“Obama is smart enough to read classical Greek in a few months IF he put his mind to it.”
Is he too freekin dumb to do it quicker “if he put his mind to it”?
Why did he address the beer hounds of Berlin in English for gosh sakes?
Classical Attic Greek is a very difficult language.
Each verb has 6 principal parts that can produce over 500 different forms. The syntax is also quite difficult to master, espcially in complex prose like Plato. About three months of memorizing grammar and vocabulary, with four hours a day minimum, is about the least it would take to stumble through a simple dialogue like The Crito, which is usually what they use as a beginner’s text.