Yikes! (Does that have a Greek etymology?) Try teaching Beginning Calculus. To my students, I indeed have a warm heart for cold things. I share your feeling of failure at the end of the semester, not taking any pleasure in the torture I meted out in return for a few lousy gen-ed credits. In between classes I shout aloud to the heavens: why am I teaching what I most love to people who could not care less? I take comfort that a few of my students do grasp that having a derivative equal to zero at a point is not equivalent to having an extreme value at that point, and go on to roll the boulder another inch up Mount Mathematics. Eureka!
15
The issue is that your students are likely all monolingual. I've never struggled with learning or understanding grammar of another language, but I grew up in a trilingual household.
9
If anyone thinks learning Greek is difficult, I give you Chinese.
4
Professor Romm has devoted decades to learning Ancient Greek. Why does he expect freshmen to achieve his level of expertise in just a semester? Plus, he expects them to interpret the old texts exactly the way he interprets them.
Could Sophocles, Homer and Plato pass his final exams?
Could Sophocles, Homer and Plato pass his final exams?
3
Don't despair, Professor! Even as untalented a student as I was some 40+ years ago can enjoy a lifetime of awe and wonder at a world so utterly different and yet somehow our own.
9
Oimoi! = Oy vey!/Oy gevalt!
How's that for a translation?
How's that for a translation?
12
Thanks for this engaging piece. Having taught Greek, Latin, Shakespeare, and Faulkner--all of them, perhaps, foreign languages--for 40 years, I have felt your frustrations. But oh, the pleasure when those who do manage to get it can see and hear the nuance. And even those who don't can often see the marvel that there IS nuance and that you're engaged with it.
21
A wonderful article!
6
I wonder if learning Greek, or any foreign language for that matter, should be approached through finding patterns, not grammar drill?
I taught myself some Russian because my mother spoke it since it was her native language. When I asked her questions about declensions, she had a standard answer: "I don't know, after certain words you say things a certain way." I learned some, but declensions were a lost cause; I did learn the Cyrillic alphabet, which made learning the Greek alphabet easier and my greatest pleasure was reading the Loeb Greek plays and the Illiad (I'm a theater director) in the original, well, finding the cognates, as I read the English sides.
Reading the ancients in English always gave me goose-bumps because I was in touch with people who, while lived so long ago, were so similar to us.
I had a French teacher who always said the same stale thing when we got things wrong - I got 99 on the regents - which was: "You dummies, in France even the children speak French!
We are very poor spiritually by not valuing education and being so provincial as a nation. Reading Thucydides' Peloponnesian Wars scared the heck out of me because it reminded that our great country is heading for disaster through hubris, similar to the Athenians.
In Greek or English translation, we are poorer for not reading them.
I taught myself some Russian because my mother spoke it since it was her native language. When I asked her questions about declensions, she had a standard answer: "I don't know, after certain words you say things a certain way." I learned some, but declensions were a lost cause; I did learn the Cyrillic alphabet, which made learning the Greek alphabet easier and my greatest pleasure was reading the Loeb Greek plays and the Illiad (I'm a theater director) in the original, well, finding the cognates, as I read the English sides.
Reading the ancients in English always gave me goose-bumps because I was in touch with people who, while lived so long ago, were so similar to us.
I had a French teacher who always said the same stale thing when we got things wrong - I got 99 on the regents - which was: "You dummies, in France even the children speak French!
We are very poor spiritually by not valuing education and being so provincial as a nation. Reading Thucydides' Peloponnesian Wars scared the heck out of me because it reminded that our great country is heading for disaster through hubris, similar to the Athenians.
In Greek or English translation, we are poorer for not reading them.
15
This delightful column captures so much about teaching--no matter the subject, especially when you love that subject but some students don't like it or get it.
10
I find it amazing that the supposedly less civilized ancients were able to develop their languages ( Latin, Greek, Sanskrit,et al ) into systems of communication that utilized complex grammatical structures that could be highly comprehensible and concise while employing less verbiage than we moderns usually do. I'll take declensions and conjugations over the modern excess of verbiage and hyperbole and usage of emojis any day. The purpose of language is to enable communication in both spoken and written form. I have yet to meet anyone who speaks emoji.
6
Thank you for this perfect tonic for the start of a new semester. I sympathize with Professor Romm's frustrations and hopes, and am grateful that tenure permits me take the time to find those few students who will understand. Would that all of the contingent faculty--the low-paid adjuncts--who teach other, no less difficult, languages enjoyed the same privileges. For them, the dimming of the light at semester's end often means the end of a contract and lights out.
10
try Gerda Seligson's "greek for reading" or Payne, Xenophon and the new testament.
"oukoun (h)otan de me stheno, pepausomai" Sophocles, Antigone 91
Carry on, Professor! I started Latin as a freshman in high school and Greek as a freshman in college, as a Classics major. Latin and Greek revealed the world to me in a way I could never have imagined. I employ my knowledge of these languages every day. Knowing the roots of words helps me understand legal, medical, and scientific words, and have at least a basic comprehension of what members of many fields are discussing. In addition, understanding the parts of language that the word endings indicate gave me much more strength in English. I am grateful I had the opportunity to study these wonderfully rich languages.
9
Brings back memories of my own attempts to learn Greek many decades ago. Never succeeded, but I have always been grateful for the experience (as also for the other foreign languages I never succeeded in learning). The benefit was that I realized that other languages were not merely odd versions of English but had their own logic, metaphors, modes of expression, and so on, and thus were evidence of both the variety and unity of human experience.
6
Professor Romm,
I spent years 7-12 of secondary school having no idea why I was studying Latin, other than my guidance counselor's insistence that it would be very useful in STEM. As it turned out, most of my career was not in STEM, but instead as a freelance editor, for which my grounding in Latin grammar proved extremely useful.
In semi-retirement, on a whim, I began translating poems of Catullus. I discovered the identity of the woman (his beloved Lesbia, of course) he viciously, and deliciously, gossips about in his Song 67 ("The Door"). I subsequently wrote a 200-page (self-published) book proving this identification beyond reasonable cavil.
Had someone told either of my secondary school Latin teachers (Miss Elizabeth Coates and Miss Ruth Yergin -- to both of whom my book is dedicated) that I would someday accomplish this, and if they were more physically demonstrative, each would have fallen to the floor laughing her head off.
As a teacher, you have planted seeds. One or more may very well bear sweet fruit in even seemingly barren soil.
Gaetano Catelli
I spent years 7-12 of secondary school having no idea why I was studying Latin, other than my guidance counselor's insistence that it would be very useful in STEM. As it turned out, most of my career was not in STEM, but instead as a freelance editor, for which my grounding in Latin grammar proved extremely useful.
In semi-retirement, on a whim, I began translating poems of Catullus. I discovered the identity of the woman (his beloved Lesbia, of course) he viciously, and deliciously, gossips about in his Song 67 ("The Door"). I subsequently wrote a 200-page (self-published) book proving this identification beyond reasonable cavil.
Had someone told either of my secondary school Latin teachers (Miss Elizabeth Coates and Miss Ruth Yergin -- to both of whom my book is dedicated) that I would someday accomplish this, and if they were more physically demonstrative, each would have fallen to the floor laughing her head off.
As a teacher, you have planted seeds. One or more may very well bear sweet fruit in even seemingly barren soil.
Gaetano Catelli
14
Beautiful assay.
Strangely resonates with teaching Organic Chemistry to >100 uninterested sophomores! Luckily, in my case, I grade very little, and that helps with maintaining an upbeat attitude.
And it brought me back to my 5 years of Ancient Greek in high school (I grew up in Italy). I loved it.
I find that it helped with both learning modern languages, and with depth in reading texts. Nevertheless, I became a scientist ;-)
Strangely resonates with teaching Organic Chemistry to >100 uninterested sophomores! Luckily, in my case, I grade very little, and that helps with maintaining an upbeat attitude.
And it brought me back to my 5 years of Ancient Greek in high school (I grew up in Italy). I loved it.
I find that it helped with both learning modern languages, and with depth in reading texts. Nevertheless, I became a scientist ;-)
4
I took 2 years of Ancient Greek in 1980 and 1981 to fulfill a college language requirement. I was probably exactly like Professor Romm's students. I never really "got" the grammar for the exact same reasons his students mostly don't. But in my professional life as a biologist, it was never the grammar that came back to help me. It was the nouns. Those nouns make up probably half the vocabulary of biology (the other half being Latin) and a two year immersion in them was helpful later.
Something that my professor did that I still remember as an excellent teaching tool was to lean very heavily on Homer's Odyssey as a text. The action packed plot was engaging for 18 and 19 year olds and it was easier for us to get a sense of what a sentence was supposed to be about than it would have been with a more philosophical work.
Something that my professor did that I still remember as an excellent teaching tool was to lean very heavily on Homer's Odyssey as a text. The action packed plot was engaging for 18 and 19 year olds and it was easier for us to get a sense of what a sentence was supposed to be about than it would have been with a more philosophical work.
3
The problem with 'foreign' language learning in the United States be it Ancient Greek or Spanish or German or any other language is that we begin to teach them too late. Learning a second language after puberty is truly teaching an old dog new tricks. Child language acquisition is a different process than that for adults. Children will not mix up their languages or forget English, but that truism that the kids need to learn English first leads to otherwise intelligent university students being baffled by a different grammar than their own. This is not my opinion, but a linguistic fact.
We need to start teaching children a second language from first grade if not pre-school, so that essays like this one are an anomaly.
We need to start teaching children a second language from first grade if not pre-school, so that essays like this one are an anomaly.
11
It's unclear whether the students had learnt any other language at high school, before starting Greek at university. Certainly starting young helps. I was fortunate in studying 3 languages simultaneously at high school - French and Latin for five years, German for two. I loved Latin and regard it as the most useful subject I studied, as a basis for understanding English and for learning other languages. One highlight was the state-wide Latin oration contests (well it was the 1950s). I became a scientist, later historian, but have continued to dabble in languages, including Chinese. I have never had the opportunity to study classic Greek -this article makes it very tempting!
2
I studied ancient Greek and loved every minute of it, but I came in with a deep background in grammar and yes, diagramming sentences. The one opportunity I had to teach Homeric Greek flopped, however, because most of the students had no background in grammar nor sense of it and even one who had studied French and Latin couldn't get it.
You must be doing something right that I didn't. Perhaps your students brought more grammar to your class. Perhaps grammatical studies are receiving more emphasis now than they did way back when when I taught. Perhaps your students were smarter. Perhaps you are simply a better instructor than I ever was.
I'm delighted to hear about your success and wish you more of the same. What a joyous experience awaits them if you can continue to attract them. I persuaded my college dean, a philosophy professor, to study it all in the original. She probably never forgave me. But then again, maybe she did. She was a mentor and to this day I'll never forget what inspiration she provided.
Spread the word, Mr. Romm. In-depth education goes far into the future of many, whether or not they become classicists. Because in a sense, they'll never stop being . . . classicists. And society has only to gain.
You must be doing something right that I didn't. Perhaps your students brought more grammar to your class. Perhaps grammatical studies are receiving more emphasis now than they did way back when when I taught. Perhaps your students were smarter. Perhaps you are simply a better instructor than I ever was.
I'm delighted to hear about your success and wish you more of the same. What a joyous experience awaits them if you can continue to attract them. I persuaded my college dean, a philosophy professor, to study it all in the original. She probably never forgave me. But then again, maybe she did. She was a mentor and to this day I'll never forget what inspiration she provided.
Spread the word, Mr. Romm. In-depth education goes far into the future of many, whether or not they become classicists. Because in a sense, they'll never stop being . . . classicists. And society has only to gain.
6
My grandfather was a librarian and professor of Greek and Latin. During a freighter trip to Africa in the 1950s my mother took along several of his books with the intention of teaching herself Greek. The lessons were a bust, but I still remember falling all over ourselves laughing in that small dark stateroom as we read each other passages from old texts in which the printed letter “s” looked like an “f.”
4
Oimoi katauda! Say like it is!
I think students now have a harder time with an inflected language because they are rarely if ever taught formal English grammar, which (the teaching) tends to derive from Latin to describe subjects, objects, prepositional phrases, modifiers in the case and number of the word modified, etc. etc.
I think students now have a harder time with an inflected language because they are rarely if ever taught formal English grammar, which (the teaching) tends to derive from Latin to describe subjects, objects, prepositional phrases, modifiers in the case and number of the word modified, etc. etc.
4
I empathize with Prof. Romm. As one who teaches Latin at the college level, I have come to the conclusion that the problem is not with how the students learn Latin (or don't) but how they haven't learned English, especially literary English.
They have never been taught the basic building blocks of their own language: the parts of speech, different types of clauses, and how they fit together to form sentences and how sentences knit together to express complex ideas. But in learning Latin or Greek, they have to know these things to have any chance at all. Many, in fact, say afterward that they learned English by taking Latin. It is a telling admission.
Another problem is that the Latin and Greek that has survived is artificial, a literary form of the language written by upper-class men with years of rhetorical training under the tunics. It's as if all we had of English was Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dickens.
Translating *that* form of the ancient languages is therefore a huge challenge to students who don't read books for pleasure. They do not know literary English (which is also artificial), so how can they translate literary Greek or Latin correctly?
Students of the classical languages these days are thus in a double bind, since they are learning two foreign languages at once: Latin (or Greek) ... and English.
They have never been taught the basic building blocks of their own language: the parts of speech, different types of clauses, and how they fit together to form sentences and how sentences knit together to express complex ideas. But in learning Latin or Greek, they have to know these things to have any chance at all. Many, in fact, say afterward that they learned English by taking Latin. It is a telling admission.
Another problem is that the Latin and Greek that has survived is artificial, a literary form of the language written by upper-class men with years of rhetorical training under the tunics. It's as if all we had of English was Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dickens.
Translating *that* form of the ancient languages is therefore a huge challenge to students who don't read books for pleasure. They do not know literary English (which is also artificial), so how can they translate literary Greek or Latin correctly?
Students of the classical languages these days are thus in a double bind, since they are learning two foreign languages at once: Latin (or Greek) ... and English.
13
In 31 years of teaching Latin to high school students in New York City,I found few who did not understand how to use case endings. I would start with the correct use of him and them in English. I would point out the difference between alumnus and alumni. I would acquaint them with well known Latin sentences like Carpe diem! and Tempus fugit. We made cartoons , translated popular songs into Latin and dressed in togas now and then. In other words we had time to absorb the language which college courses do not have.
7
The most effective language teachers I had spoke French and Italian from day 1 in class and never used translation. My French teacher told us on day 1 that translation was a waste of time, forbidden. What she really wanted was that we think in French. Even our names were changed to the closest French version - Robin to Rachelle. It worked for most of us, maybe not for 1 out of 30.
4
In Marguerite Yourcenar's novel, MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN, the author sings her praise of classical Greek in the person of the emperor: "I have loved the language for its flexibility, like that of a supple, perfect body, and for the richness of its vocabulary, in which every word bespeaks direct and varied contact with reality: and because almost everything that men have said best has been said in Greek. It is in Latin that I have administered the empire; my epitaph will be carved in Latin on the walls of my mausoleum beside the Tiber; but it is in Greek that I shall have thought and lived." My seven years of classical Greek under Jesuit tutelage have proved the emperor right.
5
To me the Ancient Attic Greek classes were incredibly difficult -- right up there with Organic Chemistry. I remember daily sessions in the language lab repeating, memorizing, then at home translating assigned passages, but I was rewarded with Euripides' Medea, Herodotus, and Thucydides after the first semester, then Aeschylus and Sophocles after that. I stopped before I got to Aristophanes. Almost 30 years later, I think I will start (over) again.
2
Churchill said that he would have students learn Latin for honor and Greek for a treat. He was, of course, absolutely right. When I went to college and discovered that there was a Classics requirement, I moaned. I'd had years and years of Latin and the thought of even another minute was more than I could stand. My father just smiled and said "Then why don't you take Greek? I studied it at Yale and I loved it." He too was absolutely right. I found that Greek was, and is, a state of mind as much as anything: the Fagles translations of the Iliad and Odyssey compared to, for instance, Lattimore — not to mention Alexander Pope! — illustrate the nuances of how a translator feels each word. And — give me almost any word in English and I can take it back to the Greek. Medical terms? That's not really Latin, it's Greek. Thank you, James Romm, for a wonderful, insightful column. And thank you, illustrator Sophy Hollington, for putting ELPIS on the top of the pile of papers. Hope, the last item in Pandora's box ...
6
As a teacher of Sanskrit, I've had many of the same feelings and experiences as the author. It's nice to know that I'm not alone and that things in the world of the Classics aren't that different from my own. And I must say I'm pleasantly surprised to see the interest in this article, whose appeal I would have imagined to be quite limited.
