We have been in Greece a few days now. We are fighting jet lag… and so far, we are not winning.
My girls and I have been waking up off and on at about 2 am and are unable to fall asleep again. I am using the dead time of the morning to study Greek.
This morning, I listened to Earworms, Rapid Greek Volume 1 and 2. I need to do a review. Perhaps in the next few days. https://www.amazon.com/Earworms-Rapid-Greek-Musical-Trainer/dp/084160049X
I did not purchase Earworms, Rapid Greek. Instead, I have a subscription to Scribd. If you are not familiar with Scribd, it may be worth your time. For a yearly subscription of $60, you have access to an astonishing amount of digital books, both digital and audio. I hear it is difficult to cancel your account if you are not using, but I have never faced this decision. I have used, and have perhaps abused, my subscription. It is well worth $60 a year for me. Among other books, I have access to the entire Earworms series.
I love Greece, but as I blog, I am going to be very careful to point out the good, the bad and the annoying. I am not a big fan of Instabrag (oops, I mean Instagram) because, in my experience, we only show the good and the glamorous sides of our lives.
Many of you have asked me to blog our experiences over here, and I intend to do so. I didn’t last time, and I regret that. In fact, I should have blogged just to leave notes for myself. There are things we forgot. I think a blog would have helped me remember some critical details. I don’t intend to make that mistake again. Ergo, I will do my best to blog from here every day.
I came to work on my Greek pronunciation, which is currently awful. At least, I feel it is. This is something I desperately want to improve.
Ultimately, I am attempting to master Biblical Greek. This is why I am here. But, I use the modern Greek pronunciation… because the Greeks do. I discovered this fact last year just before my son nearly lost his life in a car accident in Colorado. (Miraculously, he survived and even more miraculously, he recovered. He is back to work trying to make a living as a photographer.)
I was sad to leave Greece just after arriving last year. We had only been here a few weeks, and I was just settling into deep study when we had to leave for Colorado. However, I did achieve one major victory before we left.
For years, I searched for a definitive answer to the Greek pronunciation problem. There is an ancient Greek pronunciation. I could use it to teach ancient and biblical Greek. Unfortunately, there are variant pronunciations and, naturally, there is argument among scholars. No one is sure which is the “correct” Greek pronunciation. I decided to go ask the Greeks. The last time I was here, I met multiple times with a Greek scholar in Athens. He is Greek. He grew up in Athens. He has a masters degree in ancient Greek and is working on a PHD in ancient Greek and archaeology at one of the universities in Athens.
I asked him. “How did the ancient Greeks pronounce Greek?”
“No one knows”, he responded. “There is a pronunciation that scholars use, but no one knows for sure.”
“So… how do you and your colleagues pronounce ancient Greek?”, I asked.
“We pronounce it with modern Greek pronunciation.”, he responded.
And, just like that, a five-year quest ended for me. I was done with the scholastic pronunciation. I would move to Greece as often as possible to study modern Greek, and especially, modern Greek pronunciation. And, so… here I am again.
Given this fact, I am trying to learn as much modern Greek as I am able. I study the language when I am in the States, but, as everyone knows, there is nothing quite like getting into the country of the target language.
The internet here is actually pretty bad. That’s new. In the past, it has been better here than it is in Franklin, Tennessee. Not this time, evidently.
Went grocery shopping today with my wife. She needs my help with the labels. Not that ancient Greek helps much. But, we are doing our best. If I can figure out how to share photos with myself from my phone, I will write a post on that struggle tomorrow.
