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Discouraged in Learning Greek


RafeAndersen

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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".

 

 

Daniel – I found the fog analogy helpful, but I don't read or watch Stephen King. Pride and Prejudice is more my speed.

 

When I was in first year Greek, there really was fog at times, but it was never the 'pea soup' variety (= so dense I had no idea where I was). As material was learned and new material was introduced, the fog moved along. I just kept at it. Along with almost the entire class. I can think of only one who dropped out. Everyone else stuck it out. And about ⅔ of the class went on to take 2nd year. We ended up with only 6 for 3rd year.

 

I like with the quote about staying on the horse. Just sticking with it is important. I also think that going into it with the determination not to be intimidated helps. I still study and dig through my grammars, but need to take the time to read through all of Wallace and add what I learn to my Notes. We used the abbreviated version of this book in 2nd year Greek. Maybe after we finish this 'pre-Hebrew' class.

 

I don't consider myself a scholar, or a Greek master. I have, however, reached the point of being comfortable with the language and able to understand the technical commentaries. I would encourage anyone who has the desire to learn the Greek to go ahead and take the plunge.

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

Julie, I've had no problems with the fonts in Mental Case so far. Both Hebrew and Greek render quite well. If I could choose all over again now, I might try other free apps first to see if they would do the job. I tried Anki years ago and ended up deciding for Mental case which was at the time much further along in development than Anki was. Can't say now how Anki is, but the app is free on the Mac OS. Beware, however, that the mobile companion version for iPhone is a pricey $24.99.

Edited by Mark Nigro
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Rafe, have you ever learned a foreign language before starting Greek?

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Thanks, Mark. The iOS version is only $4.99. From what I can tell, the iOS functions independently – I wouldn't need iPhone/iPad version plus Mac OS version. The version at iTunes is Mental Case 2. Is that what you have?

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Julie. Yes, I have Mental Case 2.0. About the price, I was referring to Anki's mobile version being costly. Not sure if that was clear...

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Thanks, Mark. I new knew it was Anki that was pricey. Just wanting to make sure Mental Case 2 can be used by buying only the iOS version. I didn't see anything about needing it for the Mac, too, to make it work so I'm assuming it's a go.

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Hey Julie,

 

Given that you spelled his name correctly whereas I did not, I wonder :)

Seriously though my main issue was whether the warning not to be apprehensive (more or less why Mounce makes the statement I believe, if I recall it correctly) has in and of itself led to apprehension or not. I might add that Mounce's material does a great deal to make sense of what would otherwise very much appear like a pea-souper.

 

Wallace is good I think in that he is pretty comprehensive - though I still find things I have to look up elsewhere. But he is very detailed (too much so at times ? Some of his categories seem very close together) and you're right it takes a good sit and a cup of coffee.

 

Thx

D


Julie. Yes, I have Mental Case 2.0. About the price, I was referring to Anki's mobile version being costly. Not sure if that was clear...

Go Android - it's free like the desktop app.

 

Thx

D

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Rafe, have you ever learned a foreign language before starting Greek?

No I have not :(

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Rafe, have you ever learned a foreign language before starting Greek?

 

 

No I have not :(

Hm - perhaps a different approach is needed, then. At my faculty, the first language new students take on is neither Ancient Greek nor Biblical Hebrew, but Latin. After they have learned Latin, only then may they proceed to learn Greek (and subsequently Hebrew). While Latin is not a Biblical original language per se (unless you count the Vulgate), it still might be a good idea to learn that first due to the following reasons:

 

1. You don't have to learn a new alphabet.

While learning a new alphabet shouldn't pose any real trouble, it still takes time getting used to a new script, so that's one less thing to worry about.

 

2. A huge part of the Latin vocabulary resembles many common nouns and verbs used in many modern Indo-European languages, making Latin very approachable even with no prior knowledge.

 

Greek has also contributed a lot to the vocabularies of many modern Indo-European languages, but I find that these words are to a somewhat lesser extent used in every day speech compared to Latin words.

 

3. Most of the Latin grammar you learn can easily be recycled for Greek.

 

..And pretty much every single language belonging to the Indo-European family, too. Even the ones that don't have cases.

