous No.13674507]

>>13673721
>what I really cannot persuade myself to do is learning vocabulary by memorizing flash cards
I was similar situation, but after some time you will reach a point where you can simply learn new words by reading them in a text in different contexts. The initial start sucks hard though.

[Anonymous No.13675023]

>>13674507
There are words that you simply cannot learn by just reading, the frequency is so low that the next time you’ll encounter that word your brain will have forgotten it, that’s when spaced repetition systems come into place.

[Anonymous No.13675406]

>>13673198
thanks

[Anonymous No.13675419]

>>13673198
how has your experience been so far?

[Anonymous No.13675637]

>>13662007
dead tongues. I only speak American

[Anonymous No.13676606]

>>13673198
Are there any worthy books to read in Sanskrit, other than Gilgamesh?