Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

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thornsbreak
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Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by thornsbreak »

Hello everyone,

I've had several years of Greek in the past including a summer intensive at the U of C, and I'm trying to brush up after several years away from it. I'm working through some old textbooks and trying to recover grammar and vocab.

I recently discovered the use of electronic flash cards to help me memorize vocab. I've just started using the Anki program, which I imagine many of you are familiar with. I see flashcard sets for many popular Greek textbooks out there, esp NT/Koine.

However, I can't seem to find decks for the two books I'm working with: Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek and Hansen and Quinn's Greek: An Intensive Course. I've seen posts on forums from a couple years back that suggest they exist, but they are nowhere to be found. Does anyone have these resources who would be willing to share?
μέγας ὁ θεός· καλὸς ὁ ζῦθος· μαίνεται ὁ δῆμος.

Xyloplax
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by Xyloplax »

I made one for Mastronarde 2nd Edition for studying the principal parts.

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1182673372

Bart
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by Bart »

There is a Memrise course for Mastronarde (http://www.memrise.com/course/244157/mastronarde-2/) and a course for Hansen and Quinn appears to be under construction: http://www.memrise.com/course/118480/ha ... ocabulary/

Personally I like Memrise better than Anki, but even if you don't, the memrise courses list all the vocabulary in order of appearance: cut and paste them into Anki et voilà!

Xyloplax
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by Xyloplax »

Quizlet has a whole mess of Attic Greek ones as well, and I've been using the μι verb forms one heavily. Quizlet's biggest problem is that you need an internet connection. I can't do Quizlet on the subway, unless the station happens to have a signal.

Memrise used to have a proper Mastronarde 2nd edition one, then Memrise was broken for a while (Greek->English stopped working), and whoever recreated the Mem for Mastronarde reduced it to single word definitions, and that doesn't work for me, unfortunately. I do like Memrise otherwise; even though it's multiple choice, it is more enjoyable to use.

Anki has some really good ones, I will say. Someone made a whole module a while back that generates all the noun forms and regular verb forms in Smyth via a python script and posted it here. On the shared Anki module list, you can find Mastronarde, the complete Xenophon vocab set, an 80% Vocabulary list, JACT, and others. I find Anki less effective at helping me memorize than Memrise for whatever reason.

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jeidsath
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by jeidsath »

So this is what I've been using lately:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1091252829

I've been planning to make something similar for the principle parts of verbs. Similar to Xyloplax, I'll use the Mastronarde list, which is great, but I think that I'll probably make larger cards that include all forms for the verb. Ie., what are the principle parts for τίθημι?

As you can see from my deck, I've found that memorizing single forms isn't useful for me at this point. I try to go after all of the forms for a single noun or verb+aspect+mood+voice at once. That may not be super useful for other people. But what could be useful is my technique for building the deck: Take screenshots from a pdf textbook instead of typing it all in!
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Flash cards and semantic theory:

It is the opinion of some who have studied lexical semantics that flash card memorization is counter productive. Never the less, we still have classes taught in seminaries where vocabulary learning means knowing a modern language gloss for each lemma in the ancient language.

We just had a question on b-greek about the meaning of a non-existent noun συντέλος. One response ran something like "it is pointless to speculate about a word for which we have no context" ... which is also a statement that a definition without a context is useless.

I suggested that using some tool like the Diogenes or Perseus LSJ one could look at all the words that combine some form of τέλος with συν and from the usage data in LSJ construct a kind semantic prototype from which one could speculate about the probable meaning of the nonexistent noun.

The point is that if your going to make flash cards you might do a better job and learn more if you researched each word to produce a sort of "homemade" semantic prototype. The research itself would help you learn the word.
C. Stirling Bartholomew

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jeidsath
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by jeidsath »

@C.S.:

I don't use flash cards for vocabulary, just for forms (and after a long period of my trying to learn forms only by absorption, it has been helpful there). But if I were to use them for vocabulary, I would use cloze deletion cards:

Q: Δαρείου καὶ Παρυσάτιδος _______ παῖδες δύο,
A: γίγνονται

As you say, words don't exist outside of context.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

C. S. Bartholomew
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

jeidsath wrote:@C.S.:

I don't use flash cards for vocabulary, just for forms ...
Which is a good idea. Forms are a different matter. My color coded Omega verb chart has faded so that the inflections no longer are readable. I have printed some charts from various sources on the web but wish that I could still read the one page chart. It's a big page but it was very useful and my memory is coated with Teflon, nothing sticks. I have looking at my notes on Ajax from 2009 and it's like "who wrote these notes?" they are not too helpful. Waiting on the Library to get Finglass and Stanford. Though about purchasing Lloyd-Jones but since I can read it online I haven;t done it.

I am wading through Ajax and it isn't that easy a read. The second time through is like first time or worse.
C. Stirling Bartholomew

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jeidsath
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Re: Anki flashcards for Attic Greek

Post by jeidsath »

I've shared my principal parts deck:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/507639030
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

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