B-Greek: The Biblical Greek Forum

Hi there,

My name is Nathan (hence the username) and I am a recent M.Div graduate from a seminary in Perth, Western Australia. I discovered in seminary a previously unknown love and affinity for language, and have decided that I would like to join Wycliffe Bible Translators as a translator. Since I have a few years between now and then I have set as my new year's resolution this year to get my Greek as good as humanly possible (Hebrew is 2016's resolution). I too have languished under the tyranny of the grammar-translation method (ok it wasn't that bad), and have discovered that after 3 years of pretty intense grammar and exegesis training I can (mostly) understand what commentators are saying about the Greek text, and translate much of it for myself very.....very slowly. And pretty much nothing else. After researching online what is the best way to pursue my goal (and what resources are available) I have discovered the existence of the mental immersion method and am definitely going to give it a solid go.

I have spent quite some time reading through threads on this forum without commenting, however I believe that is called 'lurking' in modern lingo which is generally accepted to be a breach of forum etiquette. So, since I see there is much helpful knowledge and edification to be gained here, I thought I would actually join up and make my presence here known.

Nice to meet you all (in advance).

Welcome Nathan,

You wrote...

I have spent quite some time reading through threads on this forum without commenting, however I believe that is called 'lurking' in modern lingo which is generally accepted to be a breach of forum etiquette.

It is not a breach of forum etiquette to read and not comment. We welcome everyone who wants to learn more about the Greek language of the New Testament. This forum supports all efforts of those who want to learn or teach via a particular method. There are some on our forum who strongly believe that NT Greek should be taught like a modern living language; probably most on the forum would say that is just one way to learn, and that traditional teaching methods can also produce good results for a motivated learner. But the point of our forum is to facilitate all methods of learning and to encourage learning and understanding of the Greek text of any given passage. Our forum is not so much about pedagogy or translation or textual variants, as it is about the Greek text of the NT, LXX, ktl. That is the focus we try to keep our sights on.

Again welcome to B-Greek!

(P.S. If you want to talk about immersion/living language pedagogy, you can email me or pm (private message) me. You need, I think to make several posts before you can send pm's over B-Greek or not have your posts put into the 'waiting a moderator's approval' queue.

Louis L Sorenson wrote:Welcome Nathan,

You wrote...

I have spent quite some time reading through threads on this forum without commenting, however I believe that is called 'lurking' in modern lingo which is generally accepted to be a breach of forum etiquette.

It is not a breach of forum etiquette to read and not comment.

Rather, it can be a breach of etiquette to comment without first lurking for a while to get acquainted with the local discussion and interpretation of etiquette. For example, here in B-Greek it requires much skill to walk around near the border of hostile neighbor country called Theology. You will hit a mine before you notice... Being familiar with old discussion is life-saving.

Nathan Binns wrote:Hi there,

My name is Nathan (hence the username) and I am a recent M.Div graduate from a seminary in Perth, Western Australia. I discovered in seminary a previously unknown love and affinity for language, and have decided that I would like to join Wycliffe Bible Translators as a translator. Since I have a few years between now and then I have set as my new year's resolution this year to get my Greek as good as humanly possible (Hebrew is 2016's resolution). I too have languished under the tyranny of the grammar-translation method (ok it wasn't that bad), and have discovered that after 3 years of pretty intense grammar and exegesis training I can (mostly) understand what commentators are saying about the Greek text, and translate much of it for myself very.....very slowly. And pretty much nothing else. After researching online what is the best way to pursue my goal (and what resources are available) I have discovered the existence of the mental immersion method and am definitely going to give it a solid go.

I have spent quite some time reading through threads on this forum without commenting, however I believe that is called 'lurking' in modern lingo which is generally accepted to be a breach of forum etiquette. So, since I see there is much helpful knowledge and edification to be gained here, I thought I would actually join up and make my presence here known.

Nice to meet you all (in advance).

Welcome to B-Greek, Nathan
My advice - read, read, read - read aloud, read a short passage from the GNT each day, read in sequence through a whole book (e.g. Mark). After reading a passage think about it and go back and read it again slowly and stop at words you don't know or constructions you don't recognize, analyse them and make notes, then work out a translation, then read the Greek one more time aloud at a smooth reading speed.
For help with translation and analysis, I recommend Grosvenor and Zerwick's "Analysis of the Greek New Testament" - available form Amazon.

Get into the Hebrew as soon as comfortable, then for the daily reading start with Genesis in both the MT and the LXX.
Keep a binder of your notes for whenever you want to refer to those sections again.

Wycliffe will probably send you to a summer linguistics course where you will learn much more about acquiring languages, and maybe learn to ask for "two soft blue-corn-bread tortillas" (a favorite phrase which ends in "fflnnuffnnff")
Shirley Rollinson

Thanks all for your kind welcomes. I have spent the last 2 weeks or so researching as much info as I can find on Greek resources and getting your Greek as good as possible (which is what brought me here in the first place). I predict a very full-on and Greek-filled 2015, and will certainly be filling up the beginner section with lots of questions as the year goes on.

Shirley, have you had some experience with Wycliffe before? If so, what was it like? I have spoken with the local representatives near where I live (Perth, Australia), and they said that before I get sent off anywhere I spend a year in a SIL Linguistics school in Melbourne (other side of the country unfortunately) getting trained up before they send me off. I am thinking of going to Africa because I have been following the progress of the church in Africa for some time and want to help them out however I can, and also getting to learn French is a bonus .