Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Resources and methods for teaching and learning New Testament Greek.
David Carruth
Posts: 5
Joined: September 26th, 2015, 9:02 am

Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by David Carruth »

Hi all,
Does anyone have flashcard decks for Greek vocab that include pictures (and possibly audio)? I've seen a few discussions on this forum about creating such resources but I've yet to find a completed project. Do you have any suggestions for finding such a resource?
David
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Stephen Hughes »

If you take the line that we all see the world differently, then flash cards with the world as only you see it, becomes the most logical course of action. If you take the line that we share a common text, which was written at a certain time, within a certain cultural and technological context to the nth degree, then the result is a deck with period appropriate pictures. My preference is that the whole field be covered. I want to see and speak of my world in Greek, and extend my own experiences as I see how others did it in the New Testament times - a world within the language I use, but outside my immediate experiences.

Basically there are pictures that form the memory and those that jog it. Since the memory forms abstractions from real events, having images with both real things and abstractions is a good thing. Multiple images of the same thing is the slow but steady road to abstraction. My short-term goal is to increase my vocabulary to 15,000 within three years - all of the New Testament, a number of other works and my daily life.

What type of cards are you looking for?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
David Carruth
Posts: 5
Joined: September 26th, 2015, 9:02 am

Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by David Carruth »

While it would be ideal to live and work in an immersion environment of Koine Greek, that hope can only be fulfilled in a couple of places around the world. However, I feel that through picture flashcards i can create a somewhat artificial environment not too far from how I learned a minority language that had no grammar, no text, and no dictionary.

I used TPR and other methods advocated by Greg Thomson. Starting from "This is a man," "This is a woman" etc I progressed with pictures, objects (such as fruit, veg, pots, pans), and actions to have a foundation of around 1400 vocabs and almost all the grammatical patterns used within the language in only a period of 7 weeks. The method used delayed oral production, so I pretty much didn't speak for the first 7 weeks. However, I had a massive amount of input flooding, listening and reviewing (and picturing in my head) those items and patterns learned. After using grammar-translation method for another language, the technique i described above was such a breath of fresh air. Grammar was learned intuitively as a child learns.

I dream of using a similar method for teaching my children Greek and to help my own internalization of the language. I think flashcards with pictures and recordings can mimic much of what I did to initially make fast progress in minority language learning. In the least, a foundation of concrete nouns and actions could be learned through flashcards with audio. The base of vocabulary and grammar then gives a surplus of words and patterns that can overflow into conversation, when that begins. Otherwise much time is spent in the common language instead of the target language saying things like, 'how do you say "cat"'?

So, this is a long explanation and apologetic for my question about flashcards. Of course, the same thing could be done in person with me showing a picture and then describing it in Koine. It does require me being present to do it. Thus, flashcards seem to be a medium that is reproducible and paced at the user's speed and time-frame.

Any thoughts on decks based on pictures? Or on word lists of concrete nouns and verbs that could be used to make such a deck? I'd prefer mostly words used in the NT plus additional words needed for basic conversation?
Thanks,
David
Rogelio Toledo Martin
Posts: 17
Joined: September 29th, 2015, 1:04 pm

Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Rogelio Toledo Martin »

Hi! I made some, though they are for Homeric Greek. Here the link http://www.memrise.com/course/507985/-7215/

I have done other decks only with audio for New Testament Greek or Classical Greek

http://www.memrise.com/course/542416/ne ... ocabulary/

http://www.memrise.com/course/428420/an ... ocabulary/

Hope it helps.
Stephen Hughes
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Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Stephen Hughes »

