Seems to me you
do have a good handle on the concept. Just don't get too hung up on the semantics (or see
Java Langauge Specifications for the official wording).
The important thing to remember, which you already seem to understand, is that you can't declare a method to be less visible than a method in the superclass that has the same signature (that means overridden in most cases, I guess).
See also:
this thread in the Certification forum
J.Lacar
[This message has been edited by JUNILU LACAR (edited March 06, 2001).]