Good points, Alan. Makes excellent sense.



--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "AThompson" <athompso@...>
wrote:

>
> LN, Patricia
>
> Don't misunderstand me. I agree with everything LN says and use

all LN's suggested methods at various times, both for learning the
language and for preparing translations. The specific approaches to
studying and translating which I suggested were not meant as single
approaches for all one's language study activities. They were only
intended as an approach for our current Hrafnkel translation "class"
in the Norse Course group. And I didn't necessarily mean for people
to try to translate the whole passage on their own before referring
to the translation - it could just as easily be sentence by
sentence. My suggestion was simply to use this particular "class"
for making a genuine attempt at recognising the grammatical
structure of the sentences on your own first - for example training
yourself to recognise noun cases and verb conjugations - rather than
having the solution simply presented to you by referring to another
translation first. Similarly, I was suggesting that you present your
translations to this group, as a minimum, in a way that demonstrates
the extent to which you have understood the grammar. I am not
suggesting that you should not also attempt a literary translation
as well. But I am not able to assess, and therefore comment on, your
exact understanding of the grammar of a particular sentence if, for
example, your translation is in the past tense when the original was
in the present. I cannot know from this whether you have done this
for stylistic reasons or because you didn't recognise that the verb
in the original text was in the present tense. The reason my
translations in this "class" are so literal is purely to indicate,
as best I can, the grammar of the original.

>
> I think we´ve had this discussion before:)
>
> And don't give up.
>
> Kveðja
> Alan