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Discouraged in Learning Greek


RafeAndersen

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Rafe, I'm studying Greek also ... I'm juist a layperson, studying Greek on my own, just because. I seem to get hung up on chapter 7 of Mounce's "Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar" and need to go back a chapter or two and go at it again. If you have Mounce's textbook and would like to, maybe we can work through it together online somehow. As I said above, I use Mounce's BBG and his website www.teknia.com which has all of his lectures and other study materials. Let me know what you think and maybe we can help each other get through this FOG

 

Nicholous

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In one of his podcasts, Dr. J speaks of the value of making your own flash cards. I found that it helped me in the learning process to write out the words. I included the principle parts of the verbs on the front of the flash card. English was on the back. I used half-index cards available at the office supply stores. You can also find some nice little plastic boxes that will hold 500 cards.

 

But when you're away from home, it is handy to have electronic flash cards as well. Check out iFlash Touch. I've got it and it works. But I mostly use the cards I made. There are decks of cards available, including a list for Mounce's textbook.

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I've recently submitted a system for flashcard generation based on Accordance and LibreOffice to the exchange. (An earlier Mac only version I developed is there also, as is at least one other tool capable of doing it I believe.) You can produce cards for any tagged texts (at least in Greek I've tested LXX, GNT and AF). It should work for Hebrew but I've not tried so there might be need for changes. It runs on Windows and Mac.

I use flashcards all the time and study them on my phone and the web.

 

Thx

D

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On the subject of flash cards, Bill Mounce's website has a free resource called "Flashworks" and you can also add an audio file to have the words pronounced for you.

 

They can be found here ... www.teknia.com/flashworks

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Rafe, I'm studying Greek also ... I'm juist a layperson, studying Greek on my own, just because. I seem to get hung up on chapter 7 of Mounce's "Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar" and need to go back a chapter or two and go at it again. If you have Mounce's textbook and would like to, maybe we can work through it together online somehow. As I said above, I use Mounce's BBG and his website www.teknia.com which has all of his lectures and other study materials. Let me know what you think and maybe we can help each other get through this FOG

 

Nicholous

Hey I just replied to your message. I was at work till late. Thank you for the offer. I think i do have those things that you mentioned, if not i will get whatever I lack. Looking forward to it.

 

Thanks again!

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I've recently submitted a system for flashcard generation based on Accordance and LibreOffice to the exchange. (An earlier Mac only version I developed is there also, as is at least one other tool capable of doing it I believe.) You can produce cards for any tagged texts (at least in Greek I've tested LXX, GNT and AF). It should work for Hebrew but I've not tried so there might be need for changes. It runs on Windows and Mac.

I use flashcards all the time and study them on my phone and the web.

 

Thx

D

Very cool. Time to learn about the exchange.

 

Scott

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I've been aided by (1) word frequency lists and (2) reading in context, with backward and forward concordance searches.

 

Word frequency lists [WFL] play to a numbers game. There are some WFLs that offer straight frequency and root frequencies (cognate). Ramping up familiarity, by starting with higher frequencies.

 

I'll put the WFL conceptual to a reading practical. My path to learning wasn't/isn't all that different from how my daughters learned to read English.

  • They progressed from picture only bibles
  • To mostly pictures and some words
  • To more words and less pictures
  • To the NIRV
  • To the NIV
  • To the ESV

 

I didn't start with a picture GNT or HMT, but I've seen this approach. It's cool.

 

I started out being able to read only a few words; but with perseverance few grew to more. Diglots help(ed). GNT & HMT "Readers" help(ed). I'll use Accordance the same way, flashing instant parsing details on and off.

 

A bonus to reading is context. A word surrounded by other words helped me learn its meaning (even if it's only one gloss at a time; polysemy is a reality).

 

I'll round this out with consulting concordances; rereading the word from previous passages/contexts. I'll look ahead, to horizon passages/contexts.

