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< title > How to study the Ancient Greek language </ title >
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< h1 > How to study Ancient Greek ? </ h1 >
< h3 > Τὴν ἀρχαίαν Ἑλληνικὴν γλῶτταν πῶς μανθάνῃς ; </ h3 >
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< i > How should you study the Ancient Greek language ? </ i >
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< p > Having previously covered the < a href = " greek.php " > why </ a > , I would like to now more closely examine < i > how </ i > to learn the language . I will be attempting to examine the methods people use to learn modern languages and whether aforesaid methods are applicable to the learning of ancient languages and , of course , especially Ancient Greek . As I have been frequently asked about my approach to learning Ancient Greek , I have decided to include a short article about it on my website so that the question can , in the future , be answered concisely in the form of this article .
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< h2 > Methods of Learning </ h2 >
< p > Firstly , we should begin by closely examining the different methods people utilise to learn modern languages since that will provide you with a better understanding of my personal approach to learning this ancient language . Most people who study a language at school — and I am not referring to a special < i > language - school </ i > whose only purpose it is to teach languages — generally do so by having , at most , a couple of hours of lessons each week , generally filled with learning grammar , doing exercises to improve said grammar and often - times also composition of texts and reading and listening to texts specifically targeted to language learners . After such mandatory lessons and the oft - mandatory homework has been dealt with by the student , he or she generally pays no more attention to the matter until the class , once more , begins .</ p >
< p > This , I find , leads many students — and , by extent , the adults they eventually turn into — to believe that learning languages is a chore and that they have always been very bad at it ; and I must admit that , under such circumstances , I cannot do anything but agree with them , having had to deal with them myself . Indeed , I was forced by my old school — one of the many I had attended , at least — to learn French for a handful of years and was one of the worst students in class which meant that , after those handful of years had passed , I was struggling to get anything superior to a D . Because of this , then , I had always thought that learning languages was just not something for me .</ p >
< p > This might be surprising to those who know that I have , since then , dabbled in numerous languages — indeed so many that , listing them all here , would yield a rather lengthy list — and learnt a small handful of them more seriously ; the question , thus , naturally arises : What has changed ? The answer to this is manifold , but the biggest reason for my < i > change of heart </ i > would , I believe , be the fact that the type of language - learning students are confronted by at school is anything but < i > good </ i > language - learning .</ p >
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< h2 > The Horrors of Learning a Language at School </ h2 >
< p > Learning a language at school often entails the following : being required to sit in an oft - noisy room filled with other pupils who , mostly , do not want to be there anymore than you do ; listening to the often very unengaging teaching of teachers who have been doing the job for a significant amount of time and have , thus , slowly begun hating both the subject they teach and the students ; and doing the work I mentioned at the beginning of this article . Is it really surprising , therefore , that most students do not thrive in such an environment and believe themselves to be incapable of learning a language ? </ p >
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< figcaption > Writing notes is common when learning a language .</ figcaption >
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< p > The process of learning a language at school is , generally , very slow and tedious and there is frequently barely any progress being made . This can quite easily be proven by examining the ability — or , often , lack thereof — of German students to speak English . Classes are generally taught by someone whose native language is not English which , immediately , brings forth a large variety of disadvantages , amongst which is the fact that pronunciation and proper grammar is often - times a matter dearly missed . You are generally taught a confusing < i > mishmash </ i > of both American and British English ( the latter often being RP ), especially since some teachers prefer one over the other and you often got new teachers every year .</ p >
< p > Additionally , you rarely get to consume media which was produced by native speakers < i > for </ i > native speakers and are , instead , required to read or listen to tedious < q > conversations </ q > that are made to sound as < i > natural </ i > as possible . If the conversations are indeed auditory , the manner in which the speakers speak the language is most unnatural , speaking very slowly and clearly in a way barely any native speaker would .</ p >