5
Here in Italy we have a kind of high school called Liceo Classico where the two main subjects are Latin and Greek, many hours a week for 5 years. Honestly I think that the idea of a single semester of Greek it's just plain wrong, of course you're not gonna learn anything. Latin is kind of a dry language, with a limited vocabulary (just look at how much Cicero struggled) and a very rigid grammar. A single semester may work to give you an understanding of the language. Greek is much richer and, above all, nuanced. You need to know the basics of grammar first, and then you need to learn how to break all the rules you've learned depending on context, author, dialect, metrics etc. There are so many variables involved that unless you're especially talented, which most of us aren't (and it's not a matter of being smart or not), the only thing that is gonna help is time. Live and breath Greek for much more than a semester. Otherwise yes, I think it's just wasted time.
5
I majored in Greek in college fifty years ago, but read Thucydides in English translation. Recently, I read a couple of paragraphs of Thucydides in the original language and found that the original shed great light on the translation.
4
Try teaching macroeconomics. Oimoi katauda.
4
I've taken beginning Classical Greek at least four times in my life, starting in high school, twice in university, and now as a very late adult. I can truthfully say that it is the worst taught language I have encountered (and I've suffered through a variety of other tongues to some facility). It is ironic that such a beautiful language (why I keep going back) should be taught by (a) people who should be teaching Latin, who are essentially Romans in mind and soul; (b) anal crossword puzzle fanatics;c) people for whom Greek is everything, and modernity dangerous and scary and to be hidden from. The problem with teaching Greek is that it requires a poetic ability few have: to be able to articulate such freedom of spirit embodied in such rigorous form so that students will stick to it until they get at least a glimpse of its astonishing beauty. I liken it to teaching sailing in the harbour of a windless sea -- there has to be at least the hint of a breeze sometime.
Anyway, contrary to some of the opinions expressed here, I now think (being old of course) that perhaps Greek is best taught to adults, the older the better. What they lack in brain connection, they have in mind connection. We persevere.
Anyway, contrary to some of the opinions expressed here, I now think (being old of course) that perhaps Greek is best taught to adults, the older the better. What they lack in brain connection, they have in mind connection. We persevere.
3
I find people's affinity, or lack thereof, for languages unsurprising. My college Russian professor constantly berated those students who just could not comprehend a language with six cases (hardly the maximum). Languages came easily to me, at least in my youth. It was that experience that gave me an appreciation of the binary nature of language, or rather, the human brain's ability to grasp more than one. Either you get it or you don't.
4
En oida oti ouden oida
Back in the 70s, one of my tutors at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where classical Greek is a significant part of the required curriculum (sjc.edu), told us that the best time to start working on a Greek translation assignment was 3:00 a.m. I didn't get it back then but now I do.
4
Mr. Romm, how sad for you, but more so for your students. You have no concept of the value of studying an ancient language to the process of learning and development of the mind. There was a time when one was considered semi-literate if he had not studied Latin, Greek or Hebrew. The reason, very simply, are the mental gymnastics required in the process of translation, and not, at least in the first year, an appreciation of the content of the material.
In my fifth year of Latin in my sophomore year of college, in 1950 at age nineteen, I was required to translate "De Senectute", by Cicero. I still have my notes, written in several shades of blue ink, in a three ring loose leaf binder, and now marvel at the wisdom of those words from the context of a man two years older than Cicero was when he wrote "About Old Age", eighty four. That was my last year of Latin, and I was initially relieved to be spared the work required in the translation. "Initially", because shortly after starting my Junior year I became aware of the effect of the loss of the mental exercises required by translation on my other studies.
It's part of what is called a "Liberal Arts" education, one that teaches you to think, distinguish, appreciate, discern, and properly discriminate, leading to a fuller life, even at an advanced age.
There's a big difference between "amo, amas, amat", and "De Senectute".
In my fifth year of Latin in my sophomore year of college, in 1950 at age nineteen, I was required to translate "De Senectute", by Cicero. I still have my notes, written in several shades of blue ink, in a three ring loose leaf binder, and now marvel at the wisdom of those words from the context of a man two years older than Cicero was when he wrote "About Old Age", eighty four. That was my last year of Latin, and I was initially relieved to be spared the work required in the translation. "Initially", because shortly after starting my Junior year I became aware of the effect of the loss of the mental exercises required by translation on my other studies.
It's part of what is called a "Liberal Arts" education, one that teaches you to think, distinguish, appreciate, discern, and properly discriminate, leading to a fuller life, even at an advanced age.
There's a big difference between "amo, amas, amat", and "De Senectute".
2
The frustrations of this teacher of Ancient Greek are easy for me to understand. I was born in the U.S. 88 years ago and lived in Greece until I was 18. I still remember my agonies translating the works of Ancient Greek authors from the original texts. As I recall my experiences in the Gymnasium (Greek high school) years, it took about one hour of classroom time to go through one or two lines of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Translating and comprehending Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War was a breeze, by comparison, averaging one paragraph per hour. Studying Plato’s Criton—the dialogue with Socrates in his prison cell, where he was awaiting execution—fell somewhere in-between. The main sources of difficulty were not in the words; there are considerable similarities in the vocabularies of Ancient and Modern Greek. My miseries in studying Ancient Greek in my childhood stemmed from differences in grammar and syntax.
When we returned to the U.S. late in August in 1945, my knowledge of English was rudimentary at best. My first year in college was to start two weeks later and I spent all of that time trying to improve my command of English. My only reading material was a “pocket” Greek-English/English-Greek dictionary which included an appendix on grammar and syntax. It took just one long evening for me to feel comfortable with my comprehension of this appendix and have had no reason to augment it at any time since then.
When we returned to the U.S. late in August in 1945, my knowledge of English was rudimentary at best. My first year in college was to start two weeks later and I spent all of that time trying to improve my command of English. My only reading material was a “pocket” Greek-English/English-Greek dictionary which included an appendix on grammar and syntax. It took just one long evening for me to feel comfortable with my comprehension of this appendix and have had no reason to augment it at any time since then.
5
As a junior at Whitworth College (many years ago), 24 of us began the four semesters of Introduction to Greek Grammar. By the end of the second semester there were four of us left. Sounds like 8 out of 10 is quite a success for you, Professor! And like many have commented, I never really knew English until I took Greek.
3
Although Prof. Romm's essay is about teaching Ancient Greek, his experience reflects a broader problem educators face. Compared to students twenty years ago, when I began teaching, more of my students now try to produce answers by plugging information into a formula; they resist engaging with the material they encounter. In a course like "baby Greek" that means producing a translation, nonsensical though it may be, rather than wrestling with meaning and how language generates it— or even how it can communicates ideas. But I have noticed the same tendency in other kinds of courses, too, as have my colleagues.
There are a number of factors I suspect are at work, most of which individual instructors can do little about. The best we may be able to do is to help students understand how to go about learning a language and convey both our love of what we teach and why we love it. Those eight students who are continuing with Greek most likely benefited from just that in Prof. Romm's classroom.
Yes, he's lucky to be able to teach such a small class, but his students are also lucky to have been able to take it.
There are a number of factors I suspect are at work, most of which individual instructors can do little about. The best we may be able to do is to help students understand how to go about learning a language and convey both our love of what we teach and why we love it. Those eight students who are continuing with Greek most likely benefited from just that in Prof. Romm's classroom.
Yes, he's lucky to be able to teach such a small class, but his students are also lucky to have been able to take it.
5
Yes, old languages and "we and the others". If you dont learn it this way maybe you will never dig it. Look at history like at another country is another one. Hannah Arendt and western civilisation.
We should teach a foreign language (not necessarily Greek or Latin) in elementary school. To open the mind before the ossification starts to set in.
8
Which language would be appropriate? There are thousands of candidates. Would English English count? Which brand of Chinese? Arabic or Sanskrit? Should the teachers be native speakers or second-language teachers? Sign language for hearing impaired kids?
1
What I learned in Latin class. Every word and its placement matters. Every generation has its own great minds going back as far as recorded history. Caesar wrote his own history, conquering first with the sword, then with the stylus. Noone remembers what he said in the heat of battle except what he told us about it.
Roman writers felt beholden to Greek storytellers and philosophers. Both literal and literary translations have their place. Rhythm and locus, alliteration and focus, assonance and onomotopea matter more than rhyme.
Roman writers felt beholden to Greek storytellers and philosophers. Both literal and literary translations have their place. Rhythm and locus, alliteration and focus, assonance and onomotopea matter more than rhyme.
5
My Greek professor died before I realized just how important her lessons were to my education and to my life. I have always felt indebted to her and regretted that I never told her so. Let me thank you instead as a way of recompense. What you tell them is up in their heads somewhere, and like myself one idea or another will come to them and it will light up their lives as it has mine so many times. Thank you.
7
Et, facile Stultum facit. Sisyphus understood better than most what it is to struggle, to fail, and ultimately to be alive. It's only the hard stuff that's worth doing.
8
Dr. Romm, Sometimes it takes something extra to teach a subject that is so challenging for new learners. Offer all your students optional daily breakfast meetings (yes, I'm serious) at which you will all drill those cases together.
1
My all time favorite student evaluation comment is this: "This woman has got to stop taking photography so seriously!" Substitute Greek. I understand completely the frustration faced when trying to communicate one's lifelong passion to a group of young students who passionately resist a challenge.
6
I took a year of Koine (New Testament) Greek (classes 2x/week for two hours each) at age 50. I came nowhere near having the fluency to read long passages or talk to a cabdriver in 21st-century Athens. But I did, by a miracle of fine teaching, "get" the inflected nature of the language. I got a glimpse of the mindset of writers who use elaborate participles. The subtlety of the voices (passive, middle, active) and the tenses (perfect, aorist, etc) are just signs of that mindset.
I had to memorize lots of phrases and sentences to pull it all together well enough to pass the quizzes. That's not the teaching method of the textbook I used, but it worked for me.
A point of learning a language unlike one's own is to get a window into a new cognitive mindset. It sounds like some of your students get that. Keep on trying, Dr. Romm!
I had to memorize lots of phrases and sentences to pull it all together well enough to pass the quizzes. That's not the teaching method of the textbook I used, but it worked for me.
A point of learning a language unlike one's own is to get a window into a new cognitive mindset. It sounds like some of your students get that. Keep on trying, Dr. Romm!
5
Wow. a Greek class at Bard College! I was a student at Bard in the early '70s with a ferocious interest in Greek and there were no classes. They managed to find me a tutor for private lessons though and I eventually transferred out--ended up graduating in Classics from your alma mater after a year in Athens. I suppose you ARE the Classics department at Bard so I can certainly sympathize with your frustration.
Its a tricky thing passing along an interest in Greek. I failed utterly in passing along my own enthusiasm to my children although they both speak French fluently and one is fluent in Arabic. The Greek simply never took. One of the problems, I think, is that there is so little to read from the ancients. You have soon made the tour of the dramatists and philosophers and how many times can you read Herodotus and Thucydides? People who go into the field seem to wind up writing theses on the most obscure and dull topics as they struggle to say something new in a field that the centuries have simply picked clean.
Well, keep up the good fight. And when you sense their interest waning, shoot them a few Cavafy poems.
Its a tricky thing passing along an interest in Greek. I failed utterly in passing along my own enthusiasm to my children although they both speak French fluently and one is fluent in Arabic. The Greek simply never took. One of the problems, I think, is that there is so little to read from the ancients. You have soon made the tour of the dramatists and philosophers and how many times can you read Herodotus and Thucydides? People who go into the field seem to wind up writing theses on the most obscure and dull topics as they struggle to say something new in a field that the centuries have simply picked clean.
Well, keep up the good fight. And when you sense their interest waning, shoot them a few Cavafy poems.
5
James, I loved your piece, I share your pain. I have recently retired from a 45-year career teaching economics, and I have had similar experiences. Only 5 percent of students who take beginning economics "get it." The others learn a few mechanical rules that let them pass the test, but few understand.
Before I became an economist, I was an undergraduate language major, French and Russian. As you know, Russian (like Greek) has case endings and they cause a lot of problems for beginners, although they are not the hardest aspect of the language. The success rate of learning Russian is low, but higher than you describe for Greek. Is that because it is a spoken language? At some point in learning Russian, you hear enough thousands of speech samples that the case endings become instinct. It is only when you are able to stop treating them as symbols that you have to decode before you understand them that you have learned the language. I suppose that takes longer if you are only, or mostly, reading.
I taught economics in Russia for several years, and if our school had an overload, I occasionally taught a group of our compulsory English for Business course. If you think it is frustrating to teach case endings to American college students, try teaching English articles to Russian students. They NEVER get them right.
Before I became an economist, I was an undergraduate language major, French and Russian. As you know, Russian (like Greek) has case endings and they cause a lot of problems for beginners, although they are not the hardest aspect of the language. The success rate of learning Russian is low, but higher than you describe for Greek. Is that because it is a spoken language? At some point in learning Russian, you hear enough thousands of speech samples that the case endings become instinct. It is only when you are able to stop treating them as symbols that you have to decode before you understand them that you have learned the language. I suppose that takes longer if you are only, or mostly, reading.
I taught economics in Russia for several years, and if our school had an overload, I occasionally taught a group of our compulsory English for Business course. If you think it is frustrating to teach case endings to American college students, try teaching English articles to Russian students. They NEVER get them right.
1
People think English is a 'simple' language because we don't have case endings or inflect verbs. But, obviously, we have to have some mechanisms to convey the equivalent meanings, and they are quite subtle and difficult for foreigners to understand. It is easy to speak basic English and be understood, but very hard to speak truly idiomatic English.
The distinction between 'the', 'a', 'this', and 'that' drives Russian speakers crazy. Why do we 'go home', but 'go to the movies' or go to the beach'? Who is this fellow, 'the American college student'? I thought there was more than one of him! If I had money, I'd be rich, but if I had the money, I'd buy a new computer.
I can't explain it, but at least I can speak it. The Russians? Not so much.
The distinction between 'the', 'a', 'this', and 'that' drives Russian speakers crazy. Why do we 'go home', but 'go to the movies' or go to the beach'? Who is this fellow, 'the American college student'? I thought there was more than one of him! If I had money, I'd be rich, but if I had the money, I'd buy a new computer.
I can't explain it, but at least I can speak it. The Russians? Not so much.
2
Part of the reason why the students are having problems with things like word order and declension is that foreign language education begins much too late in the US. In Europe, it's common for a second language to be introduced as early as third grade (as educational policy, not just for the parents who go out of their and have the resources to expose their kids to other languages at an early age.)
5
The unexamined life is not worth living. I learned to say it in ancient Greek when I was 17, and I still say it, quite often, today at 76.
5
It's inspiring, for some perverse reason, to read of the troubles of learning Greek. I've been studying on my own and have gotten stuck many times at participles. But finally this year they made a little sense to me, I seem to understand them without quite knowing how I got there. Studying the language gives one a glimmer of how the ancient Greeks thought and how they saw their world, and there's something very different and energizing about it but familiar too, since so many of the words have influenced English. I've finally realized also that there is likely no end to Greek verb endings, as soon as you think you have really got the verbs down, Hansen springs another form on you. Thank you for writing this story.
3
Have you considered teaching a course in Koine?
Beginning, as I did, with a Hillbilly version of the mother tongue of civilization, complete with built in hints from almost everyone's Sunday School torment, simplifies the initial process of learning fundamentals without the rigor of the Ὀρέστεια which I now read comfortably.
The merciless rigor of classical Greek, especially in three short months and among three or four other classes, is daunting even to someone fairly comfortable in Latin.
Latin instruction begins with a study of the plain spoken Caesar in his Gallic Wars, not the ruminations of Seneca.
Herrlee Glessner Creel's "Literary Chinese By The Inductive Method"
begins with the simple "Classic of Filial Piety" before proceeding to The Analects".
Beginning, as I did, with a Hillbilly version of the mother tongue of civilization, complete with built in hints from almost everyone's Sunday School torment, simplifies the initial process of learning fundamentals without the rigor of the Ὀρέστεια which I now read comfortably.
The merciless rigor of classical Greek, especially in three short months and among three or four other classes, is daunting even to someone fairly comfortable in Latin.
Latin instruction begins with a study of the plain spoken Caesar in his Gallic Wars, not the ruminations of Seneca.
Herrlee Glessner Creel's "Literary Chinese By The Inductive Method"
begins with the simple "Classic of Filial Piety" before proceeding to The Analects".
1
I teach modern European history, which is, I think, quite a bit easier to do than teaching Greek but none the less there are those students who sit through an entire semester and still think - say - the French Revolution was because the people were given cake to eat. I do take every such case as a personal failure of my own and, while there aren't a large number, it can be depressing. It spurs me to constantly revise my methods and try new approaches every semester even after about 40 years in the class room. No teacher is going to "get through" to every single student. Intellectually, we know that but that knowledge in no way excuses us from trying our best in every single case. Often we don't know if we have gotten through or not. I often have long discussions regarding history with my cat, who occasionally nods knowingly and makes an indecipherable comment much like some of my students. I doubt if my cat could pass the final but then, I've been surprised by some students in that regard. We just never know. Then there are those all too rare times when one meets someone who was one's student long ago and who says "your course really inspired me and because of it......." Just a few such occasions can make an entire career worth while. Like most people I've made some foolish decisions in the course of a long life but one I never regretted for a moment was to be a teacher.
