Introduction

[dmarino]

Hello,

My name is Daniel, I am currently teaching myself NT greek in preparation for seminary and future ministry. I am constantly looking up resources that will aid my study of greek and came upon this forum. I am excited to learn from everyone.

[Thomas Dolhanty]

Hello,

My name is Daniel, I am currently teaching myself NT greek in preparation for seminary and future ministry. I am constantly looking up resources that will aid my study of greek and came upon this forum. I am excited to learn from everyone.

Welcome to B-Greek, Daniel. I think you'll find this forum rich in resources to assist you in your study of Greek. What stage are you at in your studies? What resources / textbook are you using? What pronunciation system are you using?

[Stephen Hughes]

I am currently teaching myself NT Greek in preparation for seminary and future ministry.

A professional knowledge of Greek for ministry is one of the many ways of knowing Greek that is representative of the many members and a minority of the active participants on this forum. Don't be put off from doing what you are doing in the way of learning by discussions of things that you are not doing. There are many ways to a knowledge of a language. Take and use whatever you can afford / manage / get your hands on. As you begin to drown in the learning experience, try to keep in mind the goal that you are wanting to read and understand the Scripture in the original language, and that learning methods / techniques and material are the means not ends to arrive at that goal for your professional knowledge of Greek.

Language learning suits people who set small goals for themselves to achieve and who enjoy the process of something as much as the final result. If you are not used to that, break all your learning tasks down into steps that you can mentally tick off as you do them. Identify the (small) goals and stick to them, and at the same time try to find a way to enjoy the learning itself.

Look for positive ways out of negative feelings. Frustration is normal in learning, let it become determination rather than discouragement. Powerlessness at the realisation of the enormity of a task can become a road-map and for the future, rather than a reason to give up.

[dmarino]

Hello,

Welcome to B-Greek, Daniel. I think you'll find this forum rich in resources to assist you in your study of Greek. What stage are you at in your studies? What resources / textbook are you using? What pronunciation system are you using?

Thomas, thank you for the welcome. To answer your questions, I would consider myself around a first year greek students level in my studies. I have gone through Mounce's grammar and video series. I frequently use Robert Plummer's Daily Dose of Greek as a daily exercise in supplement my reading of the text. I have also read through Constantine Campbell's introduction to verbal aspect. I have noticed some deficiencies in Mounce's textbook in regards to deponency and verbal aspect so, I am looking into going through another grammar to get another perspective. I am also thinking about going through Steve Runge's Discourse Grammar. And as far as I know I am using the Erasmian pronunciation. I am open to any suggestions you might have.

[dmarino]

Hi Stephen, and thank you for the advice. I have tried to be consistent in my studies and I hope that once I am able to attend a formal class on the subject it will reinforce what I have already learned. For some strange reason I have gotten a lot of joy out of studying greek and the thought of fluidly reading the NT in greek excites me. Thank you again!

[Barry Hofstetter]

I would suggest holding off on reading about Greek (including Runge and Campbell, although too late there) and spending a lot of time reading Greek, thoroughly familiarizing yourself with the language, including reading as much extra-biblical Greek as you can fit in. When you've done that, you have a much better foundation to consider theory.

[Jonathan Robie]

I would suggest holding off on reading about Greek (including Runge and Campbell, although too late there) and spending a lot of time reading Greek, thoroughly familiarizing yourself with the language, including reading as much extra-biblical Greek as you can fit in. When you've done that, you have a much better foundation to consider theory.

I agree.

[Thomas Dolhanty]

Thomas, thank you for the welcome. To answer your questions, I would consider myself around a first year greek students level in my studies. I have gone through Mounce's grammar and video series. I frequently use Robert Plummer's Daily Dose of Greek as a daily exercise in supplement my reading of the text. I have also read through Constantine Campbell's introduction to verbal aspect. I have noticed some deficiencies in Mounce's textbook in regards to deponency and verbal aspect so, I am looking into going through another grammar to get another perspective. I am also thinking about going through Steve Runge's Discourse Grammar. And as far as I know I am using the Erasmian pronunciation. I am open to any suggestions you might have.

I would also agree with Jonathan and Barry about priorities. Nothing can take the place of much experience with the language itself.

Regarding Mounce, I think there is much to commend it. I used it last year as a text and plan to use it next year. Having said that, though, it has some major shortcomings as you point out, and the most serious one in my opinion has to do with the strong underlying assumption that getting all of the grammatical logic correct is the same as learning the language. There is this idea that if you know how to "derive" every form, then you will be proficient at reading Koine Greek. In his discussion of contract verbs, for example, he leaves you with this strong impression that recognizing a verb from its contracted from involves a sort of 'deconstruction' back to the root and this is how you would proceed in your 'reading'. (Of course this is not explicitly stated, and I am certain that Dr. Mounce does not believe this, but most learners would come away with this impression.)

