Harry Potter in Ancient Greek • Hacker News Board

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#21

Post by ldd » Fri, May 29, 2015, 2:54 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #13

ldd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a firm believer that one should spend at least 10 or 20 years learning French and then read Les Miserables and Le Compte de Monte-Cristo. The same could be said about La sombra del viento, 100 años de soledad or Neruda's poems in Spanish. In English, only Virginia Woolf inspires the same awe for language that these other books impregnated in me. In some sense, these authors don't use words. They let words use th…

> I am a firm believer that one should spend at least 10 or 20 years learning French and then read Les Miserables and Le Compte de Monte-Cristo. Sure do that. But no harm in reading these two books a few times before that, too.

Sure no harm in that. Also, some translations are really great, and you can sense the style of the original authors through them. Yet, there is something about those particular books that just has to be said in their respective language. Not because the message is lost, but a part of their magic will always be bound to the words used, I guess

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#22

Post by Jun8 » Fri, May 29, 2015, 2:55 AM UTC

"The Greeks ate a simple healthy diet, involving bread, vegetables and fruit - none which (except potatoes - γεώμηλα -in every guise) are available at Hogwarts."

Wait, Ancient Greeks didn't eat potatoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato)!

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#23

Post by TillE » Fri, May 29, 2015, 2:58 AM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…

The best part about Harry Potter in French is that the word for wand is "baguette".

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#24

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 29, 2015, 3:00 AM UTC

Jun8 wrote: post #22

"The Greeks ate a simple healthy diet, involving bread, vegetables and fruit - none which (except potatoes - γεώμηλα -in every guise) are available at Hogwarts." Wait, Ancient Greeks didn't eat potatoes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato )!

[deleted]

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#25

Post by Natsu » Fri, May 29, 2015, 5:39 AM UTC

ekidd wrote: post #10

ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…

This is an amazing way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language. When I started reading French novels, I could mostly understand maybe 60% and guess another 30%. But after 10,000 pages, I was only running into unknown words every few pages, and my understanding of idioms was vastly better. The same thing works for listening comprehension: Find a DVD box set of easy TV series, one where you can understand maybe…

I liked to watch subtitled shows for this reason. I seem to pick up words as I go. Nouns seem to be the easiest to figure out, followed by adjectives and verbs, but this might vary depending on just how those words get morphed by the grammar in some languages.

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#26

Post by lips » Fri, May 29, 2015, 5:41 AM UTC

From the Amazon product page: > Age Range: 12 - 17 years

This might be more relevant if HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE had a code for Ancient Greek.

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#27

Post by hacknat » Fri, May 29, 2015, 5:42 AM UTC

Also in Latin:

http://www.amazon.com/Harrius-Potter-Philosophi-Lapis-Philos...

This has been available for a while though.

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#28

Post by ecdavis » Fri, May 29, 2015, 6:14 AM UTC

ekidd wrote: post #10

ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…

This is an amazing way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language. When I started reading French novels, I could mostly understand maybe 60% and guess another 30%. But after 10,000 pages, I was only running into unknown words every few pages, and my understanding of idioms was vastly better. The same thing works for listening comprehension: Find a DVD box set of easy TV series, one where you can understand maybe…

There is a technique called "Listening-Reading" that's fairly well known within the language-learning community.

The idea is straight-forward:

Get a novel-length text in your target language, a high-quality recording of that text and a literal translation of the text in your native language. Alternate between reading the original text and the translation while simultaneously listening to the recording.

The method is supposedly fantastic, but it's incredibly difficult to gather suitable materials. While widely-translated books like Harry Potter seem ideal, the translations are not literal and occasionally the audiobooks do not match the texts exactly.

Further info:

http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Listening-Reading_Met...

http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_mountain/!%20L-R%20th...

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#29

Post by ghostDancer » Fri, May 29, 2015, 6:24 AM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…

I use comics , in the case of french Asterix or Tintin , as easier but you can go with more difficult ones, the french don't lack of good comics. And then i begin with books.

Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek

#30

Post by schoen » Fri, May 29, 2015, 6:31 AM UTC

Jun8 wrote: post #22

"The Greeks ate a simple healthy diet, involving bread, vegetables and fruit - none which (except potatoes - γεώμηλα -in every guise) are available at Hogwarts." Wait, Ancient Greeks didn't eat potatoes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato )!

Yeah, I'm not sure where this reference comes from. γεώμηλα is a Modern Greek word for potato (literally 'earth apple', presumably a calque from French pomme de terre). It might be a sensible way to refer to potatoes in Ancient Greek too, but it wouldn't be sensible to suggest they were eaten in Ancient Greece!