BLC Living Koine Greek - word count?

[senorsmile]

Hello all! I've just embarked on my journey to learning Greek. I've had a few false starts trying to learn both Attic and Koine in the past. This time, I did a lot of research before starting. I have settled on Randall Buth's Living Koine Greek course. I purchased the entire set from here: https://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/ ... ek-sets-0/ .

I am thoroughly enjoying learning by the comprehensible input method. I have a question. How much Koine is learned (i.e. word count). I suppose, more specifically, how many words of the 5000+ words in the new testament are learned by the end?

[RandallButh]

Hello all! I've just embarked on my journey to learning Greek. I've had a few false starts trying to learn both Attic and Koine in the past. This time, I did a lot of research before starting. I have settled on Randall Buth's Living Koine Greek course. I purchased the entire set from here: https://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/ ... ek-sets-0/ .
I am thoroughly enjoying learning by the comprehensible input method. I have a question. How much Koine is learned (i.e. word count). I suppose, more specifically, how many words of the 5000+ words in the new testament are learned by the end?

Some of your question depends on how you use the materials. How many repetitions of each picture lesson do you do? The higher numbered lessons need more repetitions. In books 2a and 2b a similar principle applies. There are little recorded drills that introduce several new items. One is exposed to the vocabulary items but it is not expected that all of the items will be learned by exposure to that drill. Teachers assume the opposite. We had the experience of one student in the Hebrew material who was concerned about testing out into a higher level course. The student prepared by repeating the drills so often that they practically tested off the chart for first-year Hebrew (over 1500 vocab items). That was neither expected nor requested but it happened. 500-700 items is a more normal "excellent" result, leaving many single or low exposure items to the side.

Since you mention 5000, I understand your question as about vocabulary entries and not every form of every word.
LKG 1 has over 200 vocabulary entries. They can be counted in the index at the end of the volume. However, some of the entries have a low number of occurrences and occur later in the volume so that fuller learning is not expected at that stage. 150-200 items is an excellent result. Suffice it to say that the number of vocab entries in the whole series is more than expected for a first-year, six-credit course. However, there will always be many new items encountered in whatever material is faced in a second year. That is the nature of language learning. From another angle: LKG1 is the equivalent of maybe 1.5 credits of material, if learned fairly well. LKG2a and 2b is about 6-7 credits of material. Together they are about an 8 credit course and "6-credit" courses do not usually finish LKG2b.

[senorsmile]

Hello all! I've just embarked on my journey to learning Greek. I've had a few false starts trying to learn both Attic and Koine in the past. This time, I did a lot of research before starting. I have settled on Randall Buth's Living Koine Greek course. I purchased the entire set from here: https://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/ ... ek-sets-0/ .
I am thoroughly enjoying learning by the comprehensible input method. I have a question. How much Koine is learned (i.e. word count). I suppose, more specifically, how many words of the 5000+ words in the new testament are learned by the end?

Some of your question depends on how you use the materials. How many repetitions of each picture lesson do you do? The higher numbered lessons need more repetitions. In books 2a and 2b a similar principle applies. There are little recorded drills that introduce several new items. One is exposed to the vocabulary items but it is not expected that all of the items will be learned by exposure to that drill. Teachers assume the opposite. We had the experience of one student in the Hebrew material who was concerned about testing out into a higher level course. The student prepared by repeating the drills so often that they practically tested off the chart for first-year Hebrew (over 1500 vocab items). That was neither expected nor requested but it happened. 500-700 items is a more normal "excellent" result, leaving many single or low exposure items to the side.

Since you mention 5000, I understand your question as about vocabulary entries and not every form of every word.
LKG 1 has over 200 vocabulary entries. They can be counted in the index at the end of the volume. However, some of the entries have a low number of occurrences and occur later in the volume so that fuller learning is not expected at that stage. 150-200 items is an excellent result. Suffice it to say that the number of vocab entries in the whole series is more than expected for a first-year, six-credit course. However, there will always be many new items encountered in whatever material is faced in a second year. That is the nature of language learning. From another angle: LKG1 is the equivalent of maybe 1.5 credits of material, if learned fairly well. LKG2a and 2b is about 6-7 credits of material. Together they are about an 8 credit course and "6-credit" courses do not usually finish LKG2b.

This is a very great answer... and from the author himself. Thank you!

I anticipated that such a question would have a complex answer. I look forward to finishing LKG1.

Only based on the first half of LKG1 that i've made my way through now, I've already promoted this with friends as the single best course in Greek I've ever come upon. It is clearly rooted in modern SLA theory; i.e. Comprehensible Input. I only wish that such materials existed for other languages.

The local Latin meetup which I lead has been going through Orberg's Lingua Latina for a couple of years now. Despite the text itself staying in the target language, the language of discussion remains mostly in English. We are not internalizing the language. I just returned from a similar meetup for Old Norse.

I am tempted to attempt a very basic CI based audio course based on the work that you (Randall Buth) have done. I do not wish to steal any of your work or direct methodology, but I am very inspired by the work that you've done, and how effective it is.

[RandallButh]

I am tempted to attempt a very basic CI based audio course based on the work that you (Randall Buth) have done.

Just a head's up: It takes a lot of work to get the Greek idiomatic and correct. There are people trying to do this, some are reliable, others not. But it takes quite a bit of background or work to see the difference.

[Jacob Rhoden]

I am tempted to attempt a very basic CI based audio course based on the work that you (Randall Buth) have done.

Just a head's up: It takes a lot of work to get the Greek idiomatic and correct. There are people trying to do this, some are reliable, others not. But it takes quite a bit of background or work to see the difference.

@RandallButh, I would love to hear you expand upon your thoughts on this area. For example, it would be of benefit to hear examples of types of common pitfalls that people could learn from.