 

4. Grammatical terms and paradigms themselves are almost always in Latin (or at least resemble Latin in English).

 

Understanding what these terms literally mean will also prevent you from being alienated e.g. when you see abbreviated latin terms in dictionaries and grammars for other languages.

 

5. The language of choice for any Biblical apparatus is Latin - all abbreviated, too.

 

Assuming that you wish to be able to read the critical editions of the Bible in Greek (and perhaps Hebrew some day), knowing Latin will make it a whole lot easier.

 

All in all, by learning Latin, you'll have a lot of basic linguistic tools at your disposal, making Greek a lot less difficult to learn. It will, however, still be quite a challenge sometimes. That is true for any language.

 

Best of luck to you!

 

Non scholae, sed vitae! (Not for school, but for life) :)

 

Pchris

Edited by Pchris
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Rafe, I presumed that you hadn't studied any other language by the level of discouragement you've been expressing.

 

This explains why, in part, you are experiencing so much confusion and sense of frustration. Leaning any language is hard work, learning the biblical languages is harder than most others out there.

 

Once you break out of what I call the "English-only" thinking pattern by learning one foreign language, learning others (including Greek and Hebrew) becomes much easier.

 

I went through a great deal of difficulty when I learned Serbian (Serbo-Croatian) with its extremely complex grammar and two alphabets (one Latin based and the other cyrillic). But once I made that breakthrough, I began to understand the general way in which languages function. But that is hard to do when the only language one knows is English, and probably has never had to think about how the grammar works or why things are the way they are.

 

Later when I learned Italian, genders, plurality and verb morphology were already familiar because of Serbian. And finally, when I learned Greek, my background in Serbian (a language which shares a lot of its grammar with Greek) helped me tremendously. It didn't help at all with Hebrew, but that's another story :)

 

So all that to say, you are not unique in your struggle. Your best bet is to get with someone who can answer your questions in a way that makes sense. Trying to figure out how or why things are the way they are in Greek, on your own, and having never learned another language, is no small task. Maybe find a forum or get a partner or, better yet, both. But find an outlet to ask questions and find camaraderie. And keep on going, friend.

Edited by Mark Nigro
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Thanks, Mark. I new it was Anki that was pricey. Just wanting to make sure Mental Case 2 can be used by buying only the iOS version. I didn't see anything about needing it for the Mac, too, to make it work so I'm assuming it's a go.

You are correct, you can use the iOS version independently.

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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.

Hey Rokas,

 

Ok the instructions you gave may be either a little out of date or incomplete but if you follow the full instructions at http://ankisrs.net/docs/manual.html#installingfonts it totally works. I now have diacritics in Greek flashcards which I've not had for all cases in Cram. And it's using my preferred typeface - Cardo.

 

So many thanx

D

 

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You are correct, you can use the iOS version independently.

 

Did you make up your own card decks or import them from somewhere else? Any tips?

 

Thanks.

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Hey Julie,

 

Given that you spelled his name correctly whereas I did not, I wonder :)

Seriously though my main issue was whether the warning not to be apprehensive (more or less why Mounce makes the statement I believe, if I recall it correctly) has in and of itself led to apprehension or not. I might add that Mounce's material does a great deal to make sense of what would otherwise very much appear like a pea-souper.

 

Wallace is good I think in that he is pretty comprehensive - though I still find things I have to look up elsewhere. But he is very detailed (too much so at times ? Some of his categories seem very close together) and you're right it takes a good sit and a cup of coffee.

 

 

 

Daniel –

 

You've given me too much credit. I didn't even notice the spelling, Steven, but just spelled the name the way the Bible and my husband spell it. I really, really can't watch or read that kind of stuff. I'd probably have nightmares. :o

 

I, too, like Wallace. While he may break down some things into really a lot of categories with only small differences, his analysis makes me think. I found his admonition to only use certain categories as a last resort helpful (e.g. participles as temporal only if nothing else works, and an accusative as an acc. of reference only if nothing else works). If I start there and then remember not to get too inflexible about it, I do a bit better.

