4 ms·
> If you want to learn it as a living language you have to step outside the academic mainstream. Your tone makes it sound like there is some conspiracy to kee
by Ansil849 5y ago
> If you want to learn it as a living language you have to step outside the academic mainstream.
Your tone makes it sound like there is some conspiracy to keep ancient Greek out of curricula. In fact, the reason is that there is virtually zero demand. The "academic mainstream" are the student body that has no interest in it. I too took ancient Greek. There were 6 people in my program. It was closed two years after I completed it.
- lukebuehler 5y agoNo, I do not believe there is a conspiracy like this. What I said was specifically about living language style learning vs. the traditional sight reading and then translating type of learning. The latter is the primary style, and if you want the former it is very hard to find in the universities. I know about the dwindling demand for ancient language learning in general, but in Boston there is still quite a bit of demand in the bigger universities. However, I do think there could be more interest if learning Greek/Latin would not feel like such an immense grind, going at it more as a living language style would help a bit (it still hard, though).
- ImprobableTruth 5y agoIf other languages were taught like Greek or Latin, I'm certain there would be almost no interest as well.
- math_denial 5y agoI must one of the few people that loved the grammatical-translation method and hated the "communicative" method. I had to learn English in a "communicative-centric" fashion and it was a torment: it was all memorizing useless sentences like "What is your name?" "What is your favorite color?" and then recite back with the teachers and classmates. After 11 years I couldn't even read Harry Potter while after 2 years of Latin Grammar I could read whatever author I was pleased with and had no more need to mentally translate.