My beginning Greek students are learning, at this stage of the game, that there are so many similarities between Greek and English that they are indeed "sister" languages. Not identical twins, of course. But still closely related. If you've ever studied Spanish, I think you'd come away with the same impression. Although there will always be idioms in Spanish that will make you scratch your head -- why don't they just say "Yo gusto el libro" instead of the reflexive "Me gusta el libro" is beyond me -- Spanish translates almost word for word: "She has a big house" is simply "Ella tiene una casa grande." But go to languages outside of the Indo-European family of tongues and things get a lot iffier. You'll notice this immediately when you start your Hebrew classes after you've already taken Greek. Hebrew just seems "foreign," which it most certainly is. Even languages that are supposed to be closely related to each other, like German and Swiss German, are so different that speakers of the former can barely make out anything the Swiss are saying at first.
Lassen become
la, just as
kein become
ke. The standard word for "drink" (
trinken in High German) is
suufe, apparently equivalent to our English word "guzzle." I recall preaching for the last time in our German-speaking church in Basel before returning to the states. My previous sermons were all delivered in Standard German, but this time I decided I had nothing to lose by at least attempting to rattle off a few expressions in Swiss German (Basel German, to be precise). When I returned to Standard German, the congregation was visibly relieved.
I'm telling you this because occasionally I will run into a student who insists on taking beginning Greek and Hebrew at the same time. I suppose it can be done, but do remember that these are two very different languages. Discovering this fact was one of the most profound shocks I encountered while in seminary.
