[petsfed]

I mean to say that the only time I've ever needed to diagram a sentence to figure out what was being said was while taking Philosophy 1010, because the cheapest translations available of e.g. The Republic was a bit too opaque for me.

There's certainly a lot to be said about the manifold interpretations of Platonic Idealism; what I'm saying is that when we've historically introduced new philosophy students to things like Jowett's translations ("But tell me, Zeno, do you not further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another idea of unlikeness, which is the opposite of likeness, and that in these two, you and I and all other things to which we apply the term many, participate-things which participate in likeness become in that degree and manner like; and so far as they participate in unlikeness become in that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they participate in both?"), there's also a grammatical issue. Yes, I can deconstruct that and reassemble it in more colloquial terms. The problem is that for a lot of students, they don't develop interest enough to engage in the deconstruction until after they've gone through the arduous process of reading that and thinking "WTF?!"

[FarmerPotato]

I had only the Jowett translation and probably gave up on passages like that. What got my attention was diagramming. I diagrammed Koine Greek sentences every time in assignments with Apostle Paul or Luke. Greek is intensely inflected (different word endings for subject, object, for starters) A lot of meaning is packed in which makes word order very flexible.

I want to go try some Plato in Greek. Do you have the reference for that passage? (Thankfully I got the unabridged Liddell and Scott lexicon which encompasses Attic not just New Testament words so I’ve been able to read Homer.)

[dugidugout]

I’m speaking from my own informal reading of the Cooper edition, which I genuinely enjoyed for its prose. Even so, it took me years to work through the whole thing, and I trace my difficulty quite easily to gaps in my earlier education and reading habits.

I’m not convinced that better translations are doing much to fix the deeper issue in most readers: the lack of broad exposure to the Western canon which seems to cultivate a real preference for rigor over comfort.