Is anyone else here studying classical languages for the purpose of reading works in the original? Or even modern languages to access the relevant scholarship? Bart has mentioned the importance of language study for his field before and I’m betting a non-trivial portion of this community has at least flirted with the idea of learning a Biblical language, if not had to do so for seminary, grad school, etc.
In my case, I’ve been studying Greek and Latin (among others) on my own for a few years. I’m interested to hear about how others have approached this endeavor. I’m particularly curious to hear from any grad students who have had to attain reading proficiencies for exams or studied more esoteric languages like Coptic.
If anyone is interested, I’ll follow up with a post about how I study.
Not me. I know there are people who really enjoy learning languages but alas, I’m not one of them. I took Latin in high school but have forgotten nearly all of it. I content myself with looking at the translator’s notes, which occasionally have some real gems in them. For example, I’m reading my way through the Hebrew Bible at the moment and discovered tucked away in the notes that a word (phrase?) that the translators render as “male” literally means “pees against the wall”. (Bonus information about ancient Israelite bathroom habits.)
Now I’m wondering how good one has to be in a language before reading it yourself provides a real advantage over reading the work of a skilled translator. My housemate in grad school was a professional translator and interpreter so I know how much knowledge of not only meaning but things like connotation and the strength of e.g. insults in the two languages.
I think it depends on how one defines advantage, how difficult the work, and what the goal of the reader is. In my experience, even rather lowly skills greatly improve your awareness of the quality of a translation and the choices the translator made, so it’s not a stark choice between relying entirely on a translation or entirely on one’s own foreign language ability. I’m not sure why people often pose the question in those terms, especially with religious texts where bilingual and interlinear editions abound. Sometimes skilled translations bring out nuance, sometimes they obscure it, and sometimes both simultaneously. What constitutes “skilled” varies widely. (Google the controversy among medievalists over Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.) Reading the original has its own set of pluses and minuses, but the combination of both always exceeds either on its own.
In the case of poetry, even the most skilled translator can’t come close to portraying the full effect of the original. I’ve read several translations of the Aeneid, but it was an entirely different experience reading it in Latin. Rhythm and other poetic effects came alive in a way you will never get in English, because English simply can’t do the same things that Latin can. It was one of the first things I read after about a year of study (using the beginner-friendly edition by Clyde Pharr). My Latin was (is) still shaky, but my appreciation of the work is worlds beyond what it was and of course I didn’t lose my ability to read English translations if I’m fuzzy on a passage.
Hi this part of the forum might be completely dead but in case someone does happen to stumble on it was wondering if someone could reccomend a Koine Greek grammar to me or a way to memorise greek vocabulary better as I have been using John Dobson’s learn New Testament and its going okay although I’m finding it difficult to remember all the vocabulary as it doesn’t really refresh you once you have done a lesson on what you have learned previously so I found that it got to a point where I was so busy trying to remember things that I had previously learned that I wasn’t able to focus on the content on the chapter I was on?
Thanks thats super helpful will definitely have a look at the resources you sent I think I just need to probably take my time with my grammar like you said and don’t move on so quickly so I feel confident with the content as I think I was probably being overly ambitious trying to get through two chapters a day which quickly wore me out!
Do you have a direct link to the koine page, perhaps? I joined but everything seems to be in flux. They have stopped support for the community created courses, which I assume includes koine. However, there are instructions to get to the community courses for those interested. However (x2), the pages they show in the how-to for getting to the community created courses don’t match the pages I see. In Particular the instructions show a listing for ‘other” below the supported languages for the main app. I do not see the other listing.
Oh no, just found this ‘By sunsetting community courses in the app, we can allocate resources more efficiently, focusing on enhancing the main Memrise experience. While this decision has not been taken lightly, it is essential for maintaining the app’s growth and ensuring a sustainable future for our language learning community.’
Bah humbug!
Can you learn ancient Greek or Hebrew solo, online? My other languages are modern but it sure helped to native speakers around to interact with. I’ve been told that one of the best ways to learn ancient Hebrew or Greek is to learn the modern languages first. I can see where that would be true.
Thanks for the links and the reference to the Great Courses.
I’ve been working on Modern Hebrew for quite a while now, using a Tobo language app for vocabulary, which I quite like, and also Rosetta Stone, which I purchased for multiple languages, well-aware of its many shortcomings. The secret, of course, is to find what fits you best. There is no one-size-fits-all.
In 2015 because of the severe economic downturn in Greece, I was forced to relocate to the States for some time and besides teaching ELL in high school had a part-time job teaching Adult Basic Education where math was involved. Now, I’ve never particularly liked math and hadn’t had it since 1976, so I began searching online for resources that would help me. Nothing seemed to make any sense until I came across the Khan Academy; it was like an epiphany.
Anyway, I’ve just begun Biblical Hebrew and while I’ll probably eventually try one of those recommended, for the time being at least I’ve been working through these videos:
I really like his teaching style.
In the videos I’ve been watching, Dr. Barrick makes it clear that the pronunciation he is teaching is that of Biblical not Modern Hebrew.
It got me thinking of the differences that exist between them, much in the same way that earlier I looked at the differences between Koine Greek and Modern Greek as I read through Benjamin Kantor’s A Short Guide to the Pronunciation of New Testament Greek.
I’ve started a thread to begin looking at the similarities and differences between the Biblical languages and their modern equivalents.
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