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As for physical flashcards, another resource from Bill Mounce is a set of 1,000 flashcards.

 

I'm pretty sure I have those already. Definitely looking for an 'e' version for my purposes. :)

 

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.

 

Odd, Mental Case seems not available in Canada.

 

Julie. Yes, I have Mental Case 2.0. About the price, I was referring to Anki's mobile version being costly. Not sure if that was clear...

 

I see Mental Case 2, but it almost looks like a different app (at least a really unprofessional looking icon in comparison to Mental Case). I'll have to look into that a bit more.

 

Also, in my searching I ran across a newcomer (I think) that looks pretty nice, Brainscape. They don't have Greek/Hebrew available yet, but it looks like someone has created an extensive Hebrew/Aramaic set. I'm not understanding their pricing model, as it seems free. I guess they make money off selling sets of pre-made study content or something.

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

 

Pardon the pun, but I think it's just that a different language is such a foreign subject. And, I know for me, the biggest problem was that I didn't really know English that well, so applying the concepts of grammar was a struggle from the start. Unlike many other things we learn, I think languages (especially the the first one from what I hear and others have indicated here) takes a huge time investment before you feel like you're making any progress. I suppose there are a few other subjects like that, but for most stuff, you get at least some gratification right from the start.

 

I think the work you put in now will pay off though. At least for me, the seminary courses moved REALLY fast. I was learning, just not nearly as fast as I needed to to keep up, especially with all the other coursework. Any base you can build before that will be of great help, IMO. I ended up only doing a semester of Hebrew and stopping Greek after a few weeks, as I'd met the language requirements for my degree. But, I really do want to eventually learn them, so I'm looking at getting back into them, just at my own pace this time. :)

 

I hope the fog start to clear for you soon.

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Have you also seen my post of Mimnesko?

 

If you have an iPhone you can use this electronic flashcards.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

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Pardon the pun, but I think it's just that a different language is such a foreign subject. And, I know for me, the biggest problem was that I didn't really know English that well, so applying the concepts of grammar was a struggle from the start.

 

THIS. My Greek professor commented several times that the reason his students struggled with Greek is that they didn't know English well enough. My understanding of grammar improved significantly during my Greek classes and has made me a better writer as well. And Steve's comment about foreignness is exactly right. When learning a new language, you're not just adding knowledge to your existing framework of communication; you're creating a new framework. But that's also why learning the Biblical languages is so rewarding. Those languages are how the people in the Bible communicated, and there are things that you simply won't fully grasp in a translation. When you read in English, you read a description of their world from your current perspective; when you read in Greek or Hebrew, you step into their world.

 

Perhaps I've overstated things, but NOTHING has changed my study of the Bible more than learning the languages (and I only had 2 years of Greek and 2 months of Hebrew, so I'm far from an expert). Many people here have offered advice and encouragement, but nobody can offer a shortcut or take away the difficulty of learning the languages. You just have to muddle through it, but I promise you that you'll be glad you did.

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THIS. My Greek professor commented several times that the reason his students struggled with Greek is that they didn't know English well enough.

 

Jonathan – One of the young people in my Greek class said exactly that. The prof said it was because he was a product of the public school system. The student didn't know much English grammar and was trying to learn it while he was trying to learn Greek, too. When you get questions in class like, 'What's an adverb?' you know there's a problem. Frankly, the public schools are failing. I learned much of my grammar taking Latin in high school.

 

My understanding of grammar improved significantly during my Greek classes and has made me a better writer as well.

 

My experience as well.

 

And Steve's comment about foreignness is exactly right. When learning a new language, you're not just adding knowledge to your existing framework of communication; you're creating a new framework. But that's also why learning the Biblical languages is so rewarding. Those languages are how the people in the Bible communicated, and there are things that you simply won't fully grasp in a translation. When you read in English, you read a description of their world from your current perspective; when you read in Greek or Hebrew, you step into their world.

 

I agree with this completely. It really is worth it. And even though it's hard, it can be fun, too. The languages are fascinating.