5
I have a treasured memory of beginning ancient Greek with Professor Michael Moore during a January term at Skidmore College in 1980: one course, several hours each day, every day for 1 month. I remember luxuriating in being able to concentrate on only one subject. The language seemed to make perfect sense; those hours spent studying Greek without any interruption in my thoughts (of other academic subjects) save to look out my window and watch the snow fall have remained my gold standard for learning any new task. I have often wondered if I had started Greek during a regular semester as part of the usual multi-credit course load, whether I would have been as successful a student in the language and therefore discovered as much in the language as I did. My point here is that learning ancient Greek always seemed particularly suited to a tutorial or very small class format without too many other subjects intruding in the learning process. Nowadays, with even more distractions for students than simply the other 3 courses in a regular semester, the deck seems stacked against you the professor and against your students. Perhaps a winter session introduction to Greek is a viable option for you?
My own children at Bard High School Early College loved and do now absolutely love the study of Latin. I enthusiastically support their choice. Consider, your students' takeaway from your course may nevertheless traverse generations and your influence may travel through to their children.
My own children at Bard High School Early College loved and do now absolutely love the study of Latin. I enthusiastically support their choice. Consider, your students' takeaway from your course may nevertheless traverse generations and your influence may travel through to their children.
18
Replying to your reply, HP, you seem to be agreeing with me--students in any foreign language need immersion. I have taught Greek in the College format of twice a week, and it just doesn't work if the student hasn't had the very training you are describing with your own kids, and I am referring to, at the High School level. It can also work, as you also describe, if the students have an intensive course. It's even worse with the no-longer-spoken-languages (I prefer that to "dead") because you can't really reinforce basic skills orally (some are trying; see the Paideia Institute for "spoken" classical languages--not my thing. I had two foreign languages going into college, including 4 years of Greek at the HS level. There is no substitute for starting early. Prof. Romm is also dealing with students who have no idea of grammar at all, which is a fatal problem for learning an inflected language, and why these languages are so valuable at any age: they point out the deep structures of ALL languages (I produce linguists every year out of HS), and this is why Latin study has exploded throughout the country. There is currently a SHORTAGE of Latin teachers in the US. Greek is not really "harder." (Well, it is, but not really.) Anyhow, a shout out to my old friend Jamie for making this a topic of discussion in the New Year.
4
Oh my gosh, stick with it, teacher. My greatest regret in my college years was *not* taking Greek. (On a scholarship, I couldn't afford the C --> I could always ace any other subject.) I still luxuriate in the Greek hidden like pearls in oysters in the etymologies of so many "English" words. 'Rhapsody' as 'woven song' still enchants me. 'Halcyon' is the kind of kind day so sweet that the kingfisher can make her nest upon the bosom of the sea.
Your lucky lucky students. Any glimpse you give them is a treasure.
Your lucky lucky students. Any glimpse you give them is a treasure.
6
Teaching beginning Greek sounds like coaching youth sports. One of the wisest men I've ever known told me two things that I struggled to learn and never forgot.
The kids are developing and won't be ready to learn every skill you hope to teach.
The success of a coach is measured by the number of kids who return to play next year.
Congratulations, you are far more successful than you admit.
The kids are developing and won't be ready to learn every skill you hope to teach.
The success of a coach is measured by the number of kids who return to play next year.
Congratulations, you are far more successful than you admit.
6
Case inflected languages provide great structural clarity relative to English. Latin made it easier to learn German and slavic languages for me. Greek was challenging given the internal changes but the exquisite sound of it spoken or sung! As the op ed points out Greek (Latin, other languages) also adds to the whole idea of reading for subtleties. Most of all guidance from a Latin teacher on how to study languages, the frequency and intervals of repeating new information and cumulative repetition of words in more complex sequences, was transferable to every other discipline. Sadly Faux News and the GOP are using those pedagogical approaches.
2
Sanskrit, like Greek has similar grammatical word endings. As a Sanskrit student in the late 1940's, I sat listening to a Jesuit teacher in a Latin class from a backbench. It diid reinforce my understanding of Sanskrit declension and conjugation.
2
This article brought back memories of my halcyon college days more than 60 years ago. Although I was majoring in philosophy I hadn't intended to learn Greek. But one day while lecturing on Homer Prof. Otis started reading a passage from Homer in Greek - don't remember which one, it was a long time ago. No one in room understood a word of the language. But the enthralling sound of the language and the professor's obvious love for language and author were the reason why I signed up for Greek the next semester. Unfortunately, I'm no longer able to read and understand Greek but being able to read Homer and others in the original at that time was a privilege.
4
I suffered through 2 years of obligatory high school Latin.
It is absurd to imagine that in one year students will come even close to being able to read, understand and appreciate Sophocles in the original.
Which raises the question of whether in today's world the time and energy required to learn an ancient language is better spent on other things.
It is absurd to imagine that in one year students will come even close to being able to read, understand and appreciate Sophocles in the original.
Which raises the question of whether in today's world the time and energy required to learn an ancient language is better spent on other things.
I started Greek on my own in high school, after beginning latin in 8th grade. But this was in the Middle Ages, when we learned English grammar formally, and even diagrammed sentences. I think that helps a lot with any foreign language. Perhaps your students don't understand or appreciate the structure of their own native language, or even grasp that it has one. So other languages just seem weird and unnecessarily complicated to them.
8
As a community college instructor of developmental (aka high school-level) mathematics, I can sympathize with Professor Romm's lamentaton on the Sisyphean nature of his task, but I take solace from a lesson I learned while studying three years of Latin. As my classmates and I struggled through our lessons, our teacher would often console us with the saying: "One's education is that which remains after all the detail learned in school is forgotten."
5
As a high school teacher in Greece, I am very grateful to you for this article. (or, EUGNOMON as we say in Greek). Although I did not follow classical studies, learning Ancient Greek in Senior High and in some of my University classes was really important for my future research interests in the fields of history and modern Greek literature). But, even more important than this was the contribution of Ancient Greek to the development of my own "world" (if we accept that the limits of our world are the limits of our language). I also want to thank you for your willingness to support Classical (especially Greek) studies in a very gloomy era for Greek studies worldwide...
8
Great essay, but, at the risk of sounding like a very bad person, I feel compelled to say:
1) I studied Classical Greek in college as part of my degree. Loved it. (Hated Latin).
2) Unless one is going to do graduate level scholarship or has some very specific need to know Greek, one can learn as much about the literature and history by reading it in a good translation and there are plenty of those.
3) I happen to live in a country where Classical Greek and Latin are common subjects in the high schools. I see absolutely no advantages in having the students spend several years learning these languages when they could be spending time sharpening more practical academic skills. The young people here struggle with plenty of real-world, economic challenges for which Greek and Latin offer little to no advantage.
I realize my comment may not please many of you (and I apologize Dr. Romm), but as some other commentators have mentioned, it would nice if young people spent more time mastering their native language and learning a second, living language. The Greek and Latin can wait. They aren't going anywhere.
1) I studied Classical Greek in college as part of my degree. Loved it. (Hated Latin).
2) Unless one is going to do graduate level scholarship or has some very specific need to know Greek, one can learn as much about the literature and history by reading it in a good translation and there are plenty of those.
3) I happen to live in a country where Classical Greek and Latin are common subjects in the high schools. I see absolutely no advantages in having the students spend several years learning these languages when they could be spending time sharpening more practical academic skills. The young people here struggle with plenty of real-world, economic challenges for which Greek and Latin offer little to no advantage.
I realize my comment may not please many of you (and I apologize Dr. Romm), but as some other commentators have mentioned, it would nice if young people spent more time mastering their native language and learning a second, living language. The Greek and Latin can wait. They aren't going anywhere.
I find plenty of hope in courses like yours, with both a professor earnest enough to care about results and students courageous enough to brave a niche language for its intellectual vitality.
It is quite possible that your students are learning things you don't explicitly teach them, like an appreciation for the untranslatable. If they don't get the precise meaning of a conjugation few are the wiser, but their minds will have been expanded. I can only imagine that many bright faces emerge from the study and contemplation they experience at Bard.
The experience of learning a language is transformative. I'm studying Korean and am already amazed at how it uses the same verb to express seeing, watching, and even looking after someone. Those shifts in meaning trigger me and other learners to think more flexibly.
It is quite possible that your students are learning things you don't explicitly teach them, like an appreciation for the untranslatable. If they don't get the precise meaning of a conjugation few are the wiser, but their minds will have been expanded. I can only imagine that many bright faces emerge from the study and contemplation they experience at Bard.
The experience of learning a language is transformative. I'm studying Korean and am already amazed at how it uses the same verb to express seeing, watching, and even looking after someone. Those shifts in meaning trigger me and other learners to think more flexibly.
3
To those of you confused as to the practical merits of a classical language, learning the grammar means incredible insight into the workings of English, and reading the literature is another kind of insight entirely. One might not open a "classics" store, but students of classics think critically, write well, and find essential truths of human knowledge tragically lost in any translation.
To Professor Romm: τέτλαθι δη, κραδίη, και κύντερον άλλο ποτ' έτλης.
To Professor Romm: τέτλαθι δη, κραδίη, και κύντερον άλλο ποτ' έτλης.
5
As chance would have, i taught as many years as Professor de Breeze and this is my last year. If was never about the Jivenese. It's about the ducks. Pay attention to the great task. Measure your work by your effect on student lives.
Reflect on your own teachers who appointed the path you trod, bringing you, the duck, to this page today.
It was never about what they taught, Professor Romm, but rather, how they taught it.
In honor of Professor de Breeze and his good Doctor.
Reflect on your own teachers who appointed the path you trod, bringing you, the duck, to this page today.
It was never about what they taught, Professor Romm, but rather, how they taught it.
In honor of Professor de Breeze and his good Doctor.
1
You may despair of your students ever learning Greek, Professor Romm, but they may well be learning important lessons, nonetheless.
That was what happened to me when I signed up for Latin as an elective in Junior High School. I did it in part because my other option was Home Ec., but mostly because I knew it would annoy my mother, who had been required to study Latin in Catholic school and had been horrible at it. I decided to be at least decent at it, just to show her I could. And I did, barely.
What I learned that mattered the most, aside from the lesson that it's pointless to get in a competition with one's mother, was that certain other languages use case endings in a way totally foreign to English-speakers. I got the basic concept, and this allowed me to subsequently learn Russian in college with relative ease. Mastering that in turn led to a career in Washington that didn't bring me much money but may have made a difference at the margins in National Security. All thanks to that eighth-grade Latin teacher.
That was what happened to me when I signed up for Latin as an elective in Junior High School. I did it in part because my other option was Home Ec., but mostly because I knew it would annoy my mother, who had been required to study Latin in Catholic school and had been horrible at it. I decided to be at least decent at it, just to show her I could. And I did, barely.
What I learned that mattered the most, aside from the lesson that it's pointless to get in a competition with one's mother, was that certain other languages use case endings in a way totally foreign to English-speakers. I got the basic concept, and this allowed me to subsequently learn Russian in college with relative ease. Mastering that in turn led to a career in Washington that didn't bring me much money but may have made a difference at the margins in National Security. All thanks to that eighth-grade Latin teacher.
6
Can you suggest the name of a book or online site for learning Greek? For some reason your article has made me want to earn some.
1
Some "get it" naturally, most don't. I was struck by your comment "...to see only “man” in either word, is what readers of English are programmed to do." You mock the enduring usefulness I received from two of my 1960's university classes from a half century ago that I still refer almost daily - "Greek roots in English" and "Latin roots in English". Twice a week we'd explore major roots that found their way into English and other modern languages. Helping us was wonderful elder classics scholar, a still-beautiful incredibly classy woman rumored to have former silent movie actress. She no doubt felt a frustration similar to yours regarding the diminishing attraction of the ancient languages to which she had devoted a lifetime of passion and energy. But she had the patience and grace to offer a bridge between the ancient languages to a wide range of students, even knuckleheads like me. No doubt she recruited the rare student who wanted to go beyond the root and dig into the complex and wondrous grammar beyond. I was not one of them, but I'll always be grateful to her for demystifying my own language (and later, French as well) because I can usually guess at the meaning of an unfamiliar word whenever I encounter one, even now more than a half century later. Your job is to make a similar bridge and mine for the few gems who will share your passion. Not an easy task, but you probably knew that when you got into that field, no?
4
I delighted in reading this piece!!! I studied Ancient Greek and Latin for five and six years, respectively, in Italian high schools, and loved Greek especially. I still remember the exhilaration of learning a completely different alphabet at age 14. Somehow, it made me feel like a spy learning a secret language! I also had a very inspiring high school teacher who made me feel like Greek allowed me to tap into some remote place and time that was accessible only through this extinct language. She made me appreciate the beauty of one-liners by poets and philosophers whose work mostly disappeared in fires of big, ancient libraries: Menandro, Lucretius, Sapphous... I then ended up having to learn other languages (English, German) and studying science. I am now a professor of Biology, but I still think the logical rigor necessary to unlock the secrets of Greek and Latin gave me one of the most valuable tools (i.e., logic) that can be applied to any sphere of knowledge.
6
Although I am a native Greek speaker, I, along with most Greeks, had great difficulty learning to understand, and translate ancient Greek. We, of course, had other problems than the various endings of a word that modify its meaning, since that is the case in modern Greek too. For us it was the badly chosen texts, and the meticulous dissection of each word in the few, basically uninteresting paragraphs that occupied our classes for years. We hardly read anything remotely engaging, as far as I remember. So most high school kids learned by hart the strange-sounding translations, that didn't even make sense in modern Greek, just to be able to pass the exams. I wish I had a teacher like professor Romm to start again...
4
Not sure what your problem is. Though it's been a few years since I've led a class, I don't recall the frustràtion you've experienced. Maybe it's that in our completely upside down, hysteron proteron model, the least qualified, lowest tier profs are given the responsibility for teaching the most important phase in foreign language instruction, mastery of fundamentals. Typically these entry-level courses are passed down the ranks by the folks who can read Pindar or Tacitus with understanding and pleasure when, in fact, the most qualified, most widely read persons are needed to lead the beginners. Could that be your problem?
I'm not sure the author really has a problem, at least not a personal problem. Greek is hard. Have you "led a class" in Greek at a university, as you imply, and not encountered the difficulties described in this piece? I'm sure the entire Classics community would like to hear about your methods. Your suggestion that "lowest-tier" professors (which the author is not) are unqualified and shouldn't teach beginning language courses leads me to wonder what types of courses you think they are qualified to teach.
3
The reason why Americans struggle so much with foreign languages -- regardless of whether the language is Latin, Ancient Greek, French, German, etc. -- is that they start learning them much too late!
Over here in Germany, the kids generally start learning English in first grade. At my daughters' school, the next language was Latin (started in 5th grade), followed by Ancient Greek or French in 8th grade. In 10th grade, students can also choose Spanish.
So, as your students struggle and fail to overcome "their habits of 15 years of reading English," this is not your fault. They simply did not learn early enough how to learn a language. It's not that hard, once you understand all of the necessary grammatical concepts.
Over here in Germany, the kids generally start learning English in first grade. At my daughters' school, the next language was Latin (started in 5th grade), followed by Ancient Greek or French in 8th grade. In 10th grade, students can also choose Spanish.
So, as your students struggle and fail to overcome "their habits of 15 years of reading English," this is not your fault. They simply did not learn early enough how to learn a language. It's not that hard, once you understand all of the necessary grammatical concepts.
33
Very true. I came to the U.S. at 2-y/o & both of my parents spoke perfect English, but I grew up speaking another language. I started nursery school without knowing English. By kindergarten, I had already mastered it at the level of a 6-y/o. Concurrently, I started studying Arabic in our version of Sunday school. My public school system (in Massachusetts) seemed advanced for the U.S. We started four years of both Latin & Spanish in 7th grade. Upon graduation, I went to a major English speaking city in a major French-speaking North American city. I picked up the Quebecois version of French by treating Montreal as my language school.
Each language I learned helped me learn the next language more effectively. Going through the alphabet & reading in Urdu at 4-y/o made learning English easy at 5-y/o. Latin reinforced Spanish & both made it possible for me to pick of French without a formal course. Arabic, being from a different language system (more like Hebrew) allowed even greater neuronal connections to be made. Hence, early learning facilitates brain development. Indeed, in today's world, Latin (and Classical Greek) main utility is in organizing and developing the mind (a very useful utility indeed).
Americans view foreign languages as an esoteric luxury. In today's world, however, foreign languages are a necessary tool of survival on par with math & science. One cannot be considered fully educated if one knows only one language. Russian, Mandarin, Arabic are vital interests
Each language I learned helped me learn the next language more effectively. Going through the alphabet & reading in Urdu at 4-y/o made learning English easy at 5-y/o. Latin reinforced Spanish & both made it possible for me to pick of French without a formal course. Arabic, being from a different language system (more like Hebrew) allowed even greater neuronal connections to be made. Hence, early learning facilitates brain development. Indeed, in today's world, Latin (and Classical Greek) main utility is in organizing and developing the mind (a very useful utility indeed).