 

FWIW,

 

Scott

Edited by Scott Saunders
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A couple years ago there was a similar discussion on these forums that may be viewed here; it may contain some additional advice.

 

In addition to the many valuable resources available in Accordance, two print works that I would recommend are Metzger's Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek and Zerwick's Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament. The former will help you master the vocabulary (starting with the most common words and working backwards, as Scott suggested); the latter will help you identify rare or unusual forms that come up while you're reading.

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A couple years ago there was a similar discussion on these forums that may be viewed here; it may contain some additional advice.

 

In addition to the many valuable resources available in Accordance, two print works that I would recommend are Metzger's Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek and Zerwick's Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament. The former will help you master the vocabulary (starting with the most common words and working backwards, as Scott suggested); the latter will help you identify rare or unusual forms that come up while you're reading.

Thank you very much for the recommendations!

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In one of his podcasts, Dr. J speaks of the value of making your own flash cards. I found that it helped me in the learning process to write out the words.

 

Thanks Julie... this is very true. However, as you mentioned, I'm looking for on-the-go convenience so they are always with me to fill in those times when waiting, etc. So, iOS based is best for me. Prebuilt with logic based on proper learning and repetition research would be really great. :)

 

On the subject of flash cards, Bill Mounce's website has a free resource called "Flashworks" and you can also add an audio file to have the words pronounced for you.

 

They can be found here ... www.teknia.com/flashworks

 

Yes, thanks, that's more what I'm looking for. Hopefully the iOS version comes along soon.

 

I could swear I heard about a language learning tool that was built around the latest research in effective learning repetition and organization. Maybe that was more oriented around modern in-use languages and doesn't include Biblical Greek/Hebrew. I wish I'd have written it down, though, so I could check.

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Hey Steve, glad my suggestion was of some help to you with flashworks.

 

As for physical flashcards, another resource from Bill Mounce is a set of 1,000 flashcards. You can find them on Amazon by searching for "Basics of Biblical Greek Vocabulary Cards" The first 320 cards are based on the content from his textbook BBG and the cards measure about 3" by 2" so they are really easy to put in your pocket and have them with you all day long.

 

 

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In seminary, I used paper flash cards, but would love to hear some good solutions for digital ones (iPhone or iPad especially). (Greek, but Hebrew as well.)

 

I know in terms of flash card and memory related research, that there are some optimal ways a given set of information should be studied... so if the digital flash card app incorporated that, it would be really great.

Steve, I use Mental Case for OS X and iOS. It utilizes cloud sync and tracks your progress of incorrect vs. correct answers given so that you will see the troublesome words more often until they are mastered. The content can be text, images, screen shots, audio etc. I like using it and am quite happy with it. It's not perfect and there some things I'd like to see them add to it but it gets the job done well. Another cool feature is the ability to download from various sources, lots of "Flash Card" sets already made by other users, for things like Biblical Hebrew and Greek. You'll find BBG and BBH vocabulary ready to go too.

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Steve, I use Mental Case for OS X and iOS. It utilizes cloud sync and tracks your progress of incorrect vs. correct answers given so that you will see the troublesome words more often until they are mastered. The content can be text, images, screen shots, audio etc. I like using it and am quite happy with it. It's not perfect and there some things I'd like to see them add to it but it gets the job done well. Another cool feature is the ability to download from various sources, lots of "Flash Card" sets already made by other users, for things like Biblical Hebrew and Greek. You'll find BBG and BBH vocabulary ready to go too.

 

Mark – How does Mental Case do with fonts? Some of the card decks in iFlash come up in gibberish, at least for Hebrew.

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Rafe,

 

I wanted to encourage you. I was able to take Greek in both my undergrad & seminary. I used Black in college & Mounce in seminary. It is a fog, it is hard, there will be times you want to throw in the towel.

 

But here is the good news:

 

I needed to take a hiatus from the ministry (12 long years) and did not have the time to "keep up" with it. I recently have been blessed to return to the pastorate and found that even after 12 years, I can still do a reasonably decent job of translating Greek.

