Descriptions:
Video Description
The ninth session is exam day. Ammon Hillman walks Madalena through a short exam of five long passages, and the whole thing is built around one habit: identify the structure of the sentence before you try to write it in English. Each question opens with a clue, such as name the conditional or name the independent subjunctive, and the student must sort out whether she is looking at a future more vivid, a past contrafactual, or one of the optatives and subjunctives the course has been drilling since the start.
The grammar is reduced to formulas. A future more vivid sentence turns on the word for if, ean (ἐάν), and means if this happens, then that will happen. A past contrafactual uses had and would have, a way of saying something did not actually occur. The lesson also reviews the three independent subjunctives, the let us of a hortatory, the should we of a deliberative, and the do not of a prohibitive, plus the difference between an optative of wish and a potential optative. Every answer is said to come down to the chart, not to cleverness.
The results land between 88 and 90, which the teacher counts as a pass but deliberately keeps just under the top mark so the work continues. The episode then hands the student the next level of responsibility: for the following two units, she will teach the material back to him, explaining the grammar and walking through exercises on her own. The closing point is that the student no longer needs to be carried, and reading Greek on her own is the whole goal of the course.
Full Video Transcript
How are you feeling? Are you ill? No, no, no, just tired. And yeah, yeah. Okay. What can you do? What can you do? Are you? How do you feel? Emotionally? Do you feel ready to hit the wall or ready to go through it? Maybe? Yeah, yeah.
well i tell you what we’re gonna do what we’re gonna do today for the second half is something
that i’ve seen done and i think is fairly productive and i want to test with you how
well it works so um we’ll do something a little bit different um but let’s go ahead and get to
your exam huh do you feel like you you feel like you’re ready to kill this thing i just i just want
to get over with yeah there you go that’s the spirit that’s the spirit okay chewy cue up the
exam so everybody can see it and by everybody i just mean madelaine because madelaine i want you
to put out all the voices out of your head temporarily i want you just to concentrate
on this first sentence starting with on here what i want you to do is i want you to work
your way through it again and if you want to be vocal and say well i think i’m going to try this
or i think feel free to but you don’t have to okay it’s a three-liner take your time if you’re
spinning your wheels go back and ask yourself what kind of structure does it have okay i’ll
leave you i’ll leave you to your work all right
I hope you enjoyed this video, and I’ll see you in the next one!
Yeah, okay. Aeon, and I got oh so tight, and I’m just gonna…
By the way, I’ll just jump in here and let you know that the commas, I hate the commas
in this sentence. They’re terrible, so try not to let those kind of sway you in anything.
okay um okay yeah okay um if wait um oh yeah okay let me do a little song and dance one
while you while you’re thinking to yourself madelaine remember that remember that each
of these is like a question on a physics exam so you’re gonna get like five of these
and you’re gonna have to put a good amount of time into them just like you’re doing
so do not feel rushed do you understand me absolutely do not feel rushed all right
is it like a terrible nightmare it scared me no i mean a little bit it’s a lot of words but
right there’s a lot of calculations that’s three lines and there’s a lot of grammar going on there
so okay let me know when you’re ready to step up i’m almost i’m almost done at the end of it um
okay um so this is uh what i have so far okay if the greeks after the battle were made to stop
in the field then they will be saving the goats in the land or they will be saving the things
in the land and the goats i wasn’t sure about that in fact the gift of the goddess is
sacrificing in order that the the war they may send out of the land
okay i tried okay okay let me ask you a couple of questions about the sentence see
how there are questions below this it says give us impacts and power zone right okay so there’s
a couple of questions i want you to ask what kind i want to ask you what kind of conditional is this
um it’s uh it’s a i thought it was a uh uh future or yeah future more vivid
because excellent the a a on and then it had it had the future and the next line so i end up good
you don’t have to show off future more vivid you’re right you’re right all right look at the
the henna claws look at the henna claws in the end is this a is this verb subjunctive or is it
optative um i thought it was um opted in it wasn’t okay okay how did you translate it in order that
what um they may send so it would be so you’re trans you’re translating it like it’s a subjunctive