Americans view foreign languages as an esoteric luxury. In today's world, however, foreign languages are a necessary tool of survival on par with math & science. One cannot be considered fully educated if one knows only one language. Russian, Mandarin, Arabic are vital interests
5
Before I was kicked out of jr. high school; Greek was being re-phased in -but for a very few, especially chosen people-some of whom were teachers.
In the 60's there was such celebration of the pax Americana that the idea anyone need speak a foreign language seemed ludicrous. The "dead languages" were even stupider, as no one would ever need Latin to fight a modern war or write a novel.
We were wrong. We now know our US-centered ideals were a passing phase of history and those who speak more than one language often have greater talents and special connections which we Anglophones-only miss out on.
That Churchill managed to fail Latin and Greek at a time when they were considered the mark of education, was a special case. He managed to impress his family and schools enough to that they invented a severe and studious program in English that he mastered and which aided him in molding the modern world in the years between the Great War and the 1950's when England and America bestrode the world as it's only real colossi left.
If we can find people willing to sweat it out, we ought not to abandon the "dead languages"-including Hebrew which is a dead language given new life-Frankenstein like- by direct transfusion from men who spoke various European languages- German, Russian and a few French(but not English).
These will always be of great interest, but will not ever be a lingua Franca again, as French or Spanish once were.
In the 60's there was such celebration of the pax Americana that the idea anyone need speak a foreign language seemed ludicrous. The "dead languages" were even stupider, as no one would ever need Latin to fight a modern war or write a novel.
We were wrong. We now know our US-centered ideals were a passing phase of history and those who speak more than one language often have greater talents and special connections which we Anglophones-only miss out on.
That Churchill managed to fail Latin and Greek at a time when they were considered the mark of education, was a special case. He managed to impress his family and schools enough to that they invented a severe and studious program in English that he mastered and which aided him in molding the modern world in the years between the Great War and the 1950's when England and America bestrode the world as it's only real colossi left.
If we can find people willing to sweat it out, we ought not to abandon the "dead languages"-including Hebrew which is a dead language given new life-Frankenstein like- by direct transfusion from men who spoke various European languages- German, Russian and a few French(but not English).
These will always be of great interest, but will not ever be a lingua Franca again, as French or Spanish once were.
3
Never having studied Greek I can only surmise that there exists a word describing this coincidence. The last thing I did last night before falling asleep was to complete Donna Tart's novel "The Secret History". Upon awakening, your article was waiting on my PC screen. Sorry your article didn't appear before I began reading what some consider to be a modern Greek tragedy. I'm sure I would have appreciated the book much more.
You have my sympathies. I taught Talmud to not overly enthusiastic students. Actually your success rate seems quite good.
You have my sympathies. I taught Talmud to not overly enthusiastic students. Actually your success rate seems quite good.
1
I started Greek when I was 18. An elderly woman started with us at the same time. She said to me: I envy you having your whole life to read Greek. That was enough to keep me reading Greek for the next 40 years. When you're young and in college, you have the time to make the rest of your life a happy one.
7
After three decades of teaching Greek,
have you not considered/implemented different ways
of helping your students ?
Vocab/Vocab/Vocab -
build up their vocabulary -
and then slowly, slowly introduce grammar.
have you not considered/implemented different ways
of helping your students ?
Vocab/Vocab/Vocab -
build up their vocabulary -
and then slowly, slowly introduce grammar.
1
Why are they taking your class? Are your students interests more philosophy, literature or history? If I were studying classical history or archaeology--where thorough knowledge of greek and latin are part of the language pre-requisites--I would appreciate it if the readings were heavy in history and focused on the koan greek in use in the eastern Roman Empire. We learn dead languages for their facility in our individual fields of research. Have the students provide thought-out reasoning for studying the language then tailor the reading assignments to each individual. If the students stated reason for being there is "because I got to meet my foreign language requirement," then don't expect a lot out of them or waste your time giving them difficult work; stick to comedies and useful philosophy that they might get something out of on a personal level and they'll leave your class with an appreciation and respect for the ancient greeks and their language. Even if they can't really read it, you will have opened their eyes to all the great greek authors in translation. Perhaps they'll remember those little green books and pick one up occasionally. Teaching Greek is a labor of love and a rewarding pursuit. You're very lucky and I wish you the best.
2
OY VEY IST MIR NEBUCH! Who knows, maybe people will catch onto momeloshen more easily than Greek? Nu, so maybe not. You gotta admit that "oimoi katauda" is Greek to you--and to me too! As a linguist and student of language, I find Greek to be beautiful. The contribution of Greek writings in philosophy and the sciences are part of the foundation of western civilization. But its unquestionable glory does not comport with ease of learning. Native English speakers who are monolingual will experience a challenge in reframing their approach to a new language that is highly inflected, like Greek, since English is from the Germanic family of the Indoeuropean languages while Greek is a member of the Hellenic family. I have found the study of Greek to be of great value in enriching my understanding of word derivations, or etymologies. For example, "atomos" in Classic Greek means "uncuttable." It comes into English as "atom," or "the smallest unit of matter," while in Modern Greek it means "second," or "smallest unit of time." Such connections among languages are readily understood and appreciated by students, in my experience. So a shift in strategies in the Greek course might be helpful. Including the etymologies of the vocabulary words in each chapter will help beginning students to unlock meaningful information that they can use in speaking English. I had a Hebrew instructor who used that strategy in teaching vocabulary. Metaphoric learning is powerful. Oy vay!
1
Since the point of a language is to communicate with another living, breathing human being - I commiserate with the students who are struggling. The best motivator is to meet someone with whom you want to talk!
You can study cases in Russian - and then be able to speak to a live Russian!
As for Greek - γιατί δέν σπουδάζεις τά νέα Ελληνικά, θά μπορέσεις νά μιλάς μ' ανθρούπούς ζοντανούς?
You can study cases in Russian - and then be able to speak to a live Russian!
As for Greek - γιατί δέν σπουδάζεις τά νέα Ελληνικά, θά μπορέσεις νά μιλάς μ' ανθρούπούς ζοντανούς?
2
My brief exposure to classical Greek was thanks to the generosity of my public high school Latin teacher. There were about six of us who met five days a week for a semester to get the rudiments of classical Greek. We were all students in his classical Latin classes (he also taught Russian; now, my high school, which once taught I think seven languages, teaches two: Spanish and French).
None of my classical Greek has stayed with me, though I do have a gorgeous Greek wife with whom I share three daughters, and she can read, but not speak, demotic Greek.
The Latin now, that was special to me. I had a year of Church Latin at a Catholic high school in Hawai'i, then two years of classical Latin at a then incredible public high school in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California. Reading Cicero's orations my third year and actually understanding them, IN LATIN, was one of my more amazing experiences in life. I can still read Latin serviceably, and it increased my English vocabulary by an enormous amount, since something like 10% of our "complex" words come from Latin.
Stay the course, professor. There is incredible value in learning of our seminal cultures, West and East, through languages. So much so that when I was nearly 50, I undertook the study of Mandarin. It was as rewarding as classical Latin and Greek had been, and was at least as old or older in its origins. Magnificent calligraphy, and I was good at it. And this old codger got an "A".
What you teach matters.
None of my classical Greek has stayed with me, though I do have a gorgeous Greek wife with whom I share three daughters, and she can read, but not speak, demotic Greek.
The Latin now, that was special to me. I had a year of Church Latin at a Catholic high school in Hawai'i, then two years of classical Latin at a then incredible public high school in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California. Reading Cicero's orations my third year and actually understanding them, IN LATIN, was one of my more amazing experiences in life. I can still read Latin serviceably, and it increased my English vocabulary by an enormous amount, since something like 10% of our "complex" words come from Latin.
Stay the course, professor. There is incredible value in learning of our seminal cultures, West and East, through languages. So much so that when I was nearly 50, I undertook the study of Mandarin. It was as rewarding as classical Latin and Greek had been, and was at least as old or older in its origins. Magnificent calligraphy, and I was good at it. And this old codger got an "A".
What you teach matters.
7
"Some of my students still, after 120 hours of instruction, take the first noun in a sentence as its subject, no matter what form it’s in. Their habits of 15 years of reading English will not give way to the methodology that an ancient language demands."
If Star Wars fans they are, problem this should be not. Yoda remind them of you must.
If Star Wars fans they are, problem this should be not. Yoda remind them of you must.
35
Very heartfelt, humorous and understandable sentiments. I wish the author would have delved a little more into the rationale of learning Greek in the first place (beyond the obvious one of learning any foreign language).
1
I totally sympathize. Of course you realize that the Usa is unique (tell your students the old European joke: "what do you call some who speaks multiple languages'...). The more languages one speaks, the easier it is to learn a new one. Your job will only become reasonable when high schools do what they need to do in terms of language education. And that depends on the parents.
6
I would start with English:
Why can't you say Their give them best to they?
Or him talked to his after he.
Us are showed his where will saw he.
Yes we have some declensions too so from there you can show how
the parallels are in Greek and how they are just richer.
Why can't you say Their give them best to they?
Or him talked to his after he.
Us are showed his where will saw he.
Yes we have some declensions too so from there you can show how
the parallels are in Greek and how they are just richer.
1
As a classics civ major, I did Latin rather than Greek. Though I had already given up on the idea of academia, I plugged away at it for 2 years. Of course, 40 years later, I remember almost nothing of it now. Still, it taught me a great deal about the structure of language and how it evolved, enabling me learn several living languages with comparative ease. Even better, it reinforced my passion for history, the greatest source of inspiration that I have ever known. Finally, my effort in Latin connected me with 2 truly great profs, Tom and Jim, who were unfailingly encouraging to a struggling youth and remain friends to this day. So yeah, keep trying: it can make a huge difference.
3
Learning Greek was one of the great academic challenges of my life -- I was a classics major who concentrated mostly on Latin, but still took four years of Greek. I can still remember my brain overheating as I translated, trying to keep all those moving parts straight. I can also still remember the joy when a passage finally came together.
I didn't graduate all that long ago, but my Greek is hopelessly rusty now. That said, it wasn't a waste, even though my work has nothing to do with Sophocles or Xenophon: Greek and Latin taught me how to think systematically and did wonders for my English writing. They also allowed me four years of small classes and tons of attention from professors who loved teaching and sharing their passion for the ancient world. I don't think everyone should have to learn Greek & Latin, but if you're fortunate enough to be pursuing a liberal arts education, older niche fields like classics are hidden gems, and a lot more fun than an over enrolled Econ or English department.
I didn't graduate all that long ago, but my Greek is hopelessly rusty now. That said, it wasn't a waste, even though my work has nothing to do with Sophocles or Xenophon: Greek and Latin taught me how to think systematically and did wonders for my English writing. They also allowed me four years of small classes and tons of attention from professors who loved teaching and sharing their passion for the ancient world. I don't think everyone should have to learn Greek & Latin, but if you're fortunate enough to be pursuing a liberal arts education, older niche fields like classics are hidden gems, and a lot more fun than an over enrolled Econ or English department.
41
Over enrolled English classes? What planet are you living on? With parental pressure and the cost of tuition, fewer and fewer students are enrolling, let alone majoring, in fields that seeming do not have an "immediate" pay off. Sadly, all the hidden gems of a liberal arts education are vanishing from most university curricula.
3
When I was in 8th grade in the 60s I went to a private school that required Latin classes unless you had studied French or Spanish before. I fibbed and was able to take French and that was slightly handy when traveling around Europe. But the French language fell off the radar and you rarely encountered this language in everyday life. Then I took Spanish as an adult and was able to use that in everyday life traveling to Central and South America and around Washington, DC. However, each class I took had progressively fewer person until the advanced class which only had a handful. I have no regrets for avoiding Latin even though I was told it would be handy for law school. (only a few phrases here and there). The amount of work it takes to become proficient in a language makes important to use that language frequently or you lose your abilities. I think it is better to learn an easier language like Spanish than to trudge through Greek or Latin and never have any proficiency in either. I am sure my fellow alumni who took Latin more than 40 years ago, remember little from their Latin classes. I wish I had chosen Spanish!
I don't think "epiphany" is the equivalent of "revelation" or "sudden understanding" -- although it has been used that way in the U.S. since the Age of Aquarius.
If I recall, epi-phanein means a showing forth, appearing, becoming manifest -- which is not the same as running into a manifestation. See Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1913 [sic] edition.
If I recall, epi-phanein means a showing forth, appearing, becoming manifest -- which is not the same as running into a manifestation. See Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary 1913 [sic] edition.
Yes, yes, so many of us get the Greek, the Latin, the roots. Others, for myriad reasons, may not, or may not care so much. But if your teachings can convey early, enduring wisdom, then congrats!
1
The problem with language learning is always grammar. You really never understand English grammar until you encounter foreign languages; in your own language it has become intuitive-- to speak another you have to learn it. Then, you understand the grammar of your own language for the first time. The sentence diagrams of 8th grade finally come to make sense...
"If I had been there then, I would have done that"....learn it in a foreign language, and you'll finally understand the complexity of what you take for granted in English.
Cases are hard. French for me was so much easier than German; no comparison.
"If I had been there then, I would have done that"....learn it in a foreign language, and you'll finally understand the complexity of what you take for granted in English.
Cases are hard. French for me was so much easier than German; no comparison.
26
I am Greek and have attended the Greek Gymnasium and Lyceum prior to my college studies. I recall some great and some low moments we had in the lessons of Ancient Greek.
They had to do with bits and pieces outside the curriculum, the result of the teacher's initiative to share with us some of her knowledge. As an example, I remember the story of the word "anthropos", which can be translated as "man" in the generic sense. We would discuss where the word came from, how it is related to "man" and "woman", and how other languages handle similar words. From man we would go to "hero", and discusss not only the word but the ideology of "heroism" in Homer and its demise with the development of the Athenian Democracy. Absolutely fascinating stuff.
On the low side, the word by word translation of long passages out of context was terrible. Why bother with a passage from Lyssias when you can tackle Pericle's Funeral Oration? I will never know.
The situation today in Greek basic education is different. There is no study of Ancient Greek whatsoever. The overall level of language learning is very low. Journalists, politicians, scientists, and other "pillars" of society cannot speak Greek correctly.
They had to do with bits and pieces outside the curriculum, the result of the teacher's initiative to share with us some of her knowledge. As an example, I remember the story of the word "anthropos", which can be translated as "man" in the generic sense. We would discuss where the word came from, how it is related to "man" and "woman", and how other languages handle similar words. From man we would go to "hero", and discusss not only the word but the ideology of "heroism" in Homer and its demise with the development of the Athenian Democracy. Absolutely fascinating stuff.
On the low side, the word by word translation of long passages out of context was terrible. Why bother with a passage from Lyssias when you can tackle Pericle's Funeral Oration? I will never know.
The situation today in Greek basic education is different. There is no study of Ancient Greek whatsoever. The overall level of language learning is very low. Journalists, politicians, scientists, and other "pillars" of society cannot speak Greek correctly.
5
I recall that I.F Stone, the brilliant political scholar, commentator and publisher of the independent, renowned "I.F Stone's Weekly" taught himself Greek at an advanced age so he could read the original texts of the great Greek writers.
Search I.F. Stone.
An incredibly astute, insightful observer of the American political scene and foreign policy.
Makes the inane, inarticulate, childish discourse by today's right wing look like sad, fantastical joke.
Search I.F. Stone.
An incredibly astute, insightful observer of the American political scene and foreign policy.
Makes the inane, inarticulate, childish discourse by today's right wing look like sad, fantastical joke.
5
For most of the first term of Greek I could not figure out where to put the accent in words, then it came to me in a dream, really. I got out of bed and wrote it down. I brought it in to Professor Casson, my Greek teacher, and lo and behold it was right. That experience never happened to me before and has not happened to me since. It was a wonderful moment.
5
I took 4 years of Latin in high school. I had great teachers and enjoyed every minute of class. To read ancient texts, even if only adequately, provides a wonderful gateway into the past and into the wordplay of brilliant minds.
8
With respect, I don't think you're reading the situation correctly. It isn't about "adaptability, acceptance of change" that's holding your students up, so much as it's about utter lack of motivation. Children tend to want to learn about things that are either useful or inherently interesting and fun. Children will enthusiastically learn about space travel and dinosaurs because it speaks to their imagination. Children will also buckle down and learn something dry, like fractions, because they understand they'll need it later on in life. What incentive does a child have to learn ancient Greek? They know they'll never use it in real life, so the advantage is, what exactly, the thrill of being able to read a bunch of old plays and historical accounts in their original language? Good luck! Perhaps if you introduced your kids to a few exciting sources in English first, like an abridged Odyssey, you'd have better luck sparking their interest.
5
I've never seen anyone except a prospective seminarian sign up for ancient Greek without a preexisting interest in mythology, the Homeric epics, classical philosophy, or some element of the classical world.
