HSC Classical Greek Continuers: Unseen Translation: Greek Prose

What you must know

Unseen prose tests method under time pressure. Expect Attic or koine narrative, often with a genitive absolute, indirect statement after verbs of saying or thinking, purpose and result clauses, conditional sentences, and participial phrases. You should recognise the standard connectives (μέν... δέ, οὖν, γάρ, ἀλλά, καίτοι, ὥστε, ἐπεί, ἐπειδή) and the common impersonal and auxiliary verbs (δεῖ, ἔξεστι, ἔοικε, τυγχάνει).

Method

1. Read the whole passage once for sense, ignoring unknown words.
2. Identify each main verb and its subject; mark clause boundaries.
3. Parse ambiguous forms by case agreement and context, not by first guess.
4. Draft a literal translation, then smooth the English.
5. Check every Greek word has an English counterpart and every English sentence has a subject and verb.

Traps

• Forgetting that indirect statement in Greek uses accusative plus infinitive, not 'that' plus finite verb.
• Mistaking a genitive absolute for a possessive genitive.
• Rendering μέν... δέ as 'on the one hand... on the other' mechanically; often 'while...' or simple contrast is better.
• Leaving out negatives (οὐ, μή) and double negatives.
• Guessing at vocabulary from English derivatives without checking context.

Rule of thumb

If a clause has no obvious subject, look for an implied nominative from the verb ending, or a subject carried over from the previous clause. If a participle has no noun to agree with, suspect a genitive absolute or an impersonal construction. Write a clean English sentence rather than Greek word order transposed.