right you’re trying to do it like a subjunctive so it is a subjunctive and you’re right about this
type of conditional those are the two things they’re trying to show now if you just move
your feet a little bit we’ll just bend your ankles a little bit one way and we’ll say yeah if
if the greeks right came to a halt after the battle on the plane right if they do this they
will be saved right now who is the they and the they will be saved this is where this sentence
is written out so sloppily that i don’t i don’t think it’s really it’s really good good greek um
who is the subject or the no no almost almost almost those are i got those are accusative plural
goats okay so so they’re going to be the object look at the hoy on the beginning of the second
line after the te those are the people hoi who live in te hora the people who are in or on in
the countryside okay in the land yeah they are the subject of so face on time the people in the
countryside will be saved then the kai comes in and after a poor eye and now jump to the verb
and they will the people of land will sacrifice
igas goats which you said almost correctly you put it you put it sensically together right
and then Dora
Dora is just the gifts of the
you know there are gifts for
the goddess right we’re just describing
them already they’re gifts for the goddess
and then the purpose clause
but the purpose clause
is a third person
singular O-A-C-A
active
in order that she
may send
tus polemius the
soldiers
ectes gais
from the land out of the land yeah good good fantastic that one i would give you an 88
to 90 ish i would give that an 88 to 90 ish good give me now okay look the pain must continue you
can’t walk away with that right um yeah i would like for this one for you to do number two i hate
to throw it this is another tough construction i hate to throw it at you but here number two please
okay okay people who are listening notice it’s not enjoyable there has never been a greek exam
administered somebody came in too happy dappy sat down right and smiled the whole time right
this is think physics think statistics you ever take a statistics course my god man the tests are
like time to jump off the ledge you know okay so um i said number two uh go for it take take
your time madelaine you’re doing great by the way that was good so keep it up all right um let’s see
here
all right i’m glad you said it was interesting but i want you to i want you to realize that while
you’re talking like that realize what your brain is doing right this is the art of translation
exactly what you’re doing right now so keep it up okay all right okay i’m done all righty go for it
um we may not be guarding the unjust democracy on the one hand the freedom is for good on the
other hand the slavery of evil is shame okay now the question underneath that would be what
kind of subjunctive is what kind of subjunctive is it let me let me add one word to that i would
add one word to that on your exam what kind of independent subjunctive is this um i i thought
it was maybe a present um uh when i say what kind i mean when i say what kind i mean is it
it a hortatory a deliberative or a prohibition prohibition maybe okay are you ready to go over
yeah yeah fantastic okay i want you to notice i want you to notice that the second sentence
starts agathon oh yeah you know i i know okay you did fine you did fine on the second sentence
right because you knew there was a verb that wasn’t there was a verb to be right and the
subject is for freedom is good on the one hand but on the other hand um servitude
is is bad and shameful yeah right so they they they’re being a little bit free on the word order
just to give you a just to kind of shake you up there just to try to get you going now the full
atom tomitha i want you to look at the punctuation at the end yeah i see that yeah you see that now
right now on an exam on an exam i would have given you those three choices and said which one was
this specifically to jog your mind to say oh wait a minute this is one of those uh independent
subjunctives which one so it’s got the question mark yeah so it’s got to be deliberative deliberative
right now if you had seen that you would have made that decision now would that have changed
would that have changed your answering knowing it’s a deliberation do you want to rephrase it
do you want to rephrase it it would be maybe may we not be guarding the unjust democracy almost
are we not are we not guard the anoxious those who are unworthy and then that’s where the democracy
okay those who are on the of the democracy okay of the democracy okay i’m taking off a few points
on that one you got an you got an 82 an 82 okay you dropped on that one so number five number five
you’ve got to to put all the energy into this one to get it perfectly to bring that average back up
no pressure but pressure right okay all right you can do it you can do it thanks same thing
on this one right below right below this sentence i would write what kind of independent
optative is this okay all right i think i’ve done all i can do for this okay give me what you got
