This blog is not an expert teaching a student. This blog has a simple purpose: to journal my journey learning the languages I plan on learning in the next six to ten years. I hope that my mistakes and victories can help you in your language learning.
More likely though, it will provide endless entertainment to true Polyglots who will laugh at my attempts to attain polyglot-dom.
There are several reasons I'm excited to start out on this goal of becoming a polyglot, the main being the opportunities that language learning will give me. I look forward to being able to read God's Word as it was originally inspired and given to mankind. This is something the current "translation" debate has forgotten: we do have the Bible in the original languages. So when in doubt, go back to the sources. The Reformation was greatly influenced by an idea floating around the study of the Humanities of the day: ad fontes. The phrase is Latin, and means "back to the source (fountain)."
In Luther's day he went back to the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible to study the Scriptures, eschewing the Latin Vulgate, a "gold-standard" of the Roman Catholic Church. There were important distinctions and translations in the Vulgate that had taken its toll on Catholic theology in Luther's day.
The cry of "Ad Fontes!" is one we need very much in today's landscape. We can get enamored with the "New", "Living", "Paraphrased", "Remixed", or any other adjective which implies God's word needs improvement, Bible. What is forgotten is the idea that we can go back to the original Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. Granted, not every theological debate can be solved by the Languages, it certainly can help clarify many debates of our day to their true source, our own sinful hearts which refuse to believe what God's word says.
Some may see it as a waste of valuable time to learn Greek and Hebrew, and to them I ask one question.
How much time will I save in consulting endless commentaries when I could be just reading my NA28 (NT) or BHS (OT)?
By putting in the time now (as a 17 year old), let's say four years to gain basic competency in both languages, I have upwards of SIXTY YEARS of my life to read God's Word in the original languages. That is a lot of time in God's Word.
Hoping the next several years at University are fruitful,
- Jonah