If you were among those who had a visceral reaction to Daesh destroying the Roman-era temples in Syria, then you support the continuation of classical studies—although some don't realize what a marvel of cultural pluralism sites such as Palmyra and Dura-Europas really are, because they've been brainwashed by Hollywood to think of the Roman Empire as the Third Reich. We suffer great loss if we destroy even the archaeological sites of the mind, and don't pass along this knowledge in varying grades of proficiency, from those who tend the innermost flame to those who just drop by once in a while to get warm.
We don't need many classics majors, and I reluctantly concede that we don't need every college student to have studied classical culture, since the B-school drones wouldn't get it anyway. But why cheer the bonfire and help throw in those "old plays and historical accounts"?
Reminds me of how much people like to mock art history majors—on the way to gawp at the art in museums. Cultural curation requires learning that is deep and wide; to return to the topic of classical languages, somebody needs the expertise for the occasional manuscript find. And every generation needs its own translations that are vivid to the contemporary ear; where do you think those come from?
If you were among those who had a visceral reaction to Daesh destroying the Roman-era temples in Syria, then you support the continuation of classical studies—although some don't realize what a marvel of cultural pluralism sites such as Palmyra and Dura-Europas really are, because they've been brainwashed by Hollywood to think of the Roman Empire as the Third Reich. We suffer great loss if we destroy even the archaeological sites of the mind, and don't pass along this knowledge in varying grades of proficiency, from those who tend the innermost flame to those who just drop by once in a while to get warm.
We don't need many classics majors, and I reluctantly concede that we don't need every college student to have studied classical culture, since the B-school drones wouldn't get it anyway. But why cheer the bonfire and help throw in those "old plays and historical accounts"?
Reminds me of how much people like to mock art history majors—on the way to gawp at the art in museums. Cultural curation requires learning that is deep and wide; to return to the topic of classical languages, somebody needs the expertise for the occasional manuscript find. And every generation needs its own translations that are vivid to the contemporary ear; where do you think those come from?
7
au contraire, Monsieur. My eighth grade English teacher, Miss Mcdonald - who happened to appreciate the 'dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee' boxing style of Cassius Clay - was a constant source of insight to a young teenage boy. She opened the doors to english by teaching us Greek and Latin roots. Once armed with this spear and shield, I was ready to conquer new fields.
5
I'd love to learn Ancient Greek, but at age 70, living in a small town, it ain't going to happen. Keep on keepin' on my friend. There's yet hope for us all as evidenced by those who still want to learn.
4
I. F. Stone did it!
2
Here is something that might make Greek (and any other language) a bit easier to bear, if not to learn:
Take a piece of ruled notebook paper and fold it over until the red line at the right margin aligns with the one at the left margin. Then fold over the already-folded sheet to make four columns. Then create sixteen rectangular places on the paper, with lines drawn to make these rectangles clearer. Then insert the Greek text of the lesson, one word at a time (for now -- later you can combine articles and/or adjectives with nouns for a clearer image of what you are doing. Then insert a word-by-word translation underneath the Greek words already entered. If you are still curious, you might venture to locate the Indo-European roots of the Greek words you have written down. There should be a bit of unformatted space underneath the sixteen rectangles, and this is where you should attempt an accurate and syntactically coherent English translation of the Greek text. (What you will have within the rectangles will amount to a "trot" (word-for-word translation), but you still need to make a coherent English translation of the Greek text.) As Luther advised back in the 16th century, translate the meaning and "not the letters," by which he meant: "Don't translate literally." --E.A.C.
Take a piece of ruled notebook paper and fold it over until the red line at the right margin aligns with the one at the left margin. Then fold over the already-folded sheet to make four columns. Then create sixteen rectangular places on the paper, with lines drawn to make these rectangles clearer. Then insert the Greek text of the lesson, one word at a time (for now -- later you can combine articles and/or adjectives with nouns for a clearer image of what you are doing. Then insert a word-by-word translation underneath the Greek words already entered. If you are still curious, you might venture to locate the Indo-European roots of the Greek words you have written down. There should be a bit of unformatted space underneath the sixteen rectangles, and this is where you should attempt an accurate and syntactically coherent English translation of the Greek text. (What you will have within the rectangles will amount to a "trot" (word-for-word translation), but you still need to make a coherent English translation of the Greek text.) As Luther advised back in the 16th century, translate the meaning and "not the letters," by which he meant: "Don't translate literally." --E.A.C.
2
I studied Latin in college more than 30 years ago. I don't remember the students being this inept.
3
Professor Romm,
I spent years 7-12 of secondary school having no idea why I was studying Latin, other than my guidance counselor's insistence that it would be very useful in STEM. As it turned out, most of my career was not in STEM, but instead as a freelance editor, for which my grounding in Latin grammar proved extremely useful.
In semi-retirement, on a whim, I began translating poems of Catullus. I discovered the identity of the woman (his beloved Lesbia, of course) he viciously, and deliciously, gossips about in his Song 67 ("The Door"). I subsequently wrote a 200-page (self-published) book proving this identification beyond reasonable cavil.
Had someone told either of my secondary school Latin teachers (Miss Elizabeth Coates and Miss Ruth Yergin -- to both of whom my book is dedicated) that I would someday accomplish this, and if they were more physically demonstrative, each would have fallen to the floor laughing her head off.
As a teacher, you have planted seeds. One or more may very well bear sweet fruit in even seemingly barren soil.
Gaetano Catelli, author: "Behind Lesbia's Door"
I spent years 7-12 of secondary school having no idea why I was studying Latin, other than my guidance counselor's insistence that it would be very useful in STEM. As it turned out, most of my career was not in STEM, but instead as a freelance editor, for which my grounding in Latin grammar proved extremely useful.
In semi-retirement, on a whim, I began translating poems of Catullus. I discovered the identity of the woman (his beloved Lesbia, of course) he viciously, and deliciously, gossips about in his Song 67 ("The Door"). I subsequently wrote a 200-page (self-published) book proving this identification beyond reasonable cavil.
Had someone told either of my secondary school Latin teachers (Miss Elizabeth Coates and Miss Ruth Yergin -- to both of whom my book is dedicated) that I would someday accomplish this, and if they were more physically demonstrative, each would have fallen to the floor laughing her head off.
As a teacher, you have planted seeds. One or more may very well bear sweet fruit in even seemingly barren soil.
Gaetano Catelli, author: "Behind Lesbia's Door"
3
I certainly wish I'd had the author as my professor when I took second semester Koiné as an independent study, only to discover that the exams were based on a previous textbook. "oh, well," shrugged my professor when I pointed it out to him. "life's not fair."
2
I majored in French in college. I wanted to teach the language to high school students. When I did my student teaching I realized that for the next thirty years or so I would be attempting to teach listless students how to say, Bonjour. Je m'apelle Marie." I decided not to teach, but started a family.
But I still believe strongly in the idea that learning a foreign language is important and not a useless exercise.
But I still believe strongly in the idea that learning a foreign language is important and not a useless exercise.
2
Keep going Professor Romm. My father, an engineer who saw so many young grads who couldn't write, insisted I take Latin because it would "help my English." For many years I hated him for it. But now I look back on my five years of Latin in high school, as among my richest experiences at that level.
If I had my druthers, every human being on this planet would take one modern language they can use now, and one classical language (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, classical Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, probably others I'm ignorant of). The importance is not simply learning the language, but the culture, history, and impact of our forbears.
If I had my druthers, every human being on this planet would take one modern language they can use now, and one classical language (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, classical Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, probably others I'm ignorant of). The importance is not simply learning the language, but the culture, history, and impact of our forbears.
4
I think that studying foreign languages is a wonderful and necessary thing for the brain. It forces the student to erase the chalkboard of the language they were born into, and to see that other people express things using different sounds and arrangements of words. He or she must learn to really listen. The student has to learn to feel a little silly, twisting your face into unfamiliar and weird-seeming positions and uttering embarrassing sounds. You begin to understand something about how and why other cultures are different. But we have become lax because we are the most powerful country in the world, militarily and commercially. This goes along with the idea that college should just "prepare you for life" and teach you things that will get you a job. I am so happy that I had to take Latin in high school and I majored in French in college. As an adult I had a chance to take an informal Greek class in a church. The dear man actually took on eight students who would give it a go. It didn't go far, but I loved it and still remember a little. I am learning Spanish now. Yay for foreign languages.
2
And the country needs Latin teachers--there's a shortage.
3
Hi Jamie,
What a welcome surprise to stumble upon this piece! I took your Basic Greek class and went on to study Greek every year I was at Bard. Whiile I ended up in an unrelated career, social work, Anne Carson's Sappho translation is on my nightstand now and I come back to Greek with some frequency. Without question, the study of classics has enriched my life.
Thanks for the opportunity to hear your side of the story, and for this thoughtful analysis of the (for me, invaluable) role you played in my and others' education.
What a welcome surprise to stumble upon this piece! I took your Basic Greek class and went on to study Greek every year I was at Bard. Whiile I ended up in an unrelated career, social work, Anne Carson's Sappho translation is on my nightstand now and I come back to Greek with some frequency. Without question, the study of classics has enriched my life.
Thanks for the opportunity to hear your side of the story, and for this thoughtful analysis of the (for me, invaluable) role you played in my and others' education.
7
I don't know which is worse-
A professional translator who thinks that a phrase is untranslatable, or
A professor who puts an unanswerable question on a test.
A professional translator who thinks that a phrase is untranslatable, or
A professor who puts an unanswerable question on a test.
1
"is what readers of English are programmed to do"
As are readers of French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish. The German language uses case endings but there are only four.
That the Latin based modern languages (e.g. Italian and Spanish) have no use for case endings may be an indication of their lack of worth and, indeed, their hindrance on the universal acceptance of a language.
As are readers of French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish. The German language uses case endings but there are only four.
That the Latin based modern languages (e.g. Italian and Spanish) have no use for case endings may be an indication of their lack of worth and, indeed, their hindrance on the universal acceptance of a language.
Your comment is a good one for making Latin and Greek mandatory in Middle and High Schools across the country. It's stunning in its ignorance of the world, the mind, and the basics of communication. You are using cases all the time, but don't know it.
4
The world has changed, alas. I took Spanish in public school from 7th grade to 12th. I adored my high school teacher, and she adored me, no doubt because I had a special aptitude for languages. Most of my peers did not. I decided to major in Spanish at the university and was required to learn Latin as well. I was fascinated by all those case endings and spent hundreds of hours memorizing them. The study of Latin led me to a career decision to get a doctorate in Romance Philology. I had to learn French, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, and German in addition to Spanish and Latin. Learning these languages has greatly enriched my life in myriad ways, and I have no regrets. I don't know why anyone would pursue an advanced degree in Philology today as there are no teaching jobs in this field, and very few of us can afford to study a subject matter just for the pleasure of it. Some of the students in Greek 101 were most likely there because of a language requirement or because their ancestors were Greek. Who cares? If you manage to instill a love for the language in just one student, be content. Maybe s/he will begin a life-long journey down a path you helped to pave.
5
I would love to learn Ancient Greek of some variety. The free language-learning site I frequent, Duolingo, doesn't yet offer such a course, though Klingon is available.
1
thank you for this article
you inspired me to find the original dr seuss, narrated by John Cleese!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcuw5p_did-i-ever-tell-you-how-lucky-yo...
you inspired me to find the original dr seuss, narrated by John Cleese!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcuw5p_did-i-ever-tell-you-how-lucky-yo...
1
Just a kind of trivia question that just hit me: would a student from Greece have an easier time learning Ancient Greek?
Also, a basic question, which might have the same or similar answer to all teachers of languages: how did you learn the language that you teach?
Also, a basic question, which might have the same or similar answer to all teachers of languages: how did you learn the language that you teach?
1
Anyone notice the word on the pile?
3
"Some of my students still, after 120 hours of instruction, take the first noun in a sentence as its subject, no matter what form it’s in. Their habits of 15 years of reading English will not give way..." As a former high school English teacher, I hope to god students aren't being taught that the first noun in a sentence is the subject. If that's the case, how in the world are they to learn a second language when they can't even distinguish the subject from the predicate in their native tongue?
3
A delightful piece. To those who feel that Professor Romm is hopelessly leading his students backward into a language -- a cavern -- growing darker and more remote with each passing decade, I'd say, "Hold up." Let's attend and try to hear his cri de coeur.
I think he doesn't so much want his students to wend and twist their way back into classical Greek simply for its own sake as much as he wants them to hear the cries of the ancients unfiltered by today's tropes, the "thinking" that we can all "relate" to. I imagine that by insisting on correct grammatical order he's trying to help his students hear, and feel, the words as the Greeks might have heard, felt and acted upon them. He believes that one can make one's way via grammar and syntax into the minds and hearts of the Greeks. Then, having "gotten" it the Greeks' way, we can return to our syntax, our certainties, and be in even more secure possession of our world.
Antigone's cry is ancient but it surely isn't dead. She was crying out for justice. Do we really want to forgo any possible path to better understanding that vital concept?
I think he doesn't so much want his students to wend and twist their way back into classical Greek simply for its own sake as much as he wants them to hear the cries of the ancients unfiltered by today's tropes, the "thinking" that we can all "relate" to. I imagine that by insisting on correct grammatical order he's trying to help his students hear, and feel, the words as the Greeks might have heard, felt and acted upon them. He believes that one can make one's way via grammar and syntax into the minds and hearts of the Greeks. Then, having "gotten" it the Greeks' way, we can return to our syntax, our certainties, and be in even more secure possession of our world.
Antigone's cry is ancient but it surely isn't dead. She was crying out for justice. Do we really want to forgo any possible path to better understanding that vital concept?
30
So, only two out of your 10 students perfectly translated a passage on the final exam; the rest of them got some of the words, and some of the meaning, but did not perfectly understand the text.
I'm curious to know how long Professor Romm has been in the classroom. I teach economics, and I would be happy if 20% of my students nailed a difficult task by the end of the semester.
I'm curious to know how long Professor Romm has been in the classroom. I teach economics, and I would be happy if 20% of my students nailed a difficult task by the end of the semester.
19
I loved learning ancient Greek in college -- some of my best memories. It was not tedious, but wonderful because we read selections from gorgeous epics and plays right away instead of learning how to greet people, comment on the weather, and order in restaurants. It made me better able to read works like the Iliad in translation because I had a sense of how the underlying language works and could guess or look up words and phrases in my lexicon. It also made me better able to understand the potential of languages -- the possibilities and tradeoffs of different structures, the limits of my own. One of my professors always brought tea and donuts. Something about the early morning class, the cold weather, the tea, and reading passages from Aristophanes in English and Greek was joyful.
46
I never had the opportunity to study classical Greek, but oh how I loved my study of Koine or New Testament Greek!!! Class was 5 days a week, 8 AM, and I sat front row, center, hanging on every word from my beloved professor, Dr. E.C. Colwell. I worked on translations 3 hours every night, 7 days a week. For weekends, I begged for an entire chapter to translate rather than a few verses. I could never get enough.
Do not despair, Professor, for those who appreciate the mental challenge and succeed and for their joy in understanding. It is a treasure worth discovering.
Do not despair, Professor, for those who appreciate the mental challenge and succeed and for their joy in understanding. It is a treasure worth discovering.
8
Education is a funny thing. So many of the curtains we teachers struggle to raise between students and a discipline simply fall back when the class is done. Why on earth do we keep on trying? Is there any point? I've thought of three solaces:
1) Yes, most students forget, but there are just a few for whom our class opens up a universe. It'd be easier to teach just those kids, but who can tell who they are? You have to take the whole batch.
2) It's like the old story about not remembering any sermons. "Yes", said a wise man, "it's true. But I can't remember many of the meals my wife has cooked for me over the years either, and yet each one has nourished me just the same."
3) To bring a student into the presence of a discipline and the conversations others have had with it - that is our job as teachers. Yes, part of that involves the microscopic skills and facts that they'll forget, but those little things are the trees that form a forest, the shape and feel of which will be with a student long after they've forgotten the individual trees.
I wrote those in order of my preference for them. Having said all that, I gotta say - Professor Romm, I feel your pain. I just taught how to use the second derivative to discover if a function has a max or min when its slope is 0. It was hard slogging. Two of them might remember it in a year. Oh goodness!
1) Yes, most students forget, but there are just a few for whom our class opens up a universe. It'd be easier to teach just those kids, but who can tell who they are? You have to take the whole batch.
2) It's like the old story about not remembering any sermons. "Yes", said a wise man, "it's true. But I can't remember many of the meals my wife has cooked for me over the years either, and yet each one has nourished me just the same."
3) To bring a student into the presence of a discipline and the conversations others have had with it - that is our job as teachers. Yes, part of that involves the microscopic skills and facts that they'll forget, but those little things are the trees that form a forest, the shape and feel of which will be with a student long after they've forgotten the individual trees.
I wrote those in order of my preference for them. Having said all that, I gotta say - Professor Romm, I feel your pain. I just taught how to use the second derivative to discover if a function has a max or min when its slope is 0. It was hard slogging. Two of them might remember it in a year. Oh goodness!
