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What a great idea. When we learned Greek, we ended up translating Homer... which would have been fine, had we not spent most of the previous year reading the Il
by madaxe_again 11y ago
What a great idea. When we learned Greek, we ended up translating Homer... which would have been fine, had we not spent most of the previous year reading the Iliad and Odyssey in Latin.
Main reason I found myself ultimately disengaged with Greek was the subject material... that and the ultimately limited tolerance of a 9 year old's mind for endless declensions and beatings.
"IMPERFECT INDICATIVE, BOY! FUTURE PERFECT INDICATIVE INDEED! COME HERE. HOLD OUT YOUR HANDS."
Shudder.
- murbard2 11y agoThat and ... In all languages, regular verb conjugations are taught with some example, typically the simplest regular verb you can think of. It's "cantar" in Spanish, "to sing", it's often "parler" in French, "to talk", "amare" and "vocare" (to love, to call) are common in Latin. In Greek, it's "λύω" (I untie), because yes, that's how common regular verbs are.
- madaxe_again 11y agoUntie, eh? It was "loose" when we learned, but yeah, precisely that. I wish that they'd involved us in it - explained the wonder of a language so ancient, so close to PIE, the tie of language to thought and semantic linking - but it was utilitarian. Latin was better as they intermingled it with roman history, but it was almost like they wanted Greek to be miserable. Our texts were printed in the 19th century - little leather bound books covered in notes on translation... In Latin. My school was such a time warp.