David Carruth wrote:teaching my children
Have a look at this quote from Locke
Some Thoughts Concerning Education wrote:§ 166. If therefore a man could be got, who himself speaking good Latin, would always be about your son, talk constantly to him, and suffer him to speak or read nothing else, this would be the true and genuine way, and that which I would propose, not only as the easiest and best, wherein a child might, without pains or chiding, get a language, which others are wont to be whipt for at school six or seven years together: but also as that, wherein at the same time he might have his mind and manners formed, and he be instructed to boot in several sciences, such as are a good part of geography, astronomy, chronology, anatomy, besides some parts of history, and all other parts of knowledge of things that fall under the senses and require little more than memory. For there, if we would take the true way, our knowledge should begin, and in those things be laid the foundation; and not in the abstract notions of logick and metaphysicks, which are fitter to amuse than inform the understanding in its first setting out towards knowledge. When young men have had their heads employ’d a while in those abstract speculations without finding the success and improvement, or that use of them, which they expected, they are apt to have mean thoughts either of learning or themselves; they are tempted to quit their studies, and throw away their books as containing nothing but hard words and empty sounds; or else, to conclude, that if there be any real knowledge in them, they themselves have not understandings capable of it. That this is so, perhaps I could assure you upon my own experience.
Much of what you have stated as your aims is contained there. Locke's major suggestion is to keep it concrete. I don't see how astronomy would fit into our lives now, but if chronology meant talking about our daily and weekly schedules that seems fine. Geography - human and natural - the world around us, the environment in which we live is a logickal [sic.] choice too. Anatomy - our bodies and the actions we are ordinarily capable of is another good place to start too. History - story-telling needs to be kept sensory too, so it could be either the things that have happened to you and them immediately prior, or it could be a story about something in a photograph or a home movie.

How you see yourself will have a great bearing on the outcome of your "teaching". Assuming a role as an authoritarian teacher together with laying some expectations on yourself will lead in a small way to Stanford Prison Experiment like outcomes. Locke's suggestion that learners needn't be "whipt" and the language acquisition should be "without pains or chiding", but that just by talking "this would be the true and genuine way" to acquire a language. Of course, chiding and being chided is a natural part of language, but it would better be for the things that you would ordinarily chide them for, such as running indoors, or wasting food. Keeping it as language in use is what is suggested.

"Contantly" and "always" are unworkable, so setting a time or a place to speak Greek could be good. Even setting a particular topic to talk about in Greek might work too. Depending on the ages you will get different reactions. I seven or eight year-old will have an awareness that they are not understanding you. Keep calm, ignore that and help them to understand - they really want to. A 3 or 4 year-old will revert to mimicking you so act out dialogues with dinosaurs or dolls, rather than getting frustrated with "No, I say that and you say this" type of stage-directing. A twelve year-old will need clear goals and a sense of fraternity with you, to share the decision making, power structures and struggles of learning a language.

On the question of authenticity... Is your Greek native-speaker? No, but if every parent in the world decided to not speak with their children because they were not 100% accurate and literary standard speakers, there would be a lot of silence. Think about the difference between immigrants and refugees - what language requirements might a country need of one or the other? An immigrant might need to pass a test to see whether they could communicate effectively to live their daily lives, a refugee wouldn't be tested, and no expectations would be made of them. Think of yourself and your children as the refugee family, who know they have no language skills, but do what they can never-the-less do with what they have. Also the difference between, children of Christian families and converts. The Church might freely offer programmes for the young people, while requiring converts to show serious commitment and signs of repentance etc. We are the heirs of this (Greek) language, what is there to prove to anyone about having a right to use it. It is part of both our Classical (European) and Christian heritages. We participate in its use by birth-right, and start on the "inside" so to speak. Like a member of a Christian family who only turns up occasionally, what little steps are taken, or what little participation they enjoy are all good. There is no need for power games, just do what you can, and in continuing to do, some improvement will needs be occur. Doing something may lead to success or may not, doing nothing will most certainly not lead to success. :D
David Carruth wrote:words needed for basic conversation
That is actually a whole lot of words. A dauntingly large amount of words.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I think the title says clearly what he is looking for, and he explains how he has used such resources with other languages. Can we stick with that in this thread, please? He obviously has some background in languages, language learning, and TPR.

I would absolutely love to see collections of well organized, freely licensed images that could be used for this, or a serious project aimed toward doing this. I think we need a couple of people to step up to the plate and just do it. Is this something you have time and energy for, if we can't find something that exists?

