How Useful Are Ancient Greek and Latin?

Skippy   Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:26 pm GMT
Sanskrit, Hebrew, etc. would be vastly more difficult for a native English speaker. And I stand by my personal experience that learning German has made studying Spanish a breeze. Learning a more difficult language before an easier language is not ridiculous, it's the best way to go about it.
Guest   Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:49 pm GMT
Learn Sanskrit first because then learning Greek will be a breeze.
Skippy   Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:34 am GMT
Not a breeze, but it would be easier... Think about it... Russian has six (or seven) noun cases, and after learning Russian, German's four cases (or, for many speakers, three) seem a lot less daunting.
Guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:41 am GMT
''Amabo te!''

The correct is TE AMABO.
The verbs get at the end.

Te amo, te amabo, Te Deum Laudamus...
Guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:10 am GMT
<<Not a breeze, but it would be easier... Think about it... Russian has six (or seven) noun cases, and after learning Russian, German's four cases (or, for many speakers, three) seem a lot less daunting.>>

Think about it... German has four cases, so after learning German, Russian's six cases seem a lot daunting.
Guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 5:11 am GMT
*a lot less dautning

But I guess some people like to jump into the deep end before they learn to swim, and some do thrive like that. However, most people will drown.
guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:24 pm GMT
<<Think about it... German has four cases, so after learning German, Russian's six cases seem a lot daunting. >>

I agree with learning Latin, then Greek, that way you spread it out a little better.

Using the German-Russian forbus, or example, above, with German first, you'd learn 4 cases, then with Russian you would add 2 more. 4 then 2 more is easier than 6, then 2 more right?
guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:27 pm GMT
<<CORRECTION>>

Oops,

<4 then 2 more is easier than 6, then 2 more right>

That should be just 6 [all at once], then no more

can't add or subtract today...
Xie   Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:15 pm GMT
People are often very obsessed with "reductionism". To frighten people with numbers is so convenient and so effective. Wow, n cases, n tenses, n subjunctives, n kinds of conjugations, n words to learn to get fluent, n phonemes, n characters, n strokes....

For me, the language of my ancestors is just as difficult as Greek or Latin, and I won't normally learn a language thru reading conjugation charts (or sth similar). I think learners of and in any age wouldn't ever use charts at all. They simply dive into originals (if they are native speakers of, at least, the modern counterpart), or they use organic materials.

Nobody would ever force you to dissect grammar and recite a dictionary. Let us learn not thru charts but meanings.
Guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:20 pm GMT
<<Nobody would ever force you to dissect grammar and recite a dictionary. Let us learn not thru charts but meanings. >>

True.
But this works for some and not for others.

Some find it easier to "chart" their way through it. It all depends on individual skillsets and temperance
Skippy   Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:42 pm GMT
Because they're different languages you'd be learning 4 and then learning 6 within the context of the languages...
guest   Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:59 pm GMT
<<Because they're different languages you'd be learning 4 and then learning 6 within the context of the languages... >>

but familiarity with the concept of the case (eg. this is "dative", this is "genitive", etc ) will remain the same. That's what we're going for here. Not splitting hairs
Xie   Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:23 am GMT
But now, when I write in my own language, which depends heavily on word order, I keep on correcting myself when I write seriously (like in serious discussions, rather than chat-chits) - I'd ask myself: hm, does that sound right in spoken language? If I write in the spoken language, I pay attention to the sounds of what I'm writing, and I'm sort of re-playing mental audios. If I put in it in standard written Chinese, I then distinguish strictly between my own local language and Mandarin. And for that purpose, I actually picked up loads of Mandarin words I never learned in where I've been living.

And what's more, I don't think in _grammar_. I think in conventions. There are often more idiomatic expressions than freely formed, random combinations of words and morphemes. For the simple fact that language isn't completely logical, but only relatively logical when you use it idiomatically, I don't see the point of dissecting grammar. This makes sense even in Esperanto where you aren't supposed to talk idiomatically. Despite limited proverbs, there are certain language habits that some people won't use, based on that almost all of them learn Eo as a second language. With some knowledge of German, I can put an Eo sentence with its word order reversed, but I still normally use the SVO structure (while some others may use SOV or others).

And there are words you can make up but not to mess up everything when talking to others - including Esperantists. So, it must be even more rigid for ancient languages... to the best of my knowledge, making up words without limit in my language would make me sound like a moron to other native speakers. As a rule, people don't usually accept puns all the time... I don't deny that one has to learn at least some rules to get started, but _I think_ dissecting things isn't the exact way to go.
Guest   Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:42 am GMT
<<Oops,

<4 then 2 more is easier than 6, then 2 more right>

That should be just 6 [all at once], then no more

can't add or subtract today...>>

Are the Russian cases a superset of the German cases, or are they different?

Also, how regular are these noun declensions? If there's no such thing as a regular noun or adjective, and declension for number, gender, case, and comparative/superlative, etc. is mostly done with irregular internal vowel and consonant changes (rather than suffixes or prefixes), wouldn't this add to the difficulty? Imagine having to memorize 5000 different fiorms (5 degrees times 7 numbers times 8 genders times 18 cases) for each adjective, vs just 38 suffixes that are added in combination to the end.
chlenosos   Tue Jul 01, 2008 4:10 am GMT
They are very regular and not very hard to learn. In all there are around 5 different patterns, only very rarely does a word not adhere to any of the rules.