On Mon, Aug 06, 2001 at 08:47:54AM -0400, Reichert, Richard wrote:
>
> I am brand new to this list and have only just started looking into the
> lessons I downloaded from the main web page. I would be greatly interested
> in structured translations with other students.
>
> I only ask that consideration be given to those of us who are just starting
> out. I don't want to get lost in what others would think to be an already
> accepted level of expertise/understanding.
I think that to be able to do translation at all, it's probably a good idea
to first get through those lessons. And I'm sorry they don't go just a little
farther: if I remember right, they cover only one gender (masculine) and only
one tense (present), though I may be misremembering about the gender (I know
there were lessons written for weak feminine and strong neuter nouns, but
I don't think they ever got completed/released; hoping I misremembered that.)
After those lessons, I'd definitely look at the language arts site in
Australia at
http://teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/english/2000/icel/
That's probably the best place to get a review of what's in the lessons,
and enough extra to get those keyy missing topics started. Beware of typos
(some of the forms they give seem inconsistent with other sources).
Anyway, that's what I think may be needed to be able to do translation
without huge amounts of confusion, unless of course you are an intuitive
type like Keth (who also has the advantage of knowing several languages,
and speaking one of the Scandinavian languages as his native tongue).
> I joined this list because I had purchased E.V. Gordon's "Introduction to
> Old Norse" and have not been able to make any real sense out of his grammar
> section. I am intelligent, but not an english or language expert. At my
> level, I need the "Keep it simple stupid" approach.
Gordon's pretty awful. You might try Michael Barnes' New Introduction to
Old Norse, available from amazon.co.uk (not the US amazon, however) and
the Viking Society for Northern Research at
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezjj/homepage.html
It's much better.
--
Arlie
(Arlie Stephens arlie@...)