Learning Greek Vocab

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Ursinus
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Learning Greek Vocab

Post by Ursinus »

Do you have any advice on learning Greek vocab? In particular, how does one learn Greek vocabulary, especially verbs, given how complicated Greek morphology can get? In Latin, learning verbs is relatively easy. I learn a lot just form reading texts, and I now make flash cards for every unknown word I encounter, studying it until I know it both ways, actively and passively. For Greek, this is more difficult since words have more principle parts.

There may be no easy answer to this, but I just wanted advice from my more season Hellenists.
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truks
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by truks »

I struggled with this issue before finally arriving at an approach that seems to work for me.

Your idea about flashcards is a good one, I think. I enter all the principal parts of a given verb in a single card in Anki, using Cloze deletion on each. This gives me the chance to review the whole series of parts each time the card comes up and to supply the missing one and the translation. I find this is a lot easier than supplying all six at once for a verb I'm unfamiliar with or still learning.

I then create individual reverse cards (meaning Anki will treat both the front and back as separate cards) for each principal part (i.e. one principal part per card). This may seem like overkill, but I find it's very helpful for reinforcing all the forms.

Lastly, I record the principal parts for all the verbs I'm learning, starting with the first principal part, then the definition/translation, followed by parts 1 to 6, leaving a pause between each so I can repeat them aloud when listening. I've put all the recordings on my phone and listen to them on shuffle whenever I can – on walks with the dog (who now knows as many Greek verbs as I do :) ), doing the dishes, whenever.

For me, it's this combination of input that seems to work. Good luck!

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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

I find the assumption that the flash cards are going to be electronic interesting. Not wrong, just a witness to how much things have changed in recent years. The best way to improve vocabulary is to read as much Greek as possible, because seeing the vocabulary items in context is the best way to fix the vocabulary. When looking the word up, make sure you read the entire lexical entry -- doing so helps more than you might think, and is worth the time. And yes, flash cards are a very helpful supplement. For verbs, make sure that you have only the first principal part on the one side, and all the others along with your English glosses on the other. Make sure the English glosses cover the entire semantic range of the verb. And did I mention reading lots of Greek?
Last edited by Barry Hofstetter on Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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markscala
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by markscala »

I don't know of any more effective method than flashcards. Reading won't be as helpful until you can read an appreciable amount, which may be some time off depending on where you are.

One thing I've found helpful is to focus my attention and efforts on the most common words I don't know. Here, for example, is a list of the 500 most common words: http://dcc.dickinson.edu/vocab/greek-tlg-frequencies, though you may be beyond that list already.

Logeion is another useful resource (http://logeion.uchicago.edu/) If you haven't used it, it is an interface to the LSJ. When you look up a word at this site, you'll notice on the top right that it will give you the word's frequency rank, or tell you it occurs fewer than 50 times in the corpus. You can click "About" button at the bottom (easily overlooked) to find instructions for looking up words.

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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Logeion is a great resource for using the LSJ, and includes other dictionaries as well (such as Autenreith for Homeric Greek). If you have an iPhone or iPad, there is also a nice Logeion app.

Reading and flash cards should not be an either/or sort of thing, but a both/and. You can get your vocabulary from the reading, and then make flashcards. I have always preferred to try to figure out the meaning of the ἄγνωστον ῥῆμα from context before looking it up, and then making the flashcard if it looks like an important enough word (you can always use the three times rule: if you have to look it up three times, make a card!). Which is better, to see the words in context and get it that way, or memorize long lists of vocabulary? I've always found the former better for me. Bart Ehrman, the NT text critic, is said to have memorized the vocabulary for the entire Gospel of Mark before he sat down to read it (not just frequent usage, but everything), and it's true (I asked him). The first time I read Mark in Greek I just looked up the words. I don't have to look up words in Mark now when I read it... But I bet he doesn't either, so whatever works for you.
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truks
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by truks »

One more tip, which I forgot to mention yesterday.

There are a number of patterns which will help a lot if you internalise them.

Mastronarde gives ten basic patterns in section 3 of Appendix B (p. 390 in the second edition), starting with vowel verbs (the most regular) and then consonant-stem types. I memorised these when I started using the book, and have found they have greatly improved my ability to retain principal parts.

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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by RandyGibbons »

Smyth's Greek Grammar has an appendix with a comprehensive list of all Greek verbs (from all periods) with any irregularity. There's a depressingly large number of them! I once decided to bite the bullet, or "swallow the dictionary," and study that list. I also started recording them since, like truks, I internalize vocabulary best by hearing the words spoken and repeating them out loud. In my case, I note the definition/translation, but I don't record it. I just want the word in all its forms to be familiar to me orally. Over time my personal experience has been that 30 minutes of my time is more productive reading Greek and learning vocabulary in context than memorizing vocab lists. But, as Barry says, whatever works.

I can't honestly say I ever finished my project to record all of Smyth's appendix. It turned out life is too short. But studying the list was and continues to be fruitful.

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Dante
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by Dante »

on Quizlet there are dozens if not hundreds of sets that people have made that you can study from. For example, theres Dickinson frequency lists sets, sets made from all the sections of the "Homeric Vocabularies" book, sets made for specific works or sections, for just book Ω the Iliad, etc.

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Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

And of course you can make up your own quizlets.
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by jeidsath »

I found the following article, containing a 50% and 80% core Greek vocabulary, very interesting:

Wilfred E. Major, "It’s Not the Size, It’s the Frequency":
https://camws.org/cpl/cplonline/files/M ... online.pdf

I came across it in the documentation section of the Dickinson core vocabulary list:
http://dcc.dickinson.edu/greek-core-list

I've been reviewing the principal parts of the Dickinson verbs using cloze deletion. I should probably do the same for gender and declensions of the nouns.
“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.”

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Dante
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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by Dante »

fascinating article. BTW Quizlet has several versions of the 80% list as study sets (full set ~1000 cards, verbs only ~420 cards):

https://quizlet.com/subject/ancient-greek-80%25/

as well as several versions of the Dickinson Greek frequency list (~500 cards):

https://quizlet.com/subject/dickinson-greek/

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Re: Learning Greek Vocab

Post by jeidsath »

Those look useful.

On the verb deck, I think recalling all of the principal parts for a card would be too much for me. (For one thing, it can be very hard to notice a single error.)

Here's how I'm doing it right now, 1 part at a time, and typing each answer, with breathing and accents.

Image

I seem to be able to add 5-10 verbs a days (about 50 parts?), so I expect to have the verb list memorized in another week.

I'm not including meanings, since those aren't generally a problem for me with these words.
“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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