all right um i i thought it might uh might say hey um if the if the young men might not learn
for themselves if we might not learn for them for ourselves for shameful and unjust poetry
whoever was abandoning the book at the marketplace yes whoever was abandoning the books in the
marketplace who this guy must be a real loser right so the a god made a god made
what kind of optative is that um heiress okay is it an optative of wish or an optative of what’s
the other kind you have i thought it was an option of wish potential potential yeah wish
your potential wish your potential which one i think it’s wish well i i think it’s potential
no no you said you thought it was wish before i did yeah yeah but i didn’t know how to
phrase it like that it’s a wish yeah for a wish here you could say if only you right do something
or i wish you would teach the boys you would not because it’s got the may in front of it not teach
the boys at the house of that shameful and unjust poet he must be an epstein right who left behind
his books in the agora now that second clause that is a relative clause of characteristic it’s
telling you what kind of person this is kind of person who would leave behind his books you can’t
trust the kids in such a shameful right i mean it doesn’t make the greatest of sense but yes so what
you needed to have seen was that this is a an optative that is a wishing optative and so i
take your first translation that you gave and i would tweak that with that and then i would just
align the second half as we did okay again you’re functioning in the 86 to 90 region on that one
somewhere in that region because you’re not missing you got all the verbs you got all the
nouns you know everything where it should be put it’s just a matter of properly honing it and
tuning it good 85 it’s hard tell everybody it’s hard people people know how smart madalena is
i had a big cry about it yes and you should oh god it should have caused you anxiety and maybe
a lot of times no i can’t tell you how many times madalena i came out of exams with people that got
migraines or got sick from the experience or just emotionally disturbed you know now
i’m talking about when i was taking the exams too i can’t tell you my fellow students would
get migraines and from the stress of one of these greek exams yeah right so that’s good okay
well so far so good here’s what i want you to do take uh take a 10 minute break and then we’re
going to ask two more two more sentences and your exam will be finished okay okay take 10 minutes
don’t don’t think about anything let this be okay like a true break you know what i mean don’t don’t
think we’ll say 10 minutes it’s 21 we’ll say 31 so we’re there abouts okay okay you there madeline
yep all right let’s hit it and get it over with this is page 199 199 okay number four number four
okay
Nice pronunciation. Good.
Thanks.
Okay, let’s see.
Okay, so we have…
Let me just interrupt.
um it would have the question underneath it um what kind of conditional is this
well it says future more vivid but it says to turn it into a future more vivid so that would
make sense more sense yeah sometimes there’s questions about is that really helpful right
for you to see instead of just saying identify this kind of conditional you can do like this
text does and say oh you know what change it into something different right so that’s i just want to
know that you can identify what kind it actually is okay sorry i’ll leave you alone keep going yeah
greg
please everybody note for the record this is from page 199 in the book so this is 200 pages in you
can imagine how much madalena has crammed into her head in just a very short period of time
all right let’s do it okay well i’m just curious what are you going to answer for the question
underneath it that says what kind of conditional is this um well i’ve been trying to figure that
out because i i know it’s like i know what a future more vivid is and it’s aeon right
it’s a it’s with uh yeah and it doesn’t have that and then the on the other side it’s it’s
aorist so a plus a plus aorist which one is that humor which one no it’s uh it’s a contrafactual
right yes yes it’s a it’s a past right good good and what’s the translation and uh
uh if uh uh isn’t it like if they if they would have they should i don’t remember i don’t remember
it but i know it’s that but i can’t remember what it is okay so you get major credit for saying that
you know it’s a past contrafactual right just because you’re slipping on the translation for
i’ll take just try to remember it one more time you almost had it here your last one was just
it’s just worded a little bit differently um and people who are watching i want you to realize
this is all from the chart on page 97 right that’s the only thing here this has nothing to
do with brains right it’s merely access to that data right it’s purely rational what you’re doing
madelaine is purely rational you know that if you could hit that box you’d know exactly oh shit
which one is this okay so okay if do you want me to give it to you no
