Jonathan asked
I have no idea how to bring "living Greek" into play in study of a text. Suggestions? I imagine at least reading the text out loud at the beginning would be important. Perhaps we could read it again once we're all confident on the vocabulary and grammar. Anything else you would suggest?
Does anyone out there participate in a group like this? What do you do?
Hi, Jonathan,
I've told this story before. A while back, for about a year, I was involved in a traditional NT Greek reading group. We would choose a text and take turns reading it in Greek and then translating it into English. Then we would discuss grammatical/vocab points as they related to theology or personal spiritual concerns. At that time I was not into Greek as a Living Language. The group broke up when one of the guys moved to Mississisppi.
Looking back, I really wished we had run the group differently. What we should have done is asked each other questions IN ANCIENT GREEK, about the Greek text, and answered the questions in Greek. I have since done this face to face, on the phone, through Skype, and via audio/video exchanges. I think this is a much more effective way to improve one's Greek skills. The questions tend to be very basic: We've been working through Mark. τί ἐστιν ἡ ἐργασία τοῦ Λευιν? τίνα ἐνόμισεν ὁ Πέτρος τὸν Ἰησοῦν εἶναι? τἰνα ἐξουσίαν ἔδωκεν ὁ Ιησοῦς τοῖς μαθηταῖς? You are not going to be fluent enough in Ancient Greek to get into any grammatical subtleties (no loss, from my perspective) but you are going to get practice after practice drilling the forms, and by active use of the vocab you are going to retain it. You can get into BASIC theology. τίνα σὺ λέγεις τὸν Ἰησοῦν εἶναι, ὦ Μᾶρκε?
I have found again and again that people with no practice in speaking Ancient Greek, and people who are really just starting to learn the language CAN speak basic Greek in the context of asking and answering simple questions. I think there is something in the nature of a question τίς? τί? διὰ τί? that makes in much easier to figure out what is being said.
So, I would strongly urge you, that if you are lucky enough to have a group of Greek learners, don't waste the opportunity to use Living Language methods. You can always break out into English if something really interesting comes up, but if you try speaking in Greek, I think you will like it, and will find it very helpful in learning to better READ Greek, which remains the goal for all of us.
You prepare for this by reading a chapter and coming up with as many questions in Greek as possible. Don't memorize the questions and don't read them to the group. Speak them off the top of you head. It also helps to listen before hand to the audio of the chapter you will be discussing.
Here's an example of a recent audio exchange on Mark 9.
http://www.archive.org/details/MarkosRe ... AboutMark9
This will not be everyone's cup of tea, I know. There are other ways to run Greek groups. This is just what works for me.