But that's nonsense! As Randall Buth and others have demonstrated, that is not how you learn a language if you aspire to have any fluency. How do I 'derive' that the past tense of "cut" in English is --- "cut"? Or the past tense of "go" is "went"? Or of "swim" is "swam"? Randall Buth's whole point is that you will never be able to function efficiently in a language - including reading - by learning how to "derive" forms and "memorize" vocabulary. In fact, leaning on these methods alone will impede your fluency. You must actually use the language in a real situation if you hope to attain that kind of fluency.

By the time I got through Mounce on my own a few years ago, I kind of just threw it all away and spent many hours reading the text. The 'rules', I found, did not predict nearly so much they were supposed to. Furthermore, I didn't have enough brainpower to juggle all those rules and interact with the text in a real way at the same time. Now that I have gained some confidence about my understanding of the language I have a whole new appreciation for the "rules" of Greek grammar - but the text itself has priority. If I knew back then what I know now, I definitely would have paid way more attention to the communicative approach earlier on.

I would suggest that you take a close look at some type of real language (communicative) approach. Check out http://www.biblicallanguagecenter.com/. I would also watch some of Paul Nitz' YouTube videos. There are other communicative resources which you can find online.

Finally, I would also suggest that you consider switching to either modern pronunciation or to the reconstructed pronunciation of Randall Buth. They are quite close to each other, and you can easily relate to one from the other. Both are almost certainly way closer to the actual sound of 1st century Koine than Erasmian. Mounce uses Erasmian. I found that the more I read Erasmian aloud, the more it did not sound like a real language to me. It is awkward and has none of the "fluency" of sound found in modern or reconstructed - or in most real languages for that matter.

[Barry Hofstetter]

Finally, I would also suggest that you consider switching to either modern pronunciation or to the reconstructed pronunciation of Randall Buth. They are quite close to each other, and you can easily relate to one from the other. Both are almost certainly way closer to the actual sound of 1st century Koine than Erasmian. Mounce uses Erasmian. I found that the more I read Erasmian aloud, the more it did not sound like a real language to me. It is awkward and has none of the "fluency" of sound found in modern or reconstructed - or in most real languages for that matter.

The one advantage of Erasmean is that it makes maximal distinctions between sounds and can help students at the beginning levels distinguish certain words and forms. In that sense, it reflects early Attic pronunciation, which used the different orthography in a meaningful way. I've been using a modified Erasmean for so long it just sounds natural to me... But having said that, when I learned Hebrew, we used modern Sephardic pronunciation (as our professor said, so we wouldn't sound like idiots if we went to Israel), and if I were starting out now, I would advocate the use of a historically correct reconstruction along the lines of Buth.

[Thomas Dolhanty]

The one advantage of Erasmean is that it makes maximal distinctions between sounds and can help students at the beginning levels distinguish certain words and forms. In that sense, it reflects early Attic pronunciation, which used the different orthography in a meaningful way. I've been using a modified Erasmean for so long it just sounds natural to me... But having said that, when I learned Hebrew, we used modern Sephardic pronunciation (as our professor said, so we wouldn't sound like idiots if we went to Israel), and if I were starting out now, I would advocate the use of a historically correct reconstruction along the lines of Buth.

"... when I learned Hebrew, we used modern Sephardic pronunciation (as our professor said, so we wouldn't sound like idiots if we went to Israel)..." That's pretty funny! Sounds like a very sensible professor!

I agree. Erasmian does have the advantage of distinguishing more sounds – especially when compared to the highly “iotaized” modern pronunciation. The three big differences between modern and reconstructed are the “η”: modern - “ee” / reconstr. – French “été”; - and - the “υ” and “οι”: – modern “ee” / reconstr – German “ü”. (With modern, "If you're not sure, just say 'ee'".)

I agree with you also that Buth’s reconstructed Greek is almost certainly the closest to the Koine Greek of the first century and it “fits” koine better then modern. I chose modern pronunciation strictly for utilitarian reasons, and because it is close enough to reconstructed that I can easily listen to and understand the latter. Also, I knew I could easily make the switch from modern to reconstructed later on if it seemed like a good idea.

So, if you want the most historically accurate pronunciation that best “fits” Koine Greek, choose reconstructed. If you want a pronunciation quite close to reconstructed which allows you to purchase a very good narration of the whole NT for $13US, plus the pronunciation system of a modern, living language, choose modern.