7
I am Greek and American; born, raised and educated in New England. I am bi-lingual and lucky enough to have been taught Ancient Greek and Latin. Your students are fortunate to have you. Ancient Greek is a conceptual language .... every word is a small "cosmos." I feel especially grateful as my daughter is a student at Bard. What a pleasant surprise, to read and then discover... your persistence at such a fabulous school.
10
My mom is Greek American, born to two Greek emigrants, and did not speak any English despite being born in the United States until she entered kindergarten. At 86 she's still quite fluent in Greek although she says that her Greek is how a second grader would talk in Greece. My older brother took Greek lessons at our church and moaned and groaned about it so much, I refused to take it when it was my turn despite my mom begging to take it.
As for ancient Greek its one of the few languages that a modern Greek speaker could mostly understand if they time warped back to 2400 BC.
As for ancient Greek its one of the few languages that a modern Greek speaker could mostly understand if they time warped back to 2400 BC.
1
What about the middle voice?
1
I really enjoyed this article. This was a very accurate description of the experience I had studying Latin at McGill University. I went into the course very eager and enthusiastic, spending hours studying and attending extra help hours with my prof, but things slowly fell apart over the course of the year. I remember translating the story of Plimy on my final exam, and then going home and being horrified when I read what really happened in the story. to the author, I want you to know that while I am still bitter towards the entire Latin language to this day (and in a cruel twist of irony, cannot read the all-Latin text on my McGill diploma), what I do remember from the course was my wonderful professor and how his passion and energy inspired me through the darkest days.
8
Studying Greek in college wasn't easy for me, nor was I the best student in our tiny classes by far. But it was an unalloyed joy. Even in my middling mediocrity as a reader of Greek, I could see (and hear!) the music in the words, and the sense that I was touching something ancient with every word -- hearing long-dead voices in all their weird, onomatopoetic yelpings -- was thrilling enough to lure me into three full years of coursework. I'm sure my own (wonderful, long-suffering) professor at Mount Holyoke (who never failed to ply us with hot tea and gingersnaps every afternoon our classes met) felt similar despair at our thickheadedness. But I hope she also noticed our untranslatable joy.
7
Does ancient Greek count for language requirements? It probably shouldn't - modern Greek is not widely used (ancient Greek was) and apparently you would have to learn that - another language - even to get along in Greece.
Maybe Romm would be happier with smaller but more dedicated classes.
Maybe Romm would be happier with smaller but more dedicated classes.
I understand your pain and sympathize. In elementary school I learned how to diagram sentences. In high school I had 2 years of Latin. In college 2 years of German. I learned French and Russian on my own because my work put me put me contact with people in both countries. Diagramming English sentences was the most important of all those because it facilitated writing English and rendered the foreign languages straight forward to learn. It is important to know a foreign language in this emerging world.
In the 1980s I talked my 3 children into taking Latin in high school. The existence of diagramming English sentences was a rumor they had heard. My oldest claimed first-year Latin was cultural and historical things. He had never heard the words "declension" and "conjugation," but he was familiar with the need for word endings. My middle child spent a month in France and told me she was not going to another Latin class ever. She was going to take 2 years of French, a reasonable comprise. My youngest dropped out of Latin after 3 semesters. I have no idea how he satisfied his language requirement to take 4 semesters of the same foreign language.
I once knew an engineer who said he would be the last American who would know how to read. American public education has abandoned serious education in any language including English, except for the few students who want to learn one.
In the 1980s I talked my 3 children into taking Latin in high school. The existence of diagramming English sentences was a rumor they had heard. My oldest claimed first-year Latin was cultural and historical things. He had never heard the words "declension" and "conjugation," but he was familiar with the need for word endings. My middle child spent a month in France and told me she was not going to another Latin class ever. She was going to take 2 years of French, a reasonable comprise. My youngest dropped out of Latin after 3 semesters. I have no idea how he satisfied his language requirement to take 4 semesters of the same foreign language.
I once knew an engineer who said he would be the last American who would know how to read. American public education has abandoned serious education in any language including English, except for the few students who want to learn one.
64
I, too, loved diagramming in the 7th grade. Even today when I read an English sentence that looks a little odd, I mentally diagram it to see where it went wrong. A couple of years ago I tried to find a book on diagramming and was disappointed. Thank you, Miss Handron; you are missed.
4
Having quit grade school many years ago, I thought I was through with declining sentences. Imaging my surprise when decades later I was teaching business law at an honor's college. I found students seemed not to know how to write a full sentence to answer the question "What is the issue in this case?" I began to diagram answers to this question and explained how every sentence must have a subject and a predicate.
Sigh.
Sigh.
4
In the old days in HS when foreign language was obligatory one studied latin if they were planning on a medical career, German if they were planning Engineering, French for diplomatic pursuits & Spanish if Foreign Languages were beyond their interest.
4
Kalepa ta kala
11
kalepa ta kala" in English is "The beautiful things (are) difficult."
3
I started learning Greek a few months ago & I absolutely love it! It's alphabet is very similar to (perhaps an originator of?) the Russian Cyrillic, a language which I studied in junior high school, high school and college and also feel a deep affinity and attachment for. Of all the 7 daily language pods that get delivered to my email every morning, the one I look forward to deciphering and wading through and for which I feel the most mental and emotional interest & joy in is Greek. I can't tell if it is the ancientness, the removal from all "modern" connotations or culture (I have a similar love for Latin, in my opinion the most majestic and elegant of all languages that ever were) or the inherent vibrancy balanced with measuredness & the "soul" of the language. Whatever it is, for me it is alive, brimming w/ a life force and captivates. I empathize with Professor Romm's dilemma only to say - I'm available for private instruction.
18
Richard is right that "there are excellent translations of Homer into more current languages, in which we can read of Sisyphus..." But (to give just a slight example of why we read it in Greek) those translations do not reproduce the sound of Sisyphus's rock, AŪtar epEĪta pedŌnde kulĪndeto lĀas anAĪdes.
11
But they could -- vide [that's "see" in the vocative] Alexander Pope:
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
3
Several years back, I worked my way through a four-part Latin course on my own, and an introductory Greek course after that. I am sorry to report that I can no longer easily read texts in either language, as I haven't maintained the habit of reading either language on a regular basis. But my understanding of English, it's origins, grammar, syntax, and usage, has been immeasurably enhanced.
The pleasure really was in the learning, and in having the sense of meeting the minds -- on their own turf as it were -- who formulated and expressed the ideas that shaped the Western world. Someday, I'd love to go back for a refresher and then tackle Thucydides.
The pleasure really was in the learning, and in having the sense of meeting the minds -- on their own turf as it were -- who formulated and expressed the ideas that shaped the Western world. Someday, I'd love to go back for a refresher and then tackle Thucydides.
29
English, at it's best.
2
My Greek is limited to halting New Testament Greek, but I laud you for bringing this magnificent experience to your students. You are obviously a true didaskalos, with such a love for your worthy subject and the desire to share it with others. Even those who learned little and gave up after one semester are the better for it, bearing a greater appreciation for their own language and for a world richer and more complex than they knew. Xaris soi kai eirene!
11
Prof. Romm- you are fortunate that you are teaching in a liberal arts college with undoubtedly well-to-do students who are willing to take Greek, for whatever reason, although some of them seem a little slow.
Maintaining small classes of 8-10 students is a luxury that not all universities allow today, although 8-10 in a Greek class is a rather large number.
Dr. Seuss was right, though, you are very lucky that Bard will allow you even to be Professor de Breeze.
Maintaining small classes of 8-10 students is a luxury that not all universities allow today, although 8-10 in a Greek class is a rather large number.
Dr. Seuss was right, though, you are very lucky that Bard will allow you even to be Professor de Breeze.
18
I totally understand. I have been teaching "introductory Bible" since 1985, forever hoping that somehow I can show my students the "text within the text," to have their eyes opened to understanding the perspectives of the writers, the first hypertext authors, instead of plodding like a chain gang through one "book" after another ... and every so often somebody will "get it," slip loose from the bonds of literalness and linearity, and it is delightful and exciting all at once. Teaching is ministry. God bless you for your perseverance!
8
This is probably a very interesting course. The Bible is basically not a religious text but about common sense in a difficult region!!
You're getting them too late, Jamie, and you don't see them often enough. My Latin students "get" the case endings by now as freshmen--but I see them five days a week and they're younger and less entrenched in their heads; it's easier for them to absorb new things. The ones that don't, I send to Spanish! Oimoi, ti draso, indeed! Dr. Susan Brockman, Stuyvesant HS
18
You have a point DrB. Teaching a classical language to younger students does give the teacher a leg up. Yet, your students are high school students and your school is high school. Stuyvesant HS is not college and even AP courses are not college courses. The pace of high school language instruction simply cannot have the breadth and depth of college language instruction, even if your students are smart, spent middle school training their brains for the specialized high school test, and your pool of students are just about the most sheerly competitive students in NYC. Perhaps a point worthy of consideration here is that your students are singularly intent upon getting into the most "prestigious" college they can get into and will singlemindedly pursue the best grade they can get, while Bard College students can choose to sign up for ancient Greek out of curiosity and a love of learning. Perhaps your comparison of your students versus Prof. Romm's students is an apple and oranges comparison. Addressing the underlying issues of teaching the classics to college students is a complex question taking into account the array of pressures on college students today. Nevertheless, you are very lucky to be able to teach such talented students Latin and no doubt they will be influenced in their life by learning Latin in such a rich environment.
Not sure you know what you are talking about, sorry. You have no idea what I and my students do or why they do it, despite your own kids being at Bard Early College. I have taught language at many levels, and no, there is no "apples and oranges." I think you are simply reacting, sadly, to my mentioning "Stuyvesant HS," with all the stereotypes and envy so prevalent in NYC. Jamie is an old friend, and I was really saying hello. And my 168 Latin students are totally signed up for "love of learning." The ones that hate their foreign language requirement take Spanish, I'm afraid. Not fair to Spanish. BTW, I came into college with 8 years of French and 4 of Greek, and I know what I'm talking about when I speak of early foreign language learning. After those languages, I was able to teach myself enough Latin in two weeks to teach it at the HS level, starting in 1998 with a Ph.D. in Comp. Lit. It's a different animal when you start a language early and in an immersive environment, which HS can give. Starting in college is VERY tough.
6
I, too, took NT Greek (reputed to be easier than the classics!) almost 60 years ago. Unfortunately, years of church on several levels had implanted a memory of the English text in my subconscious, and so I'm afraid that my "translations" were crude recollections of the King James version, emended by the Greek text. I can only wonder if, had I begun with the classics (like the much more noble fellow-commentors!) I might have really learned Greek. (I doubt it!)
4
Perhaps Professor Romm expects too much from his beginning students. I majored in it and I found Sophocles difficult; and Homeric Greek is an earlier dialect, related to standard Attic as Shakespearean English is to today's. I learned on Xenophon and Herodotus, relatively accessible prose, with some Aristophanes for laughs. And I had studied three years of Latin in a (public) high school; the two languages are not that closely related, but both are highly inflected rather than being word-order dependent like modern English. Frankly I don't read it much in the original today, except now and then, though I was enthusiastic enough about it to study Sanskrit later after law school. So cheer up, Professor! The lack of immediate results of the kind you hope for doesn't mean there are none. You are planting seeds. And I have it on good authority that the days will get longer soon.
38
Sounds like a huge success story to me. I did something similar, repeatedly, with Russian instead of Greek, Pushkin instead of Sophocles. In retrospect, it was worth the existential pain, most of the time. You, unassuming Hero, are carrying a torch. Thanks for sharing the light.
22
i'd suggest the word "teach" is overstretched when it comes to attic greek. you can teach the tying of a knot by showing, and you can teach the theorem of pythagoras by explaining. one requires practice to master, the other memorization.
grammar is different. we know language learning follows neither from memorization nor practice primarily: there is an innate language sense that charts a developmentally idiosyncratic path through grammar and culturally appropriate usage. once formed by culture, language is difficult to reorient. simply memorizing words and declensions won't do it. not only must a new grammar be mastered, it has to supersede the reflexes embedded in the natal one.
every infant is thrown into the sea of culture and must learn to swim, but each is guided by natural development, patient correction, and immersion over more than a decade. language acquisition is not related to intelligence, as prof. romm notes; it's related to learning capabilities that are not easily measured in advance and that seem to decline significantly with age.
to assume that language can be learned at the same tempo of memorization and practice as a sport or a discipline like trigonometry is where the concept of teaching breaks down. if we allowed people a decade to become fluent in a new language, results might better correspond to expectations.
grammar is different. we know language learning follows neither from memorization nor practice primarily: there is an innate language sense that charts a developmentally idiosyncratic path through grammar and culturally appropriate usage. once formed by culture, language is difficult to reorient. simply memorizing words and declensions won't do it. not only must a new grammar be mastered, it has to supersede the reflexes embedded in the natal one.
every infant is thrown into the sea of culture and must learn to swim, but each is guided by natural development, patient correction, and immersion over more than a decade. language acquisition is not related to intelligence, as prof. romm notes; it's related to learning capabilities that are not easily measured in advance and that seem to decline significantly with age.
to assume that language can be learned at the same tempo of memorization and practice as a sport or a discipline like trigonometry is where the concept of teaching breaks down. if we allowed people a decade to become fluent in a new language, results might better correspond to expectations.
16
Brother, keep fighting the good fight. A long time ago I majored in Classics, band I find everything I know about grammatically about English came from learning Latin, sorry not Greek. Everything that I learned about translation has come from learning Spanish as I taught ESL in Ecuador.
The two paths are very different. Now that I use Spanish daily and speak fluently, albeit with a gringo accent, there are different aspects of the Spanish and English languages that I prefer. The most difficult part about learning ancient languages is the amount of practice we get in using the language. My professor said that reading and learning Latin is difficult because it would be as if we were learning English using texts from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Joyce. Authors separated by centuries but still sharing the 'same' language.
Most students are trying to overcome the Google translator hurdle and not even thinking about the feeling of the words. Maybe a few classes about analyzing different translations would be good to indicate the nuances and to point out that it is not a dictionary drill. If you are a NPR fan, check out an episode of RadioLab called Translation, it should be readily available in their downloads to get your students started and to give you another angle about how the human brain works and translates.
All the best.
The two paths are very different. Now that I use Spanish daily and speak fluently, albeit with a gringo accent, there are different aspects of the Spanish and English languages that I prefer. The most difficult part about learning ancient languages is the amount of practice we get in using the language. My professor said that reading and learning Latin is difficult because it would be as if we were learning English using texts from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Joyce. Authors separated by centuries but still sharing the 'same' language.
Most students are trying to overcome the Google translator hurdle and not even thinking about the feeling of the words. Maybe a few classes about analyzing different translations would be good to indicate the nuances and to point out that it is not a dictionary drill. If you are a NPR fan, check out an episode of RadioLab called Translation, it should be readily available in their downloads to get your students started and to give you another angle about how the human brain works and translates.
All the best.
16
Well in Latin we have or had Roman Law!!
I was a German major, but I took once a class in English and American satire. Among the readings were a few of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I had already taken a course in Middle High German, and so I decided to try to read the few stories by Chaucer in his own Middle English. I discovered that I could! And I looked up certain Middle English words in Lexer's Mittelhochdeusches Wörterbuch. They were actually there, if spelled a bit differently. This shows what an education can do for you. --E.A.C.
3
I am 77 and have a friend of about my age who went to Boston Latin High School when it was all boys. The students had to choose between Latin and Greek. To help them choose, the school had a meeting for all who had to make the choice. First the Latin teacher,a charismatic young man, stood up and spoke passionately about the glories of Rome, the greatness of Latin literature, and the influence of latin on other languages including English.
Then the Greek instructor, a wizened old man stood up and said dryly, "At Latin, we have a tradition. The better boys take Greek," And sat down.
Then the Greek instructor, a wizened old man stood up and said dryly, "At Latin, we have a tradition. The better boys take Greek," And sat down.
58
The professor describes English native speakers in the US attempting to learn Greek. Like German and especially Russian, it is relatively more structured in rules and applications concerning case, tense, conjugation and declension, than is English. It isn't an especially difficult language, but like modern Russian, requires significantly more intellectual effort, rote learning, skill and analysis than other more popular second-language college sequences like Spanish.
10
What I took away from this piece is that I shouldn't undertake really difficult tasks in the fall. Wait untill I will see more and more light, in both senses of the word.
3
Greek for medicine? For the sciences; university literature; interpreter? [Old Greek or New Greek?] Why else would anyone be studying the language? Language requirements don't require selecting such a language. I could see Latin before I could see Greek. I'm sorry I couldn't take Latin when it was offered. but Greek?
2
There is far more to becoming educated than to becoming licensed or certified.