okay i’ll try it i’ll try it um go ahead go ahead where’s my pen um if okay i’m gonna i’m just gonna
shoot for it all right if the leaders would have appointed the young men into battle
then they would have saved the democracy okay okay it’s a it’s indeed a past counterfactual
a plus aorist aorist plus on the translation formula is had would have had would have
and i want you to notice a couple of things a a toxin if he she or it had stationed
to stand yes the young man ace my head and into battle yeah yeah for maybe battle here has set
a month for the battle yep um a canace taste hey man us right now technically technically this is
a genitive of the duration of time oh so like during yeah during that day during during that
day oh yeah it’s my bad i could not remember what that was yeah no that’s one of them again that’s
just one of the little side uses of the genitive there that you’re going to have to pick up and
now you’re not going to forget it and you’re going to say oh wait a minute it’s it has something to
do with time you can just slap a genitive down there yeah it’s the genitive of the duration
of the time okay good so yeah if he she or it had stationed you know those young people
you know on that day at the battlefield or made him ready for battle on esota hey democratia the
democracy would not because it’s not would not have they wouldn’t have been saved saved yeah
okay yeah okay do you hear we’ll talk it out look at it again and make sure you can
can you can read it in your mind as a past contrafactual had would have okay okay let’s do
look your last one oh god you’re oh by the way i would give that one i would give that one an 86
ish i would give it an 86 ish you’re hitting the same you’re hitting in the same percentile
right roughly in my head because i’m counting each of each of the cases as a point
you know on each of the grammatical uses structures as a point you know do you identify it
great okay number five i want you to know that the the interjection o is our little
it’s going to be our vocative um i hardly ever i i hardly ever give you vocatives but i want you
to see ahead of time this is evocative okay and um yeah and i would have you the question that you
would have underneath is um what kind of what kind of subjunctive what kind of independent
subjunctive is this okay go ahead okay all right you wouldn’t think that they could pack so much
nasty grammar into such a short little sentence but they do so this is there’s a lot there’s much
more there’s much more going on here that meets the eye so yep okay notice the punctuation too
yeah now do you understand madelaine i’ll just put it put in my two cents now do you understand
why professors would sweat if you told them they were going to have to go on live tv and
translate things that they’ve never seen before they should not be arrogant unless you can do it
right exactly exactly so my guess for this one is oh freedom may we enslave the empire of the
unworthy okay what kind of subjunctive is the doula woman is it a and it’s and in all fairness
i would put the three types up there if you don’t need me to okay well one of those three
the hortatory deliberative or prohibitive it’s is it deliberative yes it is deliberative
so make it sound deliberative
make it sound like a question
will we
will we
enslave the empire
of the unworthy
almost now the one slight
correction I’d make here is
that verb
it takes a
dative
so are we
to be slaves to
be slaves to the
to the anoxiois to the unworthy to those unworthy of to arcade of the yeah right
okay those unworthy of ruling right do you see that okay look look look and you sat there
and you work through it and you start to form a hatred for it and you’re thinking to yourself
how am i going to do this don’t stop i know it’s frustrating can bring you to tears yeah
can bring you to tears okay but you see as we correct each sentence you can see how the path
could be laid open that this is something that you’re not going to need me very much longer for
right i can help you like this and i can correct you like this and if we do it enough we and we do
it repetitively we can get you to the point that you can go off the carrier on your own
and you can fly right that’s the whole object the very fact that you are just getting there
pushing through each of these sentences is the entire goal right it’s the entire goal and you
have to factor that kind of thing in when you’re grading your students you have to tell them
exactly where they are you cannot lie about where they are right you have to you you can never lie
to your students they have to know everything so you tell them exactly where they are numerically
i would put you in the 88 to 90 range i would put you just below that 90 range and i would
do that on purpose so that you would kick yourself up right here’s what i want here’s what i want you
to do here’s what i want you to do for the next two units you are going to teach them to me okay
okay all right you didn’t you know how this works by seven units in oh by the way an 80 an 88 is
pass right that’s a congratulations you should feel you should give
