It's all Chinese to me

If you're not in the mood to read about the finer points of Ancient Greek classes, I would advise not reading farther. You have been warned.

So today was the first real meeting of my Attic Prose class, where we actually read stuff that we had prepared, instead of just choosing the text that we're going to do this term. It took me about three-plus hours to prepare about 2o lines for today. Granted, the first hour of that was general panicking about how I seem to have forgotten all of the Ancient Greek vocabulary and grammar that I ever knew, but still, the amount of time I spent and the amount of material I was able to get through was kind of pathetic. For comparison, it generally takes me about an hour and a half to two hours to get through about 40 lines of Latin, so half the time and twice the output. Then I get to class, and find out that this professor actually wants us to produce translationese. As in, he's not really interested in us being able to produce a smooth, clear translation in coherent grammatical English, like we're supposed to do in classes at Haverford, but instead is interested in making sure we know what every word is doing in the Greek in the Greek, even if it produces dubious English. This is slightly worrisome, since my normal method of preparing a text is to use the grammar and syntax to understand the meaning of the text and present the meaning of the text in a way informed by the grammar in class, not to have the grammar and syntax as an end in and of itself. My professor is also very into making sure that we have the stresses right when we are reading the Greek out loud, to the point of breaking in after every word to correct your pronunciation. I realize that pronouncing the words correctly is important, but him breaking in after every word kind of defeats what I thought was the purpose of reading the Greek out loud: to get a sense for how the sentence sounds and what it means. The translation goes around the room, and when it gets to be my turn, the professor corrects my pronunciation after every word, which really throws me off, since I tend to use the reading out loud to refresh my memory of what part of the text this is, because I don't write down a translation to bring into class. Everything I had prepared for this particular sentence flies out of my head, I take a million years to do a translation, which the professor kind of has to walk me through, and I totally screw up all of the grammar. It was a terrific way to start out a new class. I did redeem myself slightly at the end of class by knowing that an imperfect indicative in the protasis and and imperfect indicative plus αν in the apodosis makes a present contrary to fact condition.

Edited to add: Did I mention that we're reading this without a commentary? You know, that wonderful piece of work by people who actually read the language that glosses hard words, explains difficult grammar, and provides additional information that helps you understand just what is going on in a particular text? So all of that stuff that the commentary gives you, I have to do without. In the first Ancient Greek literature class I've ever taken, and I hate even doing Latin without a commentary.

To be rational, I know that everyone else in my class was just as overwhelmed as I was. And I know that this will get easier as I start remembering how Ancient Greek works and I get more familiar with Xenophon's vocabulary and style. And I know that if I prepare for class better, things will go easier. And I know that this class actually is at the right level for me, because it's the intermediate Greek class, and I'm certainly neither a beginner nor an advanced student.

But I still feel a bit like I'm in over my head.

Okay, you can all go back to your non-Classics related lives now.