5
Every five or ten years I take a stab at reading Greek again -- I had it in college thirty years ago. I always find I've forgotten almost everything, but on the other hand I feel I get a bit more sophisticated each time. And I still remember some poetry, and love the sound of it. And I appreciate my teacher, who was the last person to be a showman, and knew that the class was an odd, small collection of people there for disparate reasons.
8
Poor guy: he sounds just like Mr. Parkhill, the teacher of English to immigrants, in Leo Rosten's "The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N".
Of course, the same sentiments were echoed by Juvenal anent Roman students' "blackened Virgil" of 2,000 years ago.
Of course, the same sentiments were echoed by Juvenal anent Roman students' "blackened Virgil" of 2,000 years ago.
2
Some 50 years ago, as a senior undergraduate in a technology program, I had no language requirement, but during my final semester, I opted to fill an open slot with baby Greek (So nice to hear that appellation from others!) I spent more time on Greek than in all my other courses combined - but a true labor of love - of both the language itself and the feeling of accomplishment. I too continued - but only with whatever night courses were available where I was working. Greek is like riding a bicycle - one's speed may diminish with age, but one never loses the how-to, nor the feeling of fresh wind on the face.
25
One thought. Perhaps you are setting the bar a little high for an introductory course? I took 5 years of French in school - a language I imagine is quite a bit easier for an English speaker to learn then ancient Greek - and although I can muddle my way through a french newspaper article, I certainly would not be able to understand the subtleties and twists enclosed in passages written by Victor Hugo.
A few years ago, I had the privilege to introduce Computer Science Sophomores to the power of 'data structures'. (This is a third semester undergraduate programming class). Data Structures can be very involved. They remain the power behind some of the worlds most complex algorithms. However, using them well takes time and effort. I obviously needed to remember that fact when determining the difficulty of my final exam questions.
Anyhow, I have never studied an ancient language so perhaps this comment is not appropriate, but if most of my classes were failing to meet the standard I set; I would probably adjust my expectations.
A few years ago, I had the privilege to introduce Computer Science Sophomores to the power of 'data structures'. (This is a third semester undergraduate programming class). Data Structures can be very involved. They remain the power behind some of the worlds most complex algorithms. However, using them well takes time and effort. I obviously needed to remember that fact when determining the difficulty of my final exam questions.
Anyhow, I have never studied an ancient language so perhaps this comment is not appropriate, but if most of my classes were failing to meet the standard I set; I would probably adjust my expectations.
10
The problem with this approach is that the students want to get somewhere. The main reason for learning classical Greek is to read difficult but important literature. If you had to spend two or three years on the language before tackling something significant, the students wouldn't sign up. So they say if you're good, you'll be reading Plato in the original after a semester and a half - and some people can, in fact, do it.
3
His expectations are not very high. He just wants us to dig something special.
2
Not a surprise. Only a small percentage of the population has a brain which is wired for learning multiple languages, and if a child hasn't been exposed to the concept before a certain age, it gets harder and harder. Caucasian American children have about the least exposure to a second language.
11
"Only a small percentage of the population has a brain which is wired for learning multiple languages."
I have never encountered evidence to support such an assertion. Individuals are better or worse at all kinds of mental endeavors. That doesn't mean they "can't do it," as I often hear from students when discussing languages and math.
I have never encountered evidence to support such an assertion. Individuals are better or worse at all kinds of mental endeavors. That doesn't mean they "can't do it," as I often hear from students when discussing languages and math.
2
Learning even a very modest amount of Greek can be rewarding. You can use a lexicon to check disputed translations, you get a deeper understanding of English, and you can read a lot of the New Testament, which is written in rather simple Greek. No need to despair, therefore, if the students don't become expert classicists.
10
I was a T.A. for Professor Romm years ago. I teach high school Latin now. To me the core of dealing with inflected languages is case, agreement, tense/voice, and relative time. This is dealing with language on a level unknown even to most teachers of English today. A tough row to hoe, as they say, for any teacher and every student. But I am ever more convinced that the mental work to learn Latin (as well as Greek) is as least as beneficial to young people as the pleasures of classical literature.
27
I'll bet if you tried teaching Greek to inner city (by this I mean Black American) kids not mired in Strunk and White you would be surprised. The problem is the lack of heteroglossia in standard hi-brow high school education. The issue is not lack of interest, it is white consciousness. Most college track students can't risk any wrong steps on their way to a major college admittance. This IS white consciousness, or if we prefer "literal thinking."
I think we have to toss the idea of authenticity in language and culture in order to have a discourse of relevance with the Greek heritage. The Greek cosmos is polytheistic, the opposite of "literal thinking." Take a gander at Kerenyi and teach the language as a tool to the Greek mind. Similar thinking is out there in America: try "The Grey Album" by Kevin Young.
Who care if they can read Greek? Teach them to think Greek!
I think we have to toss the idea of authenticity in language and culture in order to have a discourse of relevance with the Greek heritage. The Greek cosmos is polytheistic, the opposite of "literal thinking." Take a gander at Kerenyi and teach the language as a tool to the Greek mind. Similar thinking is out there in America: try "The Grey Album" by Kevin Young.
Who care if they can read Greek? Teach them to think Greek!
4
I never studied Ancient Greek and my level of Latin is zero plus little epsilon, 0+ε. Although both are extinct as spoken languages, their value --particularly that of Latin -- is lasting in the European languages and legal codes. But I have the same question as reader Anne-Marie Hislop, of Chicago, below: what do the students expect after one or two semesters of Ancient Greek?
One wishes that Latin regained its status as common language of at least the European Union, instead of the currently 24 official tongues of that Tower of Babel. If "the European Union is to be dissolved" (as many wish, even if not destroyed, as in the quote about Carthage), Latin might still be used, but it is difficult to visualize the Occidental culture readopting Ancient Greek.
One wishes that Latin regained its status as common language of at least the European Union, instead of the currently 24 official tongues of that Tower of Babel. If "the European Union is to be dissolved" (as many wish, even if not destroyed, as in the quote about Carthage), Latin might still be used, but it is difficult to visualize the Occidental culture readopting Ancient Greek.
3
In a sense you are right about the Babel of languages in Europe although there is an overwhelming lingua franca, easy guess as to what it maybe.
Then, what is your beef on Europe such that it seems that you can't wait for " Europa delenda est "!
Then, what is your beef on Europe such that it seems that you can't wait for " Europa delenda est "!
2
Professor Romm,
How heartening it is to me that someone still cares about the classics. Thank you for writing this article and to the NY Times for publishing it.
How heartening it is to me that someone still cares about the classics. Thank you for writing this article and to the NY Times for publishing it.
11
Fight the good fight, sir! I loved Greek more than any language I ever studied. Lines of verse have such a wonderfully complex, yet lucid, counterpoint between the relations signaled by the inflections and the juxtaposition of words (and their sounds). And, all of those seemingly untranslatable particles created a flow that made the text speak from the page. Those first "real" texts: the Apology, Medea, stories from Herodotus, and, a little less orthodox, selections from Lucian were unforgettable -- and they left the novice with an amazingly satisfying sense of just knowing what they said and "hearing" the text speak. Then, there was Homer...
13
Ancient European languages - from Classical to medieval Celtic, etc. - will always be difficult for new learners who did not grow up in the classroom with Greek and Latin (see, for example, Boston Latin School) for two reasons:
1) They don't know their own grammar. I am a 65 year old retired fifth grade teacher, and can attest that grammar stopped being taught at the elementary school level by the mid-1960s. We have lost generations to this: the second-half of the baby boomers; Gen X; Millenials.
2) Ancient language instructors cram far too much into far too little time. I was expected to know many declensions in just a few short weeks in my intro Greek and Latin courses? Why must the university insist on this? This had not changed in decades. College students are taking at least three other courses per semester, yet it is the language instructors who teach as if their course is the student's only course. I surely would have failed my intro Latin courser, had I not made the decision to do NO socializing, none at all that college semester.
Slow down, Classical, Celtic and Old English professors.
1) They don't know their own grammar. I am a 65 year old retired fifth grade teacher, and can attest that grammar stopped being taught at the elementary school level by the mid-1960s. We have lost generations to this: the second-half of the baby boomers; Gen X; Millenials.
2) Ancient language instructors cram far too much into far too little time. I was expected to know many declensions in just a few short weeks in my intro Greek and Latin courses? Why must the university insist on this? This had not changed in decades. College students are taking at least three other courses per semester, yet it is the language instructors who teach as if their course is the student's only course. I surely would have failed my intro Latin courser, had I not made the decision to do NO socializing, none at all that college semester.
Slow down, Classical, Celtic and Old English professors.
13
Good for you, James Romm - you're a hero! It's such a worthy course of study though so difficult - I've been trying to read ancient Greek for over 20 years now and I'm at least good enough to enjoy the great literature reading it very slowly.
6
As an English lit prof who assigns forgiving B-'s to students who can't recognize anapests, I sympathize, but for Antigone's sake, you must keep trying. That 8 of 10 students were hooked and signed up for the next level is more a vindication of your efforts than if one or two had gone on to grad school in classics. Your students will forget the Greek, but they will never forget having read even a few lines of "Antigone" in Greek, and for most of them it will be worth as much as anything else they learned in college.
I still remember learning enough Hebrew in college to read Psalm 8 in the original; nowadays I don't even remember the words for "angels" or "mindful," but having read it once was an epiphany and that's (almost) enough.
As for "Lear," well, our favorite texts don't make the best teaches, as you know. My best classes have been on the negligible "Comedy of Errors" and on the (let's face it) cheezy "Tempest." I have a harder time with "Othello," "Lear," and the (secretly astounding) "Measure for Measure." But I'll try those again next semester.
Keep on keeping on. The winter solstice too shall pass.
I still remember learning enough Hebrew in college to read Psalm 8 in the original; nowadays I don't even remember the words for "angels" or "mindful," but having read it once was an epiphany and that's (almost) enough.
As for "Lear," well, our favorite texts don't make the best teaches, as you know. My best classes have been on the negligible "Comedy of Errors" and on the (let's face it) cheezy "Tempest." I have a harder time with "Othello," "Lear," and the (secretly astounding) "Measure for Measure." But I'll try those again next semester.
Keep on keeping on. The winter solstice too shall pass.
23
I believe this training must start much earlier. For instance, by designing early childhood years books on mythology, which most literate children are drawn to, and emphasize written ancient greek as well as transliteration and phonetic translations embedded in the prose, particularly for key words and concepts. Combine that with companion media, and Hollywood treatments, and before you know it, we'll have Ancient Greek schoolhouse rock and you may end up teaching upper level greek to the well-versed hordes. Alas, but wishful thinking on my part, but this is a concept along the lines of what I bring up every change I get with me EdX colleagues. We know about this supposed transformative online thing for adults, but let's focus instead on transformative learning for kids instead perhaps? Those elastic brains are being bent by smartphone norming, into inelastic social siphons, what a waste of childhood. What a waste of good teachers too.
12
My freshman year of high school was dominated by Father Tomas Kelly, SJ. He taught Latin and Religion. He was a dedicated and effervescent teacher who, through cajoling and humor, got us to memorize the seemingly countless Latin declensions and conjugations. For me, at least, it was the first realization that there was a system to grammar. Three more high school years provided more nuts and bolts and a formulaic way of translating. But Cicero was never more than a talking statue. I wish I could have heard the language sing as you hear ancient Greek.
7
Having audited 3 semesters of Greek "just for fun" while in grad school studying astronomy, I'm probably not the norm in this regard. BUT I can say that I still pull my Septuagint off the shelf and read a few verses quite frequently... Of course, I know the Greek in the Septuagint is "easy Greek", not the real "classics", but in my mind the 3 semesters of study was well worth it.
9
latin in hs, offered by a very fine and caring teacher, led me past by mom's death to complete hs and by mastering the ways latin has grown within English to a extremely high sat score(1966). continue on your course. caring teachers are much more important then the materials in many cases. Just to be clear Doctor Kovach was awesome!
8
An interesting and thoughtful essay. While some may consider the teaching and learning of ancient, "dead" languages anachronistic and unnecessary, I imagine that being able to read and understand the famous plays and stories from that era in their original tongue provides a much deeper reading experience than that of a translation, for much the same reason as being able to understand and appreciate the delightful wordplay of Shakespeare's plays in their original 16th century English.
4
I took Greek for only two years, but I was blown away when I read the Apology in the original. I'm sorry, but some of the Socratic dialogues are ridiculous in translation. I felt so superior when, as a high school know-it-all, I read Plato in a bad British translation. Later I took Emily Vermeule's class on the Illiad, followed it up with a class on Plato and realized how beautifully, how powerfully, language can convey the highest reaches of human thought. I was a STEM major, and I can't read Greek anymore, but I will never forget the beauty.
Please don't ever lose heart, Professor Romm. You are offering your students a gift beyond any price. It's more timeless than a diamond and far more beautiful.
Please don't ever lose heart, Professor Romm. You are offering your students a gift beyond any price. It's more timeless than a diamond and far more beautiful.
49
I took two semesters of NT Greek ages ago when I was an undergraduate. I had taken Larin in high school, and took a couple or four semesters of German and Italian as well. No, I can't read them now. Or speak them. But I am not ignorant of them, and my having studied them informed and enriched all the other things I sfudied (and experienced). I don't regret it for a moment.
6
Agreed re value of Greek language. Timeless. Priceless. Memorable.
6
I can't say why, but this is one of the most beautiful, touching essays I have ever read. I hope the NYS Regents add this to their exams.
25
No, I'm afraid that NYS has been cancelling those excellent Regent's exams in foreign language completely. Part of the dumbing down under Bloomberg and Cuomo. The focus on Math and English decimated foreign language study, which probably accounts for much of Prof. Romm's problem trying to reach students at the college level who have no clue about grammar.
3
But is translation the best way to assess understanding? As a modern language teacher (who has also studied 2 ancient languages - Greek and Hebrew), I do not use translation in my class, either as an exercise or as an assessment as I believe it is a skill all its own. Would your teaching be better if you emphasized understanding over translation, and would your students be better able to demonstrate their understanding?
3
This piece moved me deeply.
4
I hope to God that "Beginning Greek" is not a required or pre-requisite course at any university, except perhaps in Greece itself. Assuming that it is not, then these students deserve the holy-hell that it must be to take on the task of learning a dead language. Did the long dead Greeks have anything to say to us that must be said in Greek? Perhaps. Does anyone really care...so few, so few.
Few people care just because so few people have had the exhilarating and immediate experience of reading Homer in the original. There are a lot of bad translations out there. Few convey the muscle and freshness of the Greek.
7
the students were fortunate that there were only 10 students in this class.
8
My Latin teacher, the great Jack Cundari, was fond of saying (forgive me if I don't get it exactly right, as it's been 35 years), "Latin is a language to have learned and forgotten." I don't remember much Latin, but I remember a lot about the other things he taught us, about English and Roman history and life. My Greek teacher, on the other hand, having taught us nothing but Greek (that's an ablative absolute, by the way), made little impression on me, and I do not even recall his name. Please do not make the same mistake as my Greek teacher. Teach them Greek, of course, but teach them why Greek and the Greeks are so important to history, to language, to our modern lives. And sprinkle your lectures with personal anecdotes about your travels and your own life. The best classes happened when we could distract Mr. Cundari away from his lesson plan and get him to ramble on about some fascinating tidbit from his vast storehouse of knowledge.
6
Your ablative absolute would be in the nominative case.
My first bachelor's was in Classics.
What the author laments is really the lamentation of all who love the Greeks, and the Romans, and their literary, linguistic, and cultural heritage. None of those things, which are among the greatest cultural treasures of the human race, are valued much by our society anymore, which is truly a shame.
The bright spot, however, is that those 8 students who decided to press on (a lower attrition rate than my beginning Greek course a decade ago!), will truly get to experience what a college education has always supposed to be about. It will be the same 8 students next semester, and perhaps the same 4 or 5 the semester after that, sitting around a seminar table, reading Greek and its literature. Term after term for the remainder of their undergrad years, they, as a group, will overcome the intellectual challenges inherit in studying such a difficult language, they will read some of the greatest literature ever written, as it was meant to be read, they will discuss the ideas and themes which have animated the best of human thought since its beginning, they will begin to see life in terms of the long chain of other lives and other cultures that have led to their particular present, and they will joke, and digress, and bond, both with themselves, and their professors, even those on the verge of despair.
Even if the realities of the workforce later require another degree, I'd still say your 8 students are on their way to something priceless.
What the author laments is really the lamentation of all who love the Greeks, and the Romans, and their literary, linguistic, and cultural heritage. None of those things, which are among the greatest cultural treasures of the human race, are valued much by our society anymore, which is truly a shame.
The bright spot, however, is that those 8 students who decided to press on (a lower attrition rate than my beginning Greek course a decade ago!), will truly get to experience what a college education has always supposed to be about. It will be the same 8 students next semester, and perhaps the same 4 or 5 the semester after that, sitting around a seminar table, reading Greek and its literature. Term after term for the remainder of their undergrad years, they, as a group, will overcome the intellectual challenges inherit in studying such a difficult language, they will read some of the greatest literature ever written, as it was meant to be read, they will discuss the ideas and themes which have animated the best of human thought since its beginning, they will begin to see life in terms of the long chain of other lives and other cultures that have led to their particular present, and they will joke, and digress, and bond, both with themselves, and their professors, even those on the verge of despair.
