I think it was advice for me (but not just for me) but I appreciate how you (knowing my fragile self-confidence in relation to Greek) put it so diplomatically.jeidsath wrote:This isn't really advice for daivid, but for new learners approaching this thread. Perseus is a bad resource when you don't recognize a verb form. It may work (if you're lucky), but it doesn't really help you on to recognizing the next one. Hylander has already parsed these, but here is some method for attacking these kinds of words:
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When people do things that appear to be self-defeating they often have good reasons for doing those things that make sense if you look at the situation they are actually in rather than where they ideally should be .
When I read a sentence of Xenophon or even an easier writer like Diodorus, just handling the new vocabulary and the syntax is as much as my brain can handle and if I try and add in the strategy you suggest I just get a complete failure to process (to use Markos' phrase).
There are options.
Claxton's book is very conventional but really takes grammar-translation to the ultimate. Because of that it works. She explains the syntax in such exhaustive detail that I am able to at least attempt to do the processing you suggest. (I have even used it to fill in the time in the middle of the night when I wake up for an hour and the computer is out of reach.)
I think you are able to use the strategy you propose because of your extensive reading. If had made reading part of my daily routine from the very beginning I think I would be now in a much better place. In is very hard to make it a regular habit when you have already become discouraged,
The verb test (the one which I have put online) is something that is part of my daily routine. I suspect the reason I manage that is because even very slow progress is visible which keeps me motivated. Is it the best way to learn verb forms? I'm not sure but if I stopped doing it I am unlikely to use the time for studying Greek in other ways and I do think it is more useful than nothing at all.
There is another easy reader that I have not yet tried:Elementary Greek Translation by A. E. Hillard, C.G. Botting
I was going to buy it with Claxton but the book seller I was using didn't have it so it will be on the list the next time I order books.
Finally Perseus does work most of the time. The most serious problem I find is when it gives too many results not the rare cases when it gives none at all.
EDIT
When I am mention "extensive reading" I was talking about reading aloud. Even when one's Greek is too shaky to fully understand what one is reading it does seem to be helpful to do this. (If you have already read http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... =2&t=64512 you probably knew what I had in mind).