< p > All of the aforementioned problems would be understandable if it was beginners of the language being exposed to them , but this is frequently not the case ; instead , even students who are eighteen years of age are made to endure these unnatural pieces of < q > literature </ q >. This coupled with the fact that Germans are not required to know English well on a day - to - day basis — most content on the Internet is available in German and movies are , by a very large amount of the population , if not the majority , watched in a dubbed version — means that most English learners are not exposed to any < i > actual </ i > native content . The implications of this should , therefore , be obvious : people find that they do not know English very well — or , sometimes , at all — despite having studied it for nearly 12 years and , hence , they believe themselves to be incapable of learning a language and stop attempting to consume content in English .</ p >
< p > The < q > language classes </ q > — and I am very hesitant to calling them that — most pupils are exposed to , thus , generally have the effect of discouraging them rather than < i > encouraging </ i > them to learn a language and enjoy doing so . Being required to take what we called < i > vocabulary tests </ i > wherein you are asked to recall the one German translation of an English word you had previously learnt and not getting any points when you provide a < i > different </ i > — but still correct — translation of said word is also a matter which undoubtedly affects students’ will to learn a language significantly .</ p >
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< figcaption > Please remember this list of endings out of context , it will be on a test tomorrow !< sup >< a href = " https://ancientgreek.pressbooks.com/chapter/28/ " > source </ a ></ sup ></ figcaption >
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< p > Indeed , the translation of texts is a matter which I have always found most tedious and unproductive , as it discourages pupils from developing a < q > natural </ q > understanding of the language without having to mentally translate whatever they are exposed to . If wish to work as a translator — either as a hobby or as your actual occupation — then I , of course , recommend studying the art of translation ; but pupils whose job it is to actually learn a language should not be required to translate virtually everything which they are being handed .</ p >
< p > Another , in my opinion bad , approach often to be found in schools is the < i > rote memorisation </ i > of both grammatical concepts — such as declensions and conjugations — or simply vocabulary in general . How is it that the stuffing of one’ s brain with out - of - context grammar and vocabulary is seen as an apparently advantageous method of acquiring a language ? The learning of grammar is , without a doubt , an important aspect of learning a language , but the fixation of a certain group of people on the pure contextless memorisation of it is something I cannot endorse — at least if the goal of learning the language is to able to speak it rather than analysing its grammar in - depth . But what is to be done instead , then ? </ p >
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< h2 > On Ex - and Intensive Reading </ h2 >
< p > As I have frequently made clear on this website , I am a strong advocate of reading things and this is especially true when it comes to acquiring a second - language . It has not always been this way , as I used to be an advocate of the traditional < i > grammar - translation method </ i > of learning a language , which — as the name implies — encompasses the things I now quite vehemently advocate < i > against </ i > doing when learning a language . The reason for my changing my mind is the fact that all those languages which , I attempted to learn using this method , I have never been able to actually learn . As soon as I began following a different school of language learning — the title of this section — I began to see much more rapid improvements in my reading and even composition ability . But what do ex - and intensive reading entail ? And what is the often - called < q > natural method </ q > of learning a language ? </ p >
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< figcaption > The Italian version of Athenaze is an attempt at an Ørberg - style natural language learning method for Ancient Greek .</ figcaption >
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< p > Both extensive and intensive reading have the same underlying principle of < i > reading </ i > texts in a foreign language , yet they do differ in one significant aspect : the former encourages the reading of large volumes of texts at or just slightly above the learner’ s current ability , whereas the latter exposes the learner to texts that are more difficult to read — and I find both methods vital for acquiring a foreign language properly .</ p >
< p > Extensive reading is generally , in my mind , advantageous , as it allows the learner to read a text fluently without being required to frequently stop and pause to look up a word or a grammatical concept he has as of yet to learn . It reinforces previously - learnt grammatical concepts and vocabulary whilst allowing the student to enjoy himself — at least somewhat — by reading a story . If an unknown word or grammatical construction is , however , encountered , pupils are encouraged to — instead of looking at a dictionary or grammar – guess the meaning of the unknown < i > entity </ i > from context . This promotes fluent reading and the acquisition of vocabulary from context rather than from a translation into one’ s native language and can , thus , aid the learning of the language significantly .</ p >