Even if the realities of the workforce later require another degree, I'd still say your 8 students are on their way to something priceless.
36
There's a shortage of Latin teachers right now in the US...! There are jobs in education.
1
Professor Romm,
You are the right man - in the wrong time. In the ancient world you wouldn't be expected to have to teach so many. Ten students? That's teacher abuse! You would have one student, at the most two, be on them dawn to dusk, and they would start no later than age eight.
Of course, you would also be a slave and be beaten if they didn't come up to snuff, but the household would be richer than that inferior Bard College and you'd likely have a more varied diet and you'd get to travel, and, possibly bring honor on your house by writing - Polybius did, a Greek writing for his Roman Masters! That could have been you! We'd still be speaking your name!
Still, I envy your eight returning students. I just wish you HAD gotten them at eight, when the window for learning languages was so much wider. My best to all of you and Happy Solstice!
... and consider beating them with switches next time.... I've heard it helps...
You are the right man - in the wrong time. In the ancient world you wouldn't be expected to have to teach so many. Ten students? That's teacher abuse! You would have one student, at the most two, be on them dawn to dusk, and they would start no later than age eight.
Of course, you would also be a slave and be beaten if they didn't come up to snuff, but the household would be richer than that inferior Bard College and you'd likely have a more varied diet and you'd get to travel, and, possibly bring honor on your house by writing - Polybius did, a Greek writing for his Roman Masters! That could have been you! We'd still be speaking your name!
Still, I envy your eight returning students. I just wish you HAD gotten them at eight, when the window for learning languages was so much wider. My best to all of you and Happy Solstice!
... and consider beating them with switches next time.... I've heard it helps...
15
First of all, thank you for sharing your expertise of the Greek Language through teaching and this well-written article. The ability to study this ancient language is invaluable, no matter how many liberal arts students sign up to take your class.
Myself, if I had the time, I would be studying languages constantly. But maybe not at the college level. An adult learning institution might be a good side endeavor. I had the most fun learning French alongside an all-ages group, who were there solely for the love of learning the language.
Μπορούν επειδή πιστεύουν ότι μπορούν.
Myself, if I had the time, I would be studying languages constantly. But maybe not at the college level. An adult learning institution might be a good side endeavor. I had the most fun learning French alongside an all-ages group, who were there solely for the love of learning the language.
Μπορούν επειδή πιστεύουν ότι μπορούν.
6
Thank you for this. I have been grading high school chemistry exams today and feeling the exact same way.
9
I would so like to take Professor Romm's Beginning Greek course. Being able (hopefully) to grasp an ancient language must facilitate intimately knowing such an academically productive society. We should come to better know how our view of ourselves compares with our societal and doctrinal ancestors, revealed by the Greek language.
6
Mr. Romm,
I loved your article. You hit it on head about the need to "know your endings" to make sense of Greek and Latin. I enjoyed 3 years of high school and two years of college Latin but never mastered it. Periodically, over the past 50 years, I revisit my old textbooks and new online learning options - but just never make the time to master the grammar. Hopefully, as I approach 70, I'll do it - it is on my "bucket list". Wish you were closer, so I could study with you.
I loved your article. You hit it on head about the need to "know your endings" to make sense of Greek and Latin. I enjoyed 3 years of high school and two years of college Latin but never mastered it. Periodically, over the past 50 years, I revisit my old textbooks and new online learning options - but just never make the time to master the grammar. Hopefully, as I approach 70, I'll do it - it is on my "bucket list". Wish you were closer, so I could study with you.
8
This column reminds me of my intro to Greek class in freshman year of college. I sucked! And frankly, I still sucked when I went to grad school in classics. But over the years, I probably spent a good six to eight months studying Homer in the original Greek. It was the intellectual highlight of my life, wouldn't give it up for anything.
6
Of course, our young people must go on and heighten their knowledge of Greek and Latin and the classic histories, plays and poems. The barbarians are already inside our gates. In what other languages and with what other wisdom should they do battle with them?
5
I had a single year of Attic Greek in high school (Jesuit, as you might imagine) back in 1960. Did the Anabasis. I went to college early, so had only 3 years Latin, one Greek, one German, while concentrating in physics. Those were the days. I wish I had had more Greek. But we did do Catullus, Plautus and Terence in my last year of Latin, racing though the minimum of Cicero, and I missed Virgil entirely. Didn't miss it, really.
The classics made Russian in college much easier, being similarly inflected.
The classics made Russian in college much easier, being similarly inflected.
7
Dr. Romm, my fellow Sisyphus, greetings from a community college English teacher in Wyoming where the short, darl days have a similar effect! You have articulated perfectly the frustrations of every teacher I know. Although I am not teaching Greek, I find myself every semester saying the same things: "Here's how you use a semicolon...."; "Really, you cannot trust a citation generator. Use your book..."; "I know Google seems easier, but you'll get much better results in the library databases...." Most semesters as I read those final papers, I wonder if there's any chance of passing on the values of my discipline. But I find some students who are better writers and researchers than they were when arriving in my class, and a few even take make my courses again. And I learned to think of teaching much as I think of farming where the yield is uncertain. Every semester, I plant a crop, and while I see some progress when students are in my class, I've had others return later to say, "So, I really used what I learned in your class, and I wanted you to know that." I hope there are students, from whom I never hear, who also find they've learned skills in my class -- just like I wish I had a chance to tell my college biology prof that her class was one of the most useful ones I took as an undergraduate. So enjoy the longer days and keep doing the good work of educating students -- and maybe let up on the tragedies and try a nice comedy. Here's wishing you a good spring!
17
An excellent way to teach this course would be through an online platform like Coursera or EdX. EdX might be a better route because I find it's platform is better for a capstone project where you can encourage students to really prove their understanding. I'd be eager to try this course.
1
But how will learning Greek (or Latin) translate into making money?
2
Well, C++ and Java are easy in comparison.....
The *classic* American question, and one of the major reasons education is failing so dismally in the United States today: if it doesn't make money, it's not worth learning. Making money is the entire purpose of life.
What a stunted and impoverished outlook on life.
What a stunted and impoverished outlook on life.
6
I do not understand the hand-wringing conundrum. You teach Greek because like the GEICO commercial, it's what you do. I taught archaeology and anthropology classes to people who were not going to become professional anthropologists or archaeologists (OK, perhaps a dozen or so did out of literally hundreds of students). The point is to provide exposure to and understanding of concepts and ideas that most people would never think about. I never had any illusions about inspiring the next generation of archaeologists, but every once in a while ... something clicked and a handful of students thanked me for showing them a path they never would have considered. You are probably doing a fine job - stop fretting.
8
I think I understand. At one point in my life I taught high school algebra and flatter myself that I did it rather well. I developed the sense that while many students could pass the class, few could take the skills I was attempting to develop in them out of the classroom.
Now retired I study piano in my second childhood. It's very slow but I've developed an appreciation for the smallest increments of improvement and that sustains my effort. In my maturity I am aware of how much more my teacher wants to share than I can absorb, but my understanding improves from month to month. It's ironic that the younger me had the ability but not the appreciation.
I know two people who majored in Classics, both friends and ministers. Even if only a few of your students begin to develop an appreciation for Greek, and if only a few of them enter a field where they can share that skill (for it's more than knowledge), please persist.
Now retired I study piano in my second childhood. It's very slow but I've developed an appreciation for the smallest increments of improvement and that sustains my effort. In my maturity I am aware of how much more my teacher wants to share than I can absorb, but my understanding improves from month to month. It's ironic that the younger me had the ability but not the appreciation.
I know two people who majored in Classics, both friends and ministers. Even if only a few of your students begin to develop an appreciation for Greek, and if only a few of them enter a field where they can share that skill (for it's more than knowledge), please persist.
7
It is essential to begin studying the classics at an early age, the younger the better. Having said that, while I found translating Julius Caesar and Tacitus (the easy Latin authors) straightforward, I struggled constantly with all the Latin poets, even the easiest ones, to attain real fluency. The real killer was trying to construct my own passable Latin verse, at which I failed miserably.
My English preparatory school (six to thirteen) didn't offer Claasical Greek. That meant I couldn't study the subject later for O-level even though I thought at the time it would complement my Latin better than modern German would.
This was probably just as well because Classical Greek is far harder than Latin according to the boys who studied Greek (and in every case also Latin). Oxford and Cambridge Board A-level Classical Greek back in those days was a real killer, an enormous step-up in difficulty from O-level, that led one boy to have a complete nervous breakdown, even though he waltzed through Latin and modern French at A-level and had done well at Classical Greek at O-level.
My English preparatory school (six to thirteen) didn't offer Claasical Greek. That meant I couldn't study the subject later for O-level even though I thought at the time it would complement my Latin better than modern German would.
This was probably just as well because Classical Greek is far harder than Latin according to the boys who studied Greek (and in every case also Latin). Oxford and Cambridge Board A-level Classical Greek back in those days was a real killer, an enormous step-up in difficulty from O-level, that led one boy to have a complete nervous breakdown, even though he waltzed through Latin and modern French at A-level and had done well at Classical Greek at O-level.
6
For what it's worth: I was far from a fantastic student of Greek (pulled a gentleman's B- my second semester), but what I did learn helped me with a much deeper understanding of Homer and other Greek classics than I otherwise would have had. I still use the professional grade translations, but at the very least can read the original and have some understanding of how it fits together.
Don't despair, in other words. Your work matters, even for those that drop out of further study.
Don't despair, in other words. Your work matters, even for those that drop out of further study.
48
I'm not a bit surprised. Even 40 years ago, those of us who actually managed to learn Greek and read classical texts were a special breed.
The baby Greek class met five times a week, and there was a quiz every Friday. The number grades could be discouraging, as there were plenty in the 30s and 40s, along with a couple of high 90s from those who actually got it. Amazingly, most of the class made it to the second semester, where we read Plato's Crito and selections from Euripides' Medea.
The first semester of second-year had a sparser attendance, as we switched to Homeric and plowed through several books of the Odyssey. By the second semester of second year, we were down to two students and an auditor. Since we were so few, we decided to meet five times a week instead of three so we could really do a thorough job on Plato's Phaedo. The professor was pleased to have such enthusiastic students.
That summer, I decided to devote myself to Greek. I rented a cheap apartment on the deserted campus, and read through the entire Odyssey and about half the Iliad. I met with one of the professors once a week to discuss the more difficult passages. It was a crazy thing to do, but when will you get a chance again for something like that?
Forty years later, I can still read Homer and Plato fairly well. Naturally, my vocabulary is a little weak, but I can recognize the forms and understand the syntax.
The baby Greek class met five times a week, and there was a quiz every Friday. The number grades could be discouraging, as there were plenty in the 30s and 40s, along with a couple of high 90s from those who actually got it. Amazingly, most of the class made it to the second semester, where we read Plato's Crito and selections from Euripides' Medea.
The first semester of second-year had a sparser attendance, as we switched to Homeric and plowed through several books of the Odyssey. By the second semester of second year, we were down to two students and an auditor. Since we were so few, we decided to meet five times a week instead of three so we could really do a thorough job on Plato's Phaedo. The professor was pleased to have such enthusiastic students.
That summer, I decided to devote myself to Greek. I rented a cheap apartment on the deserted campus, and read through the entire Odyssey and about half the Iliad. I met with one of the professors once a week to discuss the more difficult passages. It was a crazy thing to do, but when will you get a chance again for something like that?
Forty years later, I can still read Homer and Plato fairly well. Naturally, my vocabulary is a little weak, but I can recognize the forms and understand the syntax.
124
Jonathan, yerrr a better man than I. I'll stick to my Spanish and French, but 40-plus years ago, if I'd had the funds to rent even a cheap apartment off-campus, it would have had something to do with girls and not Homer.
21
reply to Jonathon in nyc . . . how I envy this education . . . would this be columbia by chance . . . thanks . . .
William Wilson dallas texas just a b.a. in comp lit . . . .
William Wilson dallas texas just a b.a. in comp lit . . . .
2
Frankly, I’d be satisfied if kids left college with a working knowledge of English. Before I’d agitate for a clear understanding of the difference between “anthrōpou” and “anthrōpois”, I’d like to see an understanding of the difference between “then” and “than”, or “your” and you’re”. What’s more, it seems rather counter-intuitive to search for the pedantic case rather than MEANING, for heaven’s sake. This may be why we don’t see too many Greek males in robes these days. Most languages have developed over the intervening millennia into more useful, more evolved forms; and there is good reason why some languages are called “dead”.
We should never lose the wisdom of ancient Greece. But that doesn’t require that everyone be exposed to it in the original. There are excellent translations of Homer into more current languages, in which we can read of Sisyphus in Book VI of the Iliad and Book XI of the Odyssey; and even of Ovid’s Orpheus and Eurydice from the equally dead classical Latin. And those who provided the translations were adept at separating case from meaning.
By all means teach the classics, but even the Roman Catholic Church finally imposed a vernacular mass.
We should never lose the wisdom of ancient Greece. But that doesn’t require that everyone be exposed to it in the original. There are excellent translations of Homer into more current languages, in which we can read of Sisyphus in Book VI of the Iliad and Book XI of the Odyssey; and even of Ovid’s Orpheus and Eurydice from the equally dead classical Latin. And those who provided the translations were adept at separating case from meaning.
By all means teach the classics, but even the Roman Catholic Church finally imposed a vernacular mass.
52
Learning Latin and Greek can produce, as a byproduct, a better understanding of English.
My high school Latin teacher spent the beginning of the term in Latin 1 reviewing English grammar before trying to teach the class Latin grammar.
Both Latin and Greek made me more aware of participles and gerunds, and helped me notice how in English I tend to use such forms more than good writing permits. I don't know why I seem to think in those forms, but at least I became aware that I do, and realizing that, I can translate such thoughts into simple declarative sentences, if I so choose.
But to me, the treat from learning Greek was reading the Iliad -- it felt like being in the midst of some kind of rolling sea, once I got going with it.
My high school Latin teacher spent the beginning of the term in Latin 1 reviewing English grammar before trying to teach the class Latin grammar.
Both Latin and Greek made me more aware of participles and gerunds, and helped me notice how in English I tend to use such forms more than good writing permits. I don't know why I seem to think in those forms, but at least I became aware that I do, and realizing that, I can translate such thoughts into simple declarative sentences, if I so choose.
But to me, the treat from learning Greek was reading the Iliad -- it felt like being in the midst of some kind of rolling sea, once I got going with it.
56
Diana:
Nice try, but not really compelling. I'm pretty familiar with the romance languages, got quite a bit of Latin myself as a kid, and all it really helped me with was understanding the roots of vocabulary. I've read the Iliad as well, but did it first in Spanish, then in English; and don't think I missed anything of value by not having read it in Greek.
Nice try, but not really compelling. I'm pretty familiar with the romance languages, got quite a bit of Latin myself as a kid, and all it really helped me with was understanding the roots of vocabulary. I've read the Iliad as well, but did it first in Spanish, then in English; and don't think I missed anything of value by not having read it in Greek.
Richard,
Are you saying that nobody can get more out of the Iliad through reading it in Greek, or are you saying that you in particular wouldn't?
Are you saying that nobody can get more out of the Iliad through reading it in Greek, or are you saying that you in particular wouldn't?
12
I wonder why the students were taking the course in the first place - to fulfill a language requirement? Are they hoping to be proficient enough to actually study ancient texts in ancient Greek - in archaeology or literature? It seems rather an empty drill if a student takes only one semester with no other goal or further study. It's great that the majority of the class wants to go further.
As a retired Presbyterian minister I was required to study New Testament Greek and Biblical Hebrew in seminary. The point was both to be able to read the Bible in the original languages and as ground work for students who chose to enter Biblical studies in academia. I loved both languages, although I had a slight preference for Hebrew. That, I think, had to do with the very different alphabet and reading it from right to left - those 2 elements make it seem like solving a puzzle.
As a retired Presbyterian minister I was required to study New Testament Greek and Biblical Hebrew in seminary. The point was both to be able to read the Bible in the original languages and as ground work for students who chose to enter Biblical studies in academia. I loved both languages, although I had a slight preference for Hebrew. That, I think, had to do with the very different alphabet and reading it from right to left - those 2 elements make it seem like solving a puzzle.
61
Not many of the students, even at Bard, would have had any Greek in HS. A one semester intensive, or two semesters at 3 credit pace, are sufficient to take on Benner's selections of the Iliad in the following semester. Reading thus, albeit awkwardly, is a profoundly moving experience which should not be denied those eight remaining for wont of an earlier start. Perhaps one may even succeed in establishing a career in classics. None of the past is dead and it lives in wrath, and wrongs, and in informing us no less than we transform it.
4
Does Greek not have a different alphabet? Who knew?