Learning Greek

I've finished another lesson in the book TEACH YOURSELF ANCIENT GREEK.  Most recently I've been learning imperative and conditional verb moods, comparative and superlative adjectives, and some very odd verbs with an -mi form.

One difficulty I have is with the small Greek writing, so I've been writing it out on my computer using transliteration before translating it.  From the Greek to the Latin alphabet is mostly simple, though I write eta as e^ and omega as o^ to indicate long accents, and this iota subscript used for dative endings (it's like adding an "i," but subtler) I indicate with ~.

Recently I was translating a famous passage from Xenophon's ANABASIS, about an expedition of almost 10,000 Greek mercenaries who tried to install a new emperor in Persia until their client was killed and they had to fight their way to the Black Sea coast whence they could sail home.  It's the part where the vanguard reached some mountain heights and saw their sea objective below.  They started shouting "THALATTA, THALATTA!" meaning "THE SEA, THE SEA!" and the news quickly spread back to the rear guard.  When the others caught up even the officers were weeping and hugging each other.

I've also been translating a scene from Aristophanes' comedy THE WASPS, about a father who's so obsessed with serving on juries that his son arranges a trial for their dog, charged with eating all the Sicilian cheese!

In addition, I've been retranslating my Greek-to-English translations into Chinese and Japanese.  Chinese is difficult to transliterate into, so I renamed the WASPS characters Philocleon and Bdelycleon Fuqin (Father) and Erzi (Son) respectively.  But Japanese is better-suited for translation, so I called them Pirokureon and Buderukureon.