 

Your hard work will pay off!!! Don't give up!!!

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@Steve

 

You might try Anki at http://ankisrs.net/. Truly wonderful piece of software.

 

Hey Rokas,

 

Have you tried getting this to work on Android with a reasonable font ? The program looks good but I am going to need to get a better font installed which is harder than it should be (still) on Android. If you have done this, any tips ? If not no worries, I'll figure it out, but I thought I'd ask.

 

Thx

D

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Rafe,

 

I wanted to encourage you. I was able to take Greek in both my undergrad & seminary. I used Black in college & Mounce in seminary. It is a fog, it is hard, there will be times you want to throw in the towel.

 

But here is the good news:

 

I needed to take a hiatus from the ministry (12 long years) and did not have the time to "keep up" with it. I recently have been blessed to return to the pastorate and found that even after 12 years, I can still do a reasonably decent job of translating Greek.

 

Your hard work will pay off!!! Don't give up!!!

I really don't get why it has to be such a fog. I see no way out of it.

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@Daniel

 

Is this reasonable enough? :)

Quite but what font are you using to do that ? I downloaded a deck today of classical Greek and accented characters are not showing up at all but are rendered blank. I admit I have yet to test it on the desktop but the images with the deck at least indicate that it should render ok somewhere. I probably need a font manager installed or to get a FlipFont as Samsung has FlipFont support.

 

Thx

D

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For Greek "SBL Greek", for Hebrew "Ezra SIL".

 

Install them in your pc, and then set them in the "Cards" dialog window - see the attached pic. Then upload collection to web, and then download it to your Android device. Anki should sync all fonts automatically. This won't work using Android only, because you cannot change fonts on Android.

 

That should be it :)

post-32922-0-11912100-1417026499_thumb.png

Edited by rokas
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I really don't get why it has to be such a fog. I see no way out of it.

 

I must say that I am not at all convinced that it is the most helpful thing for a teacher to say - there is a fog out there. If anyone has seen/read Steven King's The Mist it can conjure up many terrifying things. Students will have difficulties in different places - of course in a class room one can simply deal with what arises when it arises with those in whom it arises. Online, cover as-many-bases-as-possible training is of course not permitted this luxury.

 

The point I think is that there is a mass of data to consume and order. People think differently, the Greeks from us, the Israelites from them, you from me. We all need to internalize the material to some degree for it to be manageable. That is just work. When I was learning to ride a horse some days appeared to be a disaster and others better. Sometimes it would all go beautifully and that was the fruit of the bad days, where I made effort in spite of apparently seeing no result, was being seen.

 

I've been at biblical Greek for three years now pretty solidly - I have good and bad days - this morning was nice - two days ago not so nice. Thems the breaks. Franz Mieringer (sp ?) was known to have said something to the effect that "to ride a horse the first thing is to stay on".

 

Thx

D

For Greek "SBL Greek", for Hebrew "Ezra SIL".

 

Install them in your pc, and then set them in the "Cards" dialog window - see the attached pic. Then upload collection to web, and then download it to your Android device. Anki should sync all fonts automatically. This won't work using Android only, because you cannot change fonts on Android.

 

That should be it :)

Many thanx - I'll take a bash.

 

thx

D

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let me know if that works, if not, I'll try to help - for me in the beginning setting those fonts right on Android wasn't easy at all.

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I really don't get why it has to be such a fog. I see no way out of it.

 

Rafe, when starting any new thing—it always starts out as new (hence the word "new.")

 

New does mean strange, foreign, unfamiliar.

 

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." New can mean adventure.

 

You've got to live with newness for a while and then it becomes old hat, common, local, native.

 

Where would the Avengers be if Tony Stark didn't battle through the fog the crucible of newness?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0YX0LT1x98

 

Koine is an adventure. Suit up and fly.

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