blhowes
Puritan Board Professor
This question is for those who are real familiar with Hebrew and Greek - something that I've often wondered. After you've learned the alphabet, much of what's involved in learning the new vocabulary is simply memorization - this means that. Its pretty straight forward (though difficult and time consuming, I'm sure).
At times in the past, and it may have been more in the Hebrew than in the Greek, I've heard it mentioned of words or ideas in the Hebrew/Greek language that had no equivalent words or ideas in English. You couldn't just say this means that. It seems like it would be extremely challenging to learn words or thoughts for which you didn't have a known point of reference in the English so you can log the new word into your brain. How do you go about understanding words that don't have English equivalents? How do you assure yourself that your understanding of the thought is correct?
At times in the past, and it may have been more in the Hebrew than in the Greek, I've heard it mentioned of words or ideas in the Hebrew/Greek language that had no equivalent words or ideas in English. You couldn't just say this means that. It seems like it would be extremely challenging to learn words or thoughts for which you didn't have a known point of reference in the English so you can log the new word into your brain. How do you go about understanding words that don't have English equivalents? How do you assure yourself that your understanding of the thought is correct?