caldwell614

Thank you so much! The Lingua Latina sounds great for teaching vocabulary in Latin. That is sort of what I am doing with Spanish. I plateaued after a few years of Spanish, not being able to memorize any more Spanish-English vocabulary. So I started looking up words in a Spanish dictionary and that has helped me a lot more. But I will take a look at all of the resources both of you mentioned! Also is there a classical Greek Dictionary that defines words in Classical Greek? Or am I stuck with Greek - English?

I was in a similar situation to you coming out of undergrad. Nondenominational and lower than average GPA due to issues with depression. Yet I wanted to do a PhD program at some point(in my case Old Testament). I just started at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary for a few reasons: 1. Seminaries tend to have lower academic requirements. 2. Gordon Conwell lets you cross register for courses at several schools, so you can get a range of conservative and liberal approaches. You can even cross register at HDS which I plan on doing in the spring most likely. 3. Decent language programs. This was important for me since I would like to do PhD level Hebrew. 4. I had a more liberal perspective at Ohio State for undergrad and wanted to mix it up. They do offer MA in New Testament, but I haven't looked into the current faculty too much since that isn't my degree. They also offer MA in Biblical Languages which I am getting a dual degree in.

I am currently taking some New Testament Greek in school and self-teaching Latin. Since I am at a seminary, we went through Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek. The book is great for learning shortcuts to translating, but not for really getting a grasp on the Greek language. I really want to learn to read and figure out how the authors think, not simply translate into a simplified English. The lexical range or some words is really quite different than the English lexical range, which leads me to believe that speakers of Classical and Koine Greek had different understandings of the mechanics of language as well as a different mindset and philosophy than an English speaker today. I have just begun to study Wheelock's Latin and find it much better but still not as immersive as I would like. At least Wheelock has composition and questions about sample texts. Are there any resources that teach Greek and Latin by helping a reader get into the mind of an ancient? Perhaps less translating and more throwing you into a language? Or is this a skill I should develop once my basic grasp of these languages has been strengthened?

I've been using Duolingo the last couple weeks to refresh my Spanish, and it has been pretty good. Reviews by people who know more than me say it is better than Rosetta Stone in effectiveness. Also it's free and you get points for reviewing and learning so it feels like a game. They have Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French I think. But the best part is the free. http://www.duolingo.com/

I want to do Comparative/Historical Linguistics in Semitics. I want to focus on ancient/classical languages (Ancient Hebrew, Ge'ez, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Classical Arabic, etc.) but many of the classes I've taken have focused on the language's development from the perspective of orthography, not sound. Maybe that is just the nature of undergrad courses though where they don't expect students to know too much. Maybe I'll start looking into doing a NELC degree and collaborate with Linguistics staff as you suggest. I didn't consider the possibility of overlap between multiple departments. In that case what are some of the better Comparative/Historical Linguistics programs? I have been able to find lists of schools that have good Semitic language programs, but many top Linguistics programs I've seen seem to be more science-leaning than history-leaning.

I just started my M.A. Program, but I want to start looking into some PhD programs so it doesn't catch me off guard come application time. I have looked into some programs in Semitic Philology as well as some Linguistics Programs, but I have been unable to find schools that seem to have Linguistics faculty with a background in Semitics. I would love to approach my study of ancient Semitic languages with the methodology of Linguistics, but most programs I have found in Linguistics seem to lean towards Indo-European languages. I was an undergraduate at Ohio State and they had a great Hebrew program and a great Linguistics program, but no overlap at all. Does anyone know of a program that blends these two fields?