< p > However , indefinitely staying on texts that are at < i > just </ i > the right level for the learner is , obviously , not a matter of great difficulty and challenge . I , therefore , encourage students to < i > venture out into the world of literature </ i > and find a text which is , as of yet , slightly too difficult for them and which requires them to more fully concentrate on the text being read . Nevertheless , I always encourage pupils to attempt to read the text without mentally translating what is in front of them , however difficult a task it may appear to be . If the desired outcome , however , is to be able to speak the language as opposed to being able to < q > speak </ q > it , being able to < i > simply understand </ i > a text as it is — as you do in your native language — is of grave import . The earlier this ability is fostered and trained , the easier the journey into fluency will become .</ p >
< p > The natural learning method then , it its purest and most undistilled form , does not require the learner to do any rote memorisation of grammatical tables and the sort . Some people even advocate for a method that does not explicitly teach < i > any </ i > grammar but which , instead , relies on the learner’ s intellect and intuition to extract the grammatical information from sentences being shown to him . This < q > non - grammar method </ q > — as I have termed it — is most commonly used by a program hated by many and whose cost is seldomly justified but whose name I shall not mention herein — those who know about it , know about it . But what exactly is the method I would recommend you use ? </ p >
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< h2 > The Centrist’ s Method </ h2 >
< p > Instead of advocating the usage of just one of the above - mentioned methods , I instead advocate for a healthy mixture of all of them , which I have named the < i > Centrist’ s </ i > version of language learning . The Centrist’ s Method’ s — and I am fully aware of the silly name I have given to it — approach to learning a language can be laid out thus : — </ p >
< p >< b > Firstly </ b > I would highly recommend learning the basics of the grammar by going through a text - book’ s first few chapters ( or more , depending on the intensity of its approach ) and copying – by hand ! — all the grammatical information it provides including some exemplary sentences . For this , I highly encourage the buying of a small A5 - sized notebook whose sole purpose it shall thenceforth be to house your notes .</ p >
< p >< b > Secondly </ b > , I find that the memorisation of a few , basic words is unavoidable . How < i > basic </ i > you wish to keep it is highly dependend on both you and the language you are currently learning ; for Greek , however , I learnt roughly 500 words using Anki before I began reading actual texts and stopped actually writing down vocabulary and memorising it on its own . This can , however , be adjusted .</ p >
< p >< b > Thirdly </ b > , during the memorisation of both grammar and vocabulary , begin by reading very simple texts that you can read without too much trouble . This can , of course , only be achieved once a certain foundational understanding of the language has been attained by the above - mentioned steps . Try to read as fluently as you are able to , attempting to guess unknown grammatical constructions and words as you go along ; only if you are unable , even after some thinking , to guess their meaning , consult a dictionary or grammar .</ p >
< p >< b > Fourthly </ b > , begin with composition as early as you possibly can , even if it entails your merley writing some very rudimentary sentences such as < q > I drink coffee </ q >. Speaking to yourself out aloud in the language you are learning also helps significantly . Whenever you are going somewhere or doing something , attempt to think of a way of expressing this action in the language you are learning and saying it out aloud — though I would recommend against your doing this in public . This not only improves composition but also pronunciation .</ p >
< p >< b > Fifthly </ b > , listen to and read as much native material as your current level enables you to . If possible , find a book specifically targeted to learners that contains a text < i > not </ i > targeted to students specifically , but that provides you with grammatical and vocabulary help for your current level . < i > Re - read </ i > passages as often as you can . If reading the same passage over and over again during the same day is tiring , read a a chapter or two over the course of a week and then , once you have finished it , start another chapter the next week , re - reading , in addition , what you have read the previous week . This helps reinforce as of yet unknown vocabulary and grammatical constructions </ p >
< p >< b > Sixthly </ b > , though I do not do it personally , you may write down all the grammatical concepts and words you did not know whilst reading a new text . I find , however , that the previously mentioned re - reading of texts is enough for me to memorise the meaning of a word , especially when you try to incorporate it into your composition of texts .</ p >
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