again take a picture take a picture of people coming out of a university greek exam particularly
a university intensive greek exam you watch what they look like when they come out and they look
like well i just you know that’s it it’s over i don’t know maybe i’ll move to montana or something
take up typing right become a stenographer or something um don’t um realize that you’re in
the group guess what it’s the suck and you’ve learned to embrace the suck now yes what i want
you to do is i want you to take the next level up i want to give you responsibility like you would
give responsibility to a platoon leader right somebody in your somebody in your in your group
who has, you know, shown that they can take more responsibility, right? That’s what I want you to
do. But the reason I’m doing this is to show you that you don’t need me, okay? That’s the most
important thing. You’ve been through seven units, seven whole units now. You have done all of that
work. It’s 200 pages worth of work. You have seen the patterns. You know what they’re going to give
you they’re going to introduce you to some new morphology some new vocabulary and a few new
grammatical things that you can do and it’s going to get easier and easier every unit because there’s
not much more they can give us yeah okay they have pounded us with the verbs pounded us okay
we’ve got one more pounding and the pounding that’s coming up is participles so that is going
happen what i need you to do is the next two units of your so you’ve completed congratulations
you completed the first two units the next two units i mean you’ve completed the first
seven units right the next two units i want you to teach me okay so i’m of course i’m gonna know
the material already but i want you to teach it to me and then cause me to go through the exercise
exercises so that you can show me how to use the grammar that you’ve just been shown okay
for this is tomorrow that we’re gonna that we’re gonna begin this but i want to begin after lady
babylon and i set lady babylon for seven so if we can begin an hour and a half later um
um that would be much appreciated i’d really appreciate it if we could do that
oh yeah okay like 9 9 30 my time yes okay cool yes so in order to do this you’re gonna have to
prep the exercises yourself that you’re gonna teach me okay the whole the whole point of this
um is to it’s like a liberation they did this to us at berkeley they would give us the afternoon
times to really teach each other in little groups to teach each other what the content of the
chapter was and to go over exercises with each other. And at first you think, oh, this is not
very effective because I want to hear it from the expert who knows what’s right and wrong. No, no,
no. This is part of the training. You need to develop your muscles that understand, your muscles
for understanding what you are doing with the greek you have done the best way to do that is
to make you teach it so now i’m going to become one of the platoon and i’m going to let you lead
me so that i know it and i’m going to ask you questions i’m going to ask you questions that
are things that i don’t know right that i’m learning from the from the from the unit and
you have to explain it to me okay okay we will begin tomorrow you’re done for the evening what
i would do is i would take the rest of your time off and don’t think about greek at all don’t like
don’t do anything tonight right tomorrow um you know even as just as you’re watching lady babylon
i have so much confidence in your understanding of the text the material in each of the units
i don’t have any i don’t think you’re yeah i think it’s going to be great because i’m going to shut
up and now you’re going to engage and it’s going to be a little bit hard it’s going to be a little
bit harder and a little more demanding but you have the capacity to do this so i appreciate
i appreciate that having a student that good oh thanks that would be fun how do you feel how do
you feel uh oh wow i feel better yeah i feel better and i’m that’ll be fun to to do that
tomorrow a little tired good good your soreness your your greek soreness will wear off give it
it a little time to wear off and you’ll think oh good i’ll be but that’s a good soreness no pain
no gain in this game yeah right for sure and yeah i’ll just let you know that i’ve been communicating
while you were doing your exam i was communicating um to set up the next fight and i’m going to say
what i yes we need to get the people out there and to show people how fucking hard this language is
right bring these texts forward and let the world see exactly what the christ is so while you and i
are working out in the gym i’m setting up the next match okay nice so let’s let’s do this right
and let’s let’s finish this you know quest thanks thanks is there anything you want me to know
before we finish um i don’t think so okay i’m gonna shut up tomorrow you’re gonna do
most of the talking okay all right sounds good okay okay okay good to see you madeline
nice job congratulations thank you we we made it congratulations
Source: Lady Babylon