The way they teach us Ancient Greek and Hebrew at SMBC is grammar in the first year and Bible translation in subsequent years. This is well and good. In fact it has many pluses. But it's not language by immersion is it - or at least not in the first year. And I think I learn languages best by immersion. So, I haven't been doing particularly well, and I've been worried that all this pain will be for nothing and I'll never look at another word of Hebrew or Greek once I'm done here.
But I have a cunning plan. I've bought a New Testament with Greek on one page and an English translation on the facing page, and I've done the same for the Old Testament in Hebrew*. I like these far better than interlinears that give the English translation of each word under the word. I don't want to learn to give a literal translation of these languages - I want to learn to translate the actual meaning of sentences. So it's this that I want to expose myself to, again and again. My plan is to read as little as a sentence, or as much as a paragraph each day, first in the Hebrew/Greek and then in the English. I want to get into the habit of this now, so I've got more chance of keeping it up later. I'm not planning to employ amazing powers of observation or anything while I read, and certainly not to work out the grammatical status of individual words. I don't even care if I only understand one word in a sentence. I just want to be immersed.
*These were actually quite hard to track down, certainly on the net. I ended up finding them at the Bible Society bookshop. There seems to only be one option for each language. For Greek, it's the Nestle-Aland Greek-English New Testament, with the Novum Testamentum Graece for the Greek and the RSV for the English. For Hebrew, it's the Hebrew-English Bible published by the Bible Society in Israel, with the Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia for Greek and the NKJV for English.
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- Fiona is a proud Tasmanian who now calls Chile home. Both Hobart and Santiago sit beneath mountains, but the mountains are very different and their cities too. With God's help, Fiona will help her Chilean sisters make sense of the Bible, get to know its Author better and learn what it means to live as loved, forgiven people.
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7 comments:
Sounds like a good plan!
I think getting to actual Bible verses as early as possible is good, especially if it's a well-known passage (like the start of John).
In fact, I'd like to see an NT Greek version of my classical Greek text, which starts with real quotes almost immediately.
Yeah. I think the way they teach greek and hebrew at SMBC and MTC is really dumb. They're not on their own though. It seems that it's just the way it's taught. I struggled with both. Probably because I wasn't good at the raw memorising of number plates on cars which is what it felt like most of the time.
I think vocab is the key. Our kids learn words before they learn sentences. They point to something and say "cat", or "car". Over time their sentences get longer and more complicated. But they have built up a store of hundreds of words.
I guess the problem with immersion for Gk is that it's a dead language. We aren't living in the world of the text. So all we are really learning is a mechanical translating tool. For Hebrew, we might just have to move to Israel for a while until we get the hang of it.
I really like your idea though. Something I intend to implement as well. It doesn't sound soul destroyingly ambitious.
@Al - At MTC we translate almost from the word 'go', actually.
What I find a little... odd, is that we only learn to translate in one direction (Foreign-to-English), which seems to slow the learning process considerably (though, yes, of course, it makes it heaps easier).
I had a lot of fun translating the other way -- gospel songs (like "When The Saints Go Marching In") into Koine Greek. Since they are almost all biblical imagery, it can be done mostly with NT vocab.
Barnard At MTC we translate almost from the word 'go', actually.
As did we. From day 1. Having had these conversations with my brothers in law it seems that the way Gk is taught over with you is pretty much the same as I had it (not surprising really - the colleges are nigh on identical in what they teach). I think you go into more detail in 2nd year than we do though. And verbal aspect was not huge either with us. It was mentioned but not really pursued with gusto.
There are some progressive college in the states who have now ditched the way we've been taught and for first term they just teach vocab. It is memorising stuff. But when they come to learn the grammar in 2nd semester it, apparently, is much easier to get your head around.
@Radagast - Awesome! Likewise, a mate of mine decided to put 10, 9, 8, God is Great into Hebrew. Brilliant :p
@Al - Hmmm. Maybe. I think educational theory, when it comes to learning languages, is, frankly, beyond me. And probably the way we've been taught just works for some better than others (it worked pretty happily for me, albeit with some Mounce pre-work). For these reason I'd caution against calling the approach we've learned under 'dumb'.
FWIW, I really don't buy the analogy with child-learning, either. As an adult language-learner I'm just not learning to interact with the world as a child is when they learn their first language.
I've been away from the internet for a couple of days (studying for my Hebrew exam because there's nothing I like better than being apropos) and I come back to find all these comments! Thanks for all your contributions.
I think the thing is that everyone learns differently. I think Al and me live in memory-challenged worlds, which means the traditional method doesn't work very well for us. I feel sorry for the colleges though - they can never suit everyone.
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