I tried Dante in Italian after translating an Italian book and itwas still impossible

Perhaps when you're done with Dante you can move on to Inferno, by Dan Brown in time for the movie premiere.

Acting like the Dan Brown aberrations are not there and replying to the 11:10 PM comment--I have learned more Spanish from that side-to-side comparison and desperation than I ever did in a classroom. You can probably get some good results substituting desire for desperation.

I think that in the case of someone, like Grumpy, who knows Italian, it might make it more difficult because what you know gets in the way of what you are seeing in the text. (This has been a problem for me with Spanish.) You wouldn't be translating from Dante's Italian to Italian to English. You would just be going from Dante's Italian to English. And it might be fun, especially because you don't HAVE to do it.

AMDG

I always remember my Greek teacher telling us about a man who learned Greek in his 70s and translated Homer, and it was published. This gives me hope that I might get to some of that stuff if I actually get to retire before my 70s.

AMDG

I have half a shelf at least of Greek books.

AMDG

Gosh, Janet. Where and when did you get all those Greek books?

"I don't do well with dull tasks with distant rewards."

Me neither. Actually, I don't do well with tasks.

I had Greek in school for 5 years and remember almost nothing. Apart from the alphabet, all that's really stuck with me is translating a few lines of Sappho and what seemed a large chunk of Homer (probably in the range of 12 or 14 lines) – and not the words themselves, only the associated mental images. Which perhaps says something about the power of poetry, but maybe more about my poor head for languages.

Louise, Twenty years ago, I took a short course at a local Greek Orthodox Church which was more fun than work. I wanted to learn more so I found an enormous textbook from a university in the bookstore where my daughter work. It was ancient Greek. I studied that diligently for a good while and then motherhood intervened in one way or another. Don't remember what.

Then I found an Attic text/workbook at a homeschool book sale and that was easy and helpful.

Finally, I took two semester of Koine at the seminary. I was very good, but, alas, I hardly remember anything, which might be good because if I did, it would probably be interfering with the Spanish I have to speak at work.

AMDG

I've always felt a slight sense of grievance that I don't have a better head for languages, since grammar, spelling, etc. always came very easily to me, and I thought I sort of deserved it in compensation for being so bad at math.

I had two years of Latin in high school and remember almost nothing. I also had two years of German and it stuck with me more. It was reinforced by taking a year more in college, but the disparity seems greater than is explained by that.

When can we get a Homer update?

Touché, Janet!

Ich bin krank, Mac.

I didn't mean Latin is harder to learn only harder to remember maybe.

AMDG

I've not studied German, but I have a good friend who learned it as part of his philosophy studies. He said that one of the entertaining things about it, for an English speaker, is that, unlike English, German does not have two registers for "everyday" (for us, Germanic origin words) and "academic" (for us, Greco-Roman origin words) use. So German philosophers discuss their high-brow notions using what sounds to English-speakers like slightly crass or rudimentary diction.

I wish I knew an example to illustrate the point. Perhaps the 'sick' (Germanic) and 'hospital' (Latin) example is not a bad one. 'Krankenhaus' doesn't sound very refined to us.

That does ring a faint bell but I don't know.

Yes, that is an entertaining thing about German. If you need a word for, say, the specific quality of being flexible and spheroid, you just jam some words together and get something like das Flexenspherichqualitat. Capitalizing it just makes it funnier.

Are y'all familiar with Mark Twain's The Awful German Language?

"Gretchen.
Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

Wilhelm.
She has gone to the kitchen.

Gretchen.
Where is the accomplished and beautiful
English maiden?

Wilhelm.
It has gone to the opera."

Janet, I think it's about 5,000 miles between the East Coast of the U.S. and Austria, but about 11,000 miles between New Zealand and Austria.

It's a fur piece, down here.

I wondered about that "closer." Decided just to wait and see if it was cleared up.