The Easy to Track Username Hall of Shame - Reading warning labels are for chumps.

[admiral]

Terrible advice, you need to have a deep understanding of grammar first. Diving into reading is never a good way to learn a language; grammar exercises are important so that it becomes yours, you can do it in your sleep, and you can apply your understanding to any circumstance -- it's like trying to build a house without knowing how to use the tools, what each material does, or what the building codes are. Perseus is okay so you don't have to waste time flipping through a dictionary for some obscure word only used by 3 authors 15 times, but only once you're reading advanced authentic texts -- using it in early stages will make it a crutch. Same with billingual editions; those are straight-up cheating if you're looking at the English as you're translating the Greek rather than checking your work after the passage. Also for text recommendations, I like Athenaze and Mastronarde -- they have lots of grammar exercises with some simple translations you can work on only when you're confident with the grammar.

Ok but my point was that if you're just starting out, preparing for serious study, it's good to familiarise yourself with how the language was used. What's the point of learning greek, if not to engage with texts? You read, you recognise patterns, you learn words and stems, you familiarise yourself with structures and phrases. It's a grounding for when you decide to start serious grammar work, whether that's as part of a course or by yourself.

Terrible advice, you need to have a deep understanding of grammar first. Diving into reading is never a good way to learn a language

Disagree. You can keep your grammar book at your side and figure it out as you go. Tables and charts are important in the classroom, but exploring a text is one of the great pleasures of language learning and if you refuse to dive in until you meet some self-imposed standard of perfection then you're robbing yourself not only of engagement with the language as it lived, but also of valuable learning experiences and challenges. The text won't bite you if you get it wrong.

 

[Caesar]

Terrible advice, you need to have a deep understanding of grammar first.

Have you ever read Lingua Latina? It's actually a very well regarded book on learning Latin, and it's all in Latin. It slowly introduces new concepts through the whole book.



I would bet a lot of people with no Latin under their belt can read that wit decent proficiency. The whole book is like that.

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

Have you ever read Lingua Latina? It's actually a very well regarded book on learning Latin, and it's all in Latin. It slowly introduces new concepts through the whole book.

View attachment 6333327

I would bet a lot of people with no Latin under their belt can read that wit decent proficiency. The whole book is like that.

I like how this book is written

 

[Space Police]

Have you ever read Lingua Latina? It's actually a very well regarded book on learning Latin, and it's all in Latin. It slowly introduces new concepts through the whole book.

My Latin teacher in high school didn't like those books because they left people with lots of knowledge gaps. Grammar is the key to being able to read well; how will you be able to perform literary analysis (which is the end goal of learning classical languages, not reading) if you can't immediately identify how the author uses things like grammatical structure, word choice, and meter to convey his message more effectively?

I would bet a lot of people with no Latin under their belt can read that wit decent proficiency. The whole book is like that.

Then what are you learning from that if anyone can read it?

 

[Caesar]

I like how this book is written

Its on Archive.org. the Cambridge books are very similar too, and tell the take of Caecillius and his family through pure Latin. If you're actually interested they're both very good, the Cambridge ones can be pretty funny in parts too.

Then what are you learning from that if anyone can read it?

You don't just get one book, the Cambridge CLC courses are the same and tried and true. It's instant gratification to be reading actual Latin, and it gets more abstract as the book goes on. If you're learning on your own it's a big boon to have that motivation and dopamine kick.

 

[Admiral Throbnelius]

What's the point of learning greek, if not to engage with texts?

You learn Greek so you can appreciate online gems like this:

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

Then what are you learning from that if anyone can read it?

I wouldn't precisely say "read it", more like "comprehend it". Just like how most people that speak a germanic or romance language can comprehend esperanto decently, using context cues and similar, you can comprehend what the text here is saying. Maybe it is easier for me than for, let's say, a swedish-speaker to understand it since I know spanish already, but that's my takeaway from the book

 

[Caesar]

I wouldn't precisely say "read it", more like "comprehend it". Just like how most people that speak a germanic or romance language can comprehend esperanto decently, using context cues and similar, you can comprehend what the text here is saying. Maybe it is easier for me than for, let's say, a swedish-speaker to understand it since I know spanish already, but that's my takeaway from the book

Also while I'd suggest DuoLingo, Rosetta or Mondly as a companion piece, it's not like you're really gonna have much opportunity to speak Latin unless you learn it in school, so being literate is pretty much most solo learners main goals.

Pronoinciation is actually interesting if you're autistic, and the differences between classical and eclesiastical Latin pronounciation (" church Latin") has a lot of deep rabbit holes to go down, as do the pronunciation and existence of letters themselves (eg, Caesar would have said "Weni, widi, wici" even though he wrote V), but ultimately, it's only really books you want to read...

I'm not religious but I found the Vulgate Bible pretty useful to read aswell. It's pretty simple to read (its "vulgar"), and most people will be familiar with some of the lines in English.

 

[Stoner Miko]

You learn Greek so you can appreciate online gems like this:
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I can understand every single word of this, noone wants to fuck this poor jewish fatso who's "big on the eyes, great on the bed".

 

[Sparkletor 2.0]

Can we change the thread title to Not So Easy to Learn Dead Languages Hall of Shame?

 

[Caesar]

Can we change the thread title to Not So Easy to Learn Dead Languages Hall of Shame?

that one is for Attic Greek but a thread on Latin might make me interested in picking it up again

 

[Stoner Miko]

that one is for Attic Greek but a thread on Latin might make me interested in picking it up again

I am open to moving this whole discussion to a brand new thread, I don't mind teaching y'all some modern Greek while I'm at it too!

 

[Admiral Throbnelius]

I can understand every single word of this, noone wants to fuck this poor jewish fatso who's "big on the eyes, great on the bed".

I did a quick translation of this for the MATI thread when it dropped to brush up my Greek. It got a good laugh out of me and I wanted others to enjoy it too. The name Tzoach is just really funny, and it even spawned a Suno song. There were some funny comments on the video saying stuff like "Tzoach likes pizza with white sauce" and "Tzoach likes chidren". The hosts even apologized for being unable to get Tzoach a white girl. This discussion of Greek and reminding me of the Tzoach meme is making me consider maybe making an international clique Greek thread.

 

[The Feline Solution]

Some would argue that I'm one of them. But I feel that the term "prolific poster" is much more adequate

I didn't even realize you posted this much. I just checked and saw i am at almost 4000 posts after two years and got somewhat concerned (not only because probably around 3/4 of those could get me dragged in front of a court of law in my country). At least your posts are overall good to read and not senseless sperging about one or two autistic topics like with many other high-postcount users.

 

[Stoner Miko]

This discussion of Greek and reminding me of the Tzoach meme is making me consider maybe making an international clique Greek thread.

Please do, I can tell you all about a certain Greek lolcow or two, coming from the worst place of all... League of Legends.

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

At least your posts are overall good to read and not senseless sperging about one or two autistic topics like with many other high-postcount users.

That's mostly because the NGE thread is not very active (normal for a show that really doesn't do much nowadays). Otherwise, I would be in an autistic death war aganist the Reitards

 

[The Feline Solution]

autistic death war aganist the Reitards

Based.

 

[MrShekelstein36]

Anyways, take care, I'm off to go finish up one of my projects. Y'all may see it in the gun thread if I can make it work.

Well, it didn't work. The quad barrel musket will go back to the drawing board.

 

[Admiral Throbnelius]

Please do, I can tell you all about a certain Greek lolcow or two, coming from the worst place of all... League of Legends.

Είναι έτοιμο

 

[Anti Snigger]

I use greek letters for math, does that count?