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Best way to start

Posted: October 13th, 2013, 4:20 pm
by Penelope Kappa
I have been asking myself how to start getting into koine greek.

Should I use a "ready" method, like a textbook or something?

Should I start reading and analyzing the biblical texts right away? If so, which text would you recommend?

The poll is just for fun :)

I'd like to hear some advice, from your own experience.

Thank you!

Re: Best way to start

Posted: October 13th, 2013, 6:19 pm
by Stirling Bartholomew
Given your advantages of background I would not waste time with textbooks.

Re: Best way to start

Posted: October 14th, 2013, 2:20 am
by Penelope Kappa
Thanks for answering. I suppose you are right. But where do I start from? John? The psalms? Or just open my NT book and simply start? I guess that's the answer.

I have a very nice edition of the NT, that has, parallel to the original an explanation to modern greek . Which is very convenient and distracting :lol: It makes you want to skip the dictionary, you know? But I will try not to look at it. I don't just want to understand, I want to get into grammar and syntax.

Η Καινή Διαθήκη μετά συντόμου ερμηνείας is the book, it used to be my grandmother's who was very religious. Thanks to her I have several books, and I have added to that small library a few myself. For example I have an old prayer book, and recently I got a new one, with texts from the bible, the psalms, from the fathers of the church, etc. That's a good place to start too, with all its variety.

Re: Best way to start

Posted: October 14th, 2013, 9:16 am
by Jonathan Robie
Do you have a good text that tells you the differences between modern Greek and Hellenistic Greek? I imagine there are some things like participles that would be worth reading through.

But I would dive into the texts. Make sure you understand each verb form and how it works, refer to the books as needed. Consider using the Firefox browser and the Alpheios plugin, it makes it a lot easier to look things up in a grammar when you get stuck.

Re: Best way to start

Posted: October 14th, 2013, 10:29 am
by Penelope Kappa
Oh, those differences are the trouble makers in my case :lol:

I don't have a book about that exactly, but the explanation I talked about is more of an interpretation, so that's a big help. And I have all those vocabulary/grammar/syntax books, not to mention the onlline sources. No lack of resources, fortunately.

I thought of a plan of action: I'm starting a log, where small texts will be analyzed to death in terms of grammar/syntax etc. I hope that's ok for this forum. I got the idea of a log from a language forum.