There are some challenges - a lot of the most common words may be difficult to visualize, and may require creativity to use with TPR techniques, e.g. consider the most frequent nouns in the New Testament:
θεός ( 1308 )
ἰησοῦς ( 912 )
κύριος ( 713 )
ἄνθρωπος ( 551 )
χριστός ( 529 )
πατήρ ( 413 )
ἡμέρα ( 389 )
πνεῦμα ( 379 )
υἱός ( 375 )
ἀδελφός ( 342 )
λόγος ( 330 )
οὐρανός ( 273 )
μαθητής ( 262 )
γῆ ( 250 )
πίστις ( 245 )
ὄνομα ( 229 )
ἀνήρ ( 216 )
γυνή ( 212 )
Or the most common verbs:
εἰμί ( 2457 )
λέγω ( 2335 )
ἔχω ( 707 )
γίνομαι ( 667 )
ἔρχομαι ( 630 )
ποιέω ( 568 )
ὁράω ( 476 )
ἀκούω ( 427 )
δίδωμι ( 415 )
λαλέω ( 297 )
οἶδα ( 296 )
λαμβάνω ( 258 )
πιστεύω ( 241 )
ἀποκρίνομαι ( 232 )
γινώσκω ( 222 )
ἐξέρχομαι ( 216 )
θέλω ( 209 )
δύναμαι ( 209 )
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Rockgerus wrote:Hi! I made some, though they are for Homeric Greek. Here the link http://www.memrise.com/course/507985/-7215/

I have done other decks only with audio for New Testament Greek or Classical Greek

http://www.memrise.com/course/542416/ne ... ocabulary/

http://www.memrise.com/course/428420/an ... ocabulary/

Hope it helps.
Cool! And welcome to B-Greek.

Hey, we have a user name policy that is required to post here, could you please send me your name so I can set you up for posting here? I assume your real name is not Rocker Gus ...
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:I think the title says clearly what he is looking for, and he explains how he has used such resources with other languages. Can we stick with that in this thread, please?
David Carruth wrote:Does anyone have flashcard decks for Greek vocab that include pictures (and possibly audio)?
Specifically to the question then.

There are three things that will arise from the "Seeing the world in Greek" thread that I currently working on. One of them is that Louis has said that we will see about making a webpage for me to index to the audio I'm putting in the Filezilla are that he's put aside for me on the letsreadgreek. I'm thinking that that will be a very simple design with the URL of the audio from the letsreadgreek, together with the URL of the picture on flicker. There are only about 230 images with captions thus far, and I'm guessing that by the end of the year my pronunciation system might be clear and consistent enough to record the captions and put that part of the second stage of seeing the world in Greek into effect. I think that once there are over a thousand pictures captioned, that there may be some more balance in the set. At the current rate of posting captioned pictures, reaching a thousand pictures will take 8 months in total - way longer than I had hoped at first.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Cool!

To my mind, especially cool if released under a Creative Commons license, and if the text is not burned into the image so that the same image can be used with multiple texts.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Greek Vocab Flashcards with Pictures

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Jonathan Robie wrote:Cool!

To my mind, especially cool if released under a Creative Commons license, and if the text is not burned into the image ...
There are actually six (6) pieces of information needed I think:
  • The URL of the flickr
  • The URL of the letsreadgreek
  • The URL of the original image
  • The URL of the page in which the image originally appeared
  • The copyright status of the original image (and perhaps the date it was downloaded)
  • The copyright status under which I release the image
The captions are put there because my phone doesn't display polytonic Greek, and the basic motivation for doing this is to improve my vocabulary.

It could be possible to upload original images to flickr and include that URL too, or for others to follow the URL of the original image to download it themselves.

The Creative Commons licensing is both freedom and restriction. Apart from the CC0 Public Domain, the image derived from modification is still subject to the restrictions imposed by the person who released it. That, issue, however could be discussed in another thread.
Jonathan Robie wrote:so that the same image can be used with multiple texts.
The second and third things that I think will develop from exploring the vocabulary visually will be descriptions and stories - describing the text with more than a word and fitting the text into the context of a story. Descriptions - science, geography, history etc. for kids could use the original images, without captions. At the point of writing stories, I expect that the images will become sketches, with elements of multiple images blended together. The same vocabulary used as flashcard (for single word memorisation), encyclopedia-like description (for thinking in Greek) and in stories (to combine and practice reading the words) may be useful to some people. Others like yourself with specific (Bible reading rather than modern living) aims could employ the first two steps - Flashcards and descriptions - and use the target text as the "story". In which case, the step up from description to text would be quite great for those whose grammar is not yet so well-formed.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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