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The Biblical Greek Primer


Bud Lengtat

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I recently purchased the Mounce Greek Study System: Learn Biblical Greek with Accordance. I popped the DVD into my DVD player and followed his instructions for following along in Accordance. At 23:30 into the Screen cast online he shows what happens when you click on the GK # at the top of the Mounce Dictionary. Unfortunately he is using Acc 9 and I Acc 10, so when I clicked the number nothing happened at all like he described. After some clicking around I found that clicking the link Mounce at the bottom of the entry had the desired result.

 

In the lecture at the beginning of this first lesson, he warned that something like this might happen, but said he would try to supply resources at his site that would help.

 

Could someone point me in the right direction?

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I recently purchased the Mounce Greek Study System: Learn Biblical Greek with Accordance. I popped the DVD into my DVD player and followed his instructions for following along in Accordance. At 23:30 into the Screen cast online he shows what happens when you click on the GK # at the top of the Mounce Dictionary. Unfortunately he is using Acc 9 and I Acc 10, so when I clicked the number nothing happened at all like he described. After some clicking around I found that clicking the link Mounce at the bottom of the entry had the desired result.

 

In the lecture at the beginning of this first lesson, he warned that something like this might happen, but said he would try to supply resources at his site that would help.

 

Could someone point me in the right direction?

 

The change that you actually encountered is related to an update in the Dictionary not the app. In the first rev of the dictionary we tied the GK and Strong's Numbers to a search of the Mounce-NT and ESVS. Afterwards, we made the decision to bundle this dictionary with all our texts and used a different system of hyperlinks to show how the words are used in the various texts (seen by clicking the abbreviation for that text).

 

The main difference between v. 9 & 10 with the videos will likely be in Amplifying. In v.9 it was done using the Resource Palette, in v.10 via the Amplify button in the toolbar.

 

If you have any other questions like this feel free to ask here.

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Ryan, I checked out the link, but don't see the connection between the course discussed and the DVD course I bought from Accordance. If I am missing something, please set me straight.

 

Thanks Rick. I will no doubt be back.

 

My other comment, for those that may be interested in getting this course—it is a DVD. So I figured I could pop it in my DVD player attached to my TV and watch the lessons on TV and work through them in Accordance on my computer. The lecture parts of the DVD are fine on my TV. But the menus and screen casts are unreadable for me. Perhaps if I were watching on a HDTV, whatever that is, it would be better. Or perhaps if I ran the DVD on my iMac while working on my MacBook, it would be better. But I just had surgery, and am limited by that somewhat. I'm sure we will eventually figure out a way that works for us, but what I am saying is, do not expect to be able to do the DVD lessons on a TV. It would have been nice to be cautioned about this before paying for the DVDs, just to avoid the disappointment. I think overall I am going to be thrilled with the lessons. But the initial response to how it looked on my TV was disappointment.

 

(edit) With the TV close enough, the screen cast looks fine. Earlier I was trying to view it as we do movies—from across the room.

Edited by Bud Lengtat
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In the lesson Why Study Greek? in the Primer he is talking about how different translations translate John 3:16. In getting better acquainted with the translations that happen to be installed in my Accordance, I see NRSV (parallel texts) and NRSV. Can someone tell me the difference? Or what the "(parallel texts)" means?

 

Also I notice that I have many translations installed that I can't imagine ever using, such as foreign language translations. Is there an advantage to leaving them in, or is there an advantage to removing them?

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Bud:

 

THe NRSV Parallels (NRSV2) contains editions. For the NRSV these are the editions of Esther, Daniel (Bel and the Dragon), and Psalms (151).

 

Given that Accordance organizes itself on the verse of the text, a module cannot have two references to the same verse.

 

Regarding the unused Bibles, that's your decision. If you cannot read the languages in which they are written, I don't see any use for them. On the other hand, if you are learning a language in which any of them are written, reading the text may facilitate your language learning. It's up to you to decide.

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I keep all my texts, even the ones that I can't read (Spanish).

 

This is because if I delete them I get the annoying element of easy install that tells my install is incomplete, and prompts me to reinstall the modules I have deleted. I know I can just ignore it, but I find It mildly annoying to be frank.

 

So, I just organize them all into a folder that I leave at the bottom of my library. The disk space used is minimal, and they're still there if I ever get inspired and want to read more Spanish etc etc.

 

Otherwise, I totally agree with James.

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James, thanks for the info on the NRSV.

 

Ken, I think it would annoy me too. Thanks for the suggestion. I now have an Unused Texts folder at the bottom of my texts.

Edited by Bud Lengtat
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THe NRSV Parallels (NRSV2) contains editions.

 

Hey James, do you mean additions or editions?

 

(ML Dictate got you again?)

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I meant editions. I gave up on ML Dictate. I spent more time editing its mistakes, than it would have taken just to write it out the first time.

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In learning the Greek alphabet Mounce had me copying the Lord's prayer in Greek. I noticed a word that kept coming up—σου. My mind started wandering from the task at hand, and I wondered what the word means. I guessed "your." A quick check in Accordance verified that it does indeed. After some hovering and comparing pleasure using GNT-T, ESVS, and Mounce-NT, something went awry.

