I was still anxious about the content of chapter seven – moods, and expecting to cover chapter eight this week, so it was a relief when we spent this week covering the old and the new of “moods” without venturing further into unknown territory.
In this chapter, we discover that the verbs we’ve learned to far are all in what’s known as the -indicative- mood: that they relate to something that’s actually happening, or is happening in the story that we’re reading. There are, it turns out, more moods: the imperative, for commands, the infinitive, for talking about verbs, and the participle, which was the main new content.
The best part of the revision was starting to get a handle on all the new word endings: a total of ten for this week, by my count, which can apply to any of the verbs we’ve learned so far. Again, the lecturer explained more of the english examples, and showed how the greek can hold shades of meaning that are not part of english speech.
I’m finding myself doing exercises a couple of times, with a day or two between them. The second time, they’re easier, but there are enough different questions to stop me from memorising the answers. Especially at the end of the chapter, there were a couple of quite difficult exercises – a two-word phrase to translate that featured a few tricks from two separate chapters!
I find myself longing for the days where there was only one mood, and one tense. Things were simpler then. The goal is to read (that’s an infinitive, by the way: I could write that in greek… anaginoskai, I think) the new testament in greek, and all of this has to be mastered if I’m to be able to read it.