Friday, September 14, 2007
The E. T. A. Hoffman novella we are reading in German class mentioned a partridge dish. Someone asked what a partridge was, to which I responded, "Ein Partridge ist ja ein kleiner Junge, der rote Haare hat..." Der Grair Bär expressed surprise that I would know "The Partridge Family", but cable television makes anything possible. I haven't seen the show in years, and I only watched it during the summers as a kid, when I went to visit my grandparents. They had cable. We did not. I then binged on the cable network shows.
I am reading The Bacchae (auf Griechisch) independently with Avril. It counts as a three-hour class, but we only meet for an hour once a week; consequently, we progress through a smaller volume of lines than I am used to. While I would like to be tested on less material, I would nevertheless like to complete the entire play by the end of the semester. Oh, the agony...
My level in Greek lies below my Latin and German, especially in my recognition of case uses and participles. I made flashcards many moons ago, but they seem to have wandered off. I do expect to improve tremendously this semester, in spite of my many shortcomings in translating. Dr. Lavigne explains everything (sometimes a little too) thoroughly, and he forces me to work problems out for myself. That is what I need.
He can be snide, though. The session before last, I didn't recognize a certain verb and couldn't derive it from context or piecing together its components.
"You can't wear black anymore," says Lavigne.
"Why?" says Lauree.
"κτανειν means 'to kill'."
Yesterday he laughed because I translated another verb as "engendered" rather than something more like "gave birth to". I only did that to differentiate it from the other verbs related to giving birth I had seen previously. Using yet another English word signals that the Greek uses a different word. My translation was not incorrect, precisely, just odd.
Why is everybody always picking on me?
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 6:41 PM]