Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
In order to read a book in its original language you must know/understand language a lot more than a mere 1-2 years of self studying.
1. You must have a huge vocabulary, if you want to read a book and enjoy the content instead of breaking up concentration and looking every other word in a dictionary.
2. You must know its grammar well enough to understand subtleties and different shades of the language, thus different situations.
In order to master even one foreign language to this level you must invest an incedible amount of time, even if you are talented you still need the vocabulary. Studying a new language to a level required to enjoy a book and understand it better than if you read a professional translation (really understand all the emotions, not just getting the gist), will require as much time as changing your career, or more....
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Well, not quite as much time as changing your career. But you are right, it takes a lot of time to get to learn a new language, especially a "dead" language. It is, in my opinion, worth it, however.
I didn't learn Greek or Latin in school either, and I don't even think either of them are offered in many high schools. In Croatia many high schoolers learn pretty basic latin, and while Greek is offered in some schools those are few and far between.
My first Latin textbook was the famous "Wheelock's Latin Course", which is a great introduction, IMO. For Greek, I think the Athenaze courses don't look too bad. (In my Greek course we didn't use a textbook, we used a reference grammar and an excercise book).
Also, there are some great editions of Greek and Latin texts that have extensive vocabulary notes coupled with a few lines of text per page, so that you learn vocabulary by actually reading original text. A great example of this is Pharr's edition of Virgil's "Aeneid". Also, there are free programs and sites such as "Perseus Project" and "Diogenes" which allow you to read original Greek and Latin text, but when you click on a word you don't know the dictionary entry for it pops up. A great tool for people who want to read text but don't want to keep running to their dictionary every 2 seconds.
Happy reading!