B-Greek: The Biblical Greek Forum

I have a friend just starting out in Greek, who is somewhat overwhelmed with simultaneously learning 1) a different writing system, and 2) a different language. In the interest of focusing on one thing at a time, I'd like to help him become more comfortable working with the Greek alphabet first. It's pretty easy to put together a list of greek-english cognates (Proper Nouns or otherwise). But even better would be if I could grab a couple paragraphs of English text that transliterate well into the Greek alphabet. (His class is using an Erasmian pronunciation system).

Practicing with such a text should help him become more comfortable with the writing system, then from there he can move forward with working on the Greek language itself. A cursory google search didn't turn up anything; does anyone here have any leads?

I imagine the biggest challenge doing this on the fly is avoiding English phonemes which aren't used in Greek. ([ae] etc).

Emma Ehrhardt wrote:I have a friend just starting out in Greek, who is somewhat overwhelmed with simultaneously learning 1) a different writing system, and 2) a different language. In the interest of focusing on one thing at a time, I'd like to help him become more comfortable working with the Greek alphabet first. It's pretty easy to put together a list of greek-english cognates (Proper Nouns or otherwise). But even better would be if I could grab a couple paragraphs of English text that transliterate well into the Greek alphabet. (His class is using an Erasmian pronunciation system).

Practicing with such a text should help him become more comfortable with the writing system, then from there he can move forward with working on the Greek language itself. A cursory google search didn't turn up anything; does anyone here have any leads?

I imagine the biggest challenge doing this on the fly is avoiding English phonemes which aren't used in Greek. ([ae] etc).

I used to use a version of "Little Red Riding Hood" (Greek letters, but Englsih text) - it's still on the InterNet at
http://www.drshirley.org/greek/alphabet/red-RH.pdf
However, it is quite difficult to tell a story avoiding English phonemes which aren't used in Greek.
I've given up using this approach when teaching - what seems to be the best way to get started quickly is to write out each letter of the alphabet 50 times, while making the sound of the letters (e.g. 50 times "alpha - a", then 50 times "beta - b" etc., until the shape and the sound get wired into the brain)
There are practice sheets available at
http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook ... ix-A01.pdf
and
http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook ... ix-A02.pdf
I can always tell when my students take the time to do this - they start reading aloud with confidence within a couple of weeks.
Those who don' t - don't
Shirley Rollinson

I think it would be for better to read real Greek words in real meaningful text. The more you can interact with the actual language at any level the better it is. In the classroom situation, normally hearing the text as the teacher and others pronounce it quickly gets you to where you need to go.