Infinitives, Participles and Subjunctives ... oh my!

Fair warning - I'm learning.

I woke up this morning at 4 am thinking about how we learn.  For some reason or other, my mind was off and racing about the processes of learning.  I don't remember learning what the name of that item is that cuts paper, but at some point in my early years, I could identify a pair of scissors.  I'm sure that Mom worked with me on my colors along with my letters, but there came the time when I put all of that information together and began reading the stories in coloring books.

We are all learning - sometimes we love it, sometimes we resist it - but we don't stop learning.

Then, I finally went back to sleep.

One of the most frustrating things to me as I approach the Greek language is my complete lack of understanding of intermediate and advanced English grammar skills that I can translate to Greek. A subject is a subject, a verb is a verb, an object is an object, an article is an article.  Right?  Sure.  Those I get.

Mom had found a series of small books when we were young that were a treasure trove of grammatical principles.  They were obviously published in the 60s, their covers were all sorts of crazy designs in hippie colors.  I relied on them all through junior high and high school to answer questions on how to write, design sentences, create a bibliography, spell tough words, etc.  When I got to college, all of a sudden they were gone!  I'm sure they got lost in a move somewhere, but to be honest with you, I've been devastated without them ever since.  I think about them a lot and as I try to get this information shoved back into my head, I am thinking about them even more!

After my "Greek in a Week" pressure cooker a couple of weeks ago, I realized what a pathetic background I had in English grammar.  I knew that I had a short period of time to get this stuff wrangled into my psyche before I ran into more trouble with courses that required I succeed to move on.  Most grammar sites online deal with quite simple information - I already have this, thank you. 

I thought that maybe I was going at it incorrectly, so for the last couple of days I've been searching for Greek grammar sites.  I believe that those poor Greek professors spend more time teaching their students about basic grammar rules than they do Greek principles. 

Today I finally found one that presented the information in a concise manner.  All of a sudden I was saying (yes, I was saying it out loud), "Oh!" and "Ah!" and "YES!"  as I began to fill in some of the blanks in my mind.  I've read through any number of different author's presentations on grammar and this guy was able to break through the morass and give me a clear understanding.

It feels good to be filling in puzzle pieces before I get to the table. 

Now, if I can learn to parse those verbs and decline those nouns, I'll be set!!!  (yup, trust me - you'll learn what that means as I progress - muahahaha)