 

In verse 10 everything is as expected. Hovering over σου lights up "your" in both ESV and Mounce. But in verse 9 when hovering over σου, only "your" in ESV lights up. Hovering over "your" in Mounce lights up the expected "your" in ESV, but in GNT it lights up ὑμεῖς, which is in the first part of the verse. And hovering over ὑμεῖς, lights up the same "your" in ESV that σου lights up!

 

Is this a glitch that I should report? Or is there another explanation?

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Hi Bud,

well spotted! This is a text error in Mounce. Report it using the "Report a correctIon" menu item in "Help" after you select the errant text.

 

The problem is that the wrong "you" is tagged in Mounce. Actually in neither English text do they explicitly translate ὑμεῖς.

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Thanks Ken. Will do.

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I don't think this is an error, since the words are tagged only with numbers or lemmas and Accordance just does its best to match them throughout the verse, on the fly. When the word (lemma) occurs several times, Accordance can make a mistake (gasp!).

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Good to know. Thanks Helen.

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I don't think this is an error, since the words are tagged only with numbers or lemmas and Accordance just does its best to match them throughout the verse, on the fly. When the word (lemma) occurs several times, Accordance can make a mistake (gasp!).

What are you saying? That it is a done deal and nothing can be done about it? (I hope not) :(

 

I made a nice little table in Excel that shows what highlights in Mounce, ESVS, GNT-T, and GNT-TRS when "your" is hovered over in each in Matt 6:9. How can I share that here? It might help clarify what the problem is. Or it might help someone explain to me what is going on in Accordance's little mind. :unsure:

 

It seems like it is more than just a mistake on Accordance's part. I have taken a screenshot of my table, and would like to share it here. Can someone tell me how? :)

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What are you saying? That it is a done deal and nothing can be done about it? (I hope not) :(

 

I made a nice little table in Excel that shows what highlights in Mounce, ESVS, GNT-T, and GNT-TRS when "your" is hovered over in each in Matt 6:9. How can I share that here? It might help clarify what the problem is. Or it might help someone explain to me what is going on in Accordance's little mind. :unsure:

 

It seems like it is more than just a mistake on Accordance's part. I have taken a screenshot of my table, and would like to share it here. Can someone tell me how? :)

 

A bit of clarification:

 

In Matt 6.9 ὑμεῖς is the subject, but it is not translated in some versions since the subject is understood in a 2nd person imperative. Compare the HCSBS: "Therefore, you should pray like this… ." They translate the pronoun and express the imperative with 'should.'

 

Accordance is programmed to highlight the consecutive instances of words with the cross highlighting feature. In this case the first instance of σου is highlighted from ESVS > GNT-T, but it doesn't know that the first instance in the GNT is not translated.

 

When we first tagged the ESV the cross highlight feature didn't exist, and since it was implemented we've improved upon it. But, in cases like this (and with articles too) the only way to get it exactly right is to create a new tagging scheme and redo the entire text, which is not something we're currently planning to do. However, if you use the Interlinear here with the ESVS as the base text it will properly line things up and probably make a little more sense.

 

Now, in regards to the Mounce-NT things are slightly different. We did indeed develop a new system which supports tagging phrases, and also supports a little trick where we can actually tag spaces in the text to account for the relative position of un-translated Greek words. But, it's not implemented perfectly, yet. Dr. Mounce is actually very interested in working on this specific item a bit further as he is using this text in teaching. So, if you report this as a correction for the Mounce-NT we should be able to fix it for a future update.

 

I hope this helps to explain things.

Edited by Rick Bennett
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In Matt 6.9 ὑμεῖς is the subject, but it is not translated in some versions since the subject is understood in a 2nd person imperative. Compare the HCSBS: "Therefore, you should pray like this… ." They translate the pronoun and express the imperative with 'should.'
Haha! I see this Primer thing was all a plot to get me to buy more and more Accordance modules! :lol:

 

Accordance is programmed to highlight the consecutive instances of words with the cross highlighting feature. In this case the first instance of σου is highlighted from ESVS > GNT-T, but it doesn't know that the first instance in the GNT is not translated.

 

When we first tagged the ESV the cross highlight feature didn't exist, and since it was implemented we've improved upon it. But, in cases like this (and with articles too) the only way to get it exactly right is to create a new tagging scheme and redo the entire text, which is not something we're currently planning to do. However, if you use the Interlinear here with the ESVS as the base text it will properly line things up and probably make a little more sense.

Only if I use Lemma and not Word. Using Word still shows the error in the interlinear.

 

Now, in regards to the Mounce-NT things are slightly different. We did indeed develop a new system which supports tagging phrases, and also supports a little trick where we can actually tag spaces in the text to account for the relative position of un-translated Greek words. But, it's not implemented perfectly, yet. Dr. Mounce is actually very interested in working on this specific item a bit further as he is using this text in teaching. So, if you report this as a correction for the Mounce-NT we should be able to fix it for a future update.
That's great! Thank you. On it.

 

I hope this helps to explain things.
Very much, thank you.
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