 

Perhaps I've overstated things, but NOTHING has changed my study of the Bible more than learning the languages (and I only had 2 years of Greek and 2 months of Hebrew, so I'm far from an expert). Many people here have offered advice and encouragement, but nobody can offer a shortcut or take away the difficulty of learning the languages. You just have to muddle through it, but I promise you that you'll be glad you did.

 

The only other thing I would add to this is the difference Accordance has made. I can get to so much information so quickly that would have taken a prohibitive amount of time before. This means that I go ahead and chase rabbits – one can learn a lot that way. The grunt-work part of study is streamlined so we can proceed to analysis more quickly. And we can do things that were pretty near impossible before Bible software.

 

Jonathan – Thanks for your post. It really resonated with me. I'm no expert either, but what I have learned has made me want to learn more.

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In 20 years of teaching Greek to absolute newbies, the single biggest issue is they don’t know English Grammar. This is because we use Grammar as a functional meta-language to bridge the two languages (at least in the early time). If we could just immerse and speak, there wouldn’t bet this issue, though others would of course arise, like it would take a lot longer to feel competent at all, and written language would trail spoken/heard (?bad thing?) and third, you’d need very differently skilled teachers, - I for one would struggle mightily. Another issue may be that if the language learnt verbally is not practiced regularly verbally then it may be lost more quickly, and given the dearth of such koine Greek speaking groups, we may have very few able to use Koine Greek.

 

Hebrew is a different packet of bananas in this fashion, because there are many speaking groups around the world.

 

The fog is real, and always there, but diminishes for those topics you covered a month ago...provided you keep pressing into the new fog.

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To echo what others said, I ended up learning a lot of English grammar when I started learning French (my first foreign language). I came through public school at a time and a place when English grammar wasn't really taught beyond the very basics. Studying another language really improved my understanding of English grammar.

 

Another thing that's important is to figure out how you learn best. Some folks need to hear language. My dad was a missionary in Congo in the 60s; his teacher kicked him out of language class and told him to go sit under a tree and listen to the natives talk to each other. By the end of his 4 year stint, he was the best Swahili speaker of all the missionaries on his station. But he was getting next to nowhere with a grammar book. My mom's the opposite. She needs the grammar and wants everything perfect before she opens her mouth. I fall somewhere in between.

 

My Greek class used a fairly obscure grammar by Goetchius. It always started with how English handled a particular concept (e.g. possessives) and then looked at how Greek did it. I loved it. I think it would be a good approach for someone who hadn't studied other languages, but I can't say that from personal experience, as Greek was far from my first foreign language. Goetchius' book is still available on Amazon, but it looks to me like it is probably out of print, given the price.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm using this textbook in seminary, and I've been a bit overwhelmed myself. Three pieces of advice: 1. Keep at it, 2. Pray, 3. Give Mounce's textbook a read. I'm reading a little through it over Christmas break to keep me mentally sharp, and I like his approach over Black. It's encouraging and a bit easier to digest for me. I believe it'll help me grasp the material better when I start back to January classes.

Edited by Nathan Parker
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I'm using this textbook in seminary, and I've been a bit overwhelmed myself. Three pieces of advice: 1. Keep at it, 2. Pray, 3. Give Mounce's textbook a read. I'm reading a little through it over Christmas break to keep me mentally sharp, and I like his approach over Black. It's encouraging and a bit easier to digest for me. I believe it'll help me grasp the material better when I start back to January classes.

 

Nathan – I have a friend who is trying to learn Greek in a class at a local church using Black. I loaned her my Mounce (2nd edition). She like liked it so much she ended up buying her own copy. It fit her learning style better, too. Black doesn't seem to be very well organized. Many of us prefer a systematic approach. Mounce is most definitely systematic and organized. And that also makes it easier to go back and review – what you are looking for will be all in one place.

Edited by Julie Falling
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True. Plus Mounce seems a lot more encouraging and shows you WHY you're learning what you're learning and HOW it's useful in real world Biblical language study. Black is very dry and just throws it all out there just for the sake of learning it. Mounce gives more encouragement along the way and is far more practical letting me see where the payoff in learning it really is. Some colleges here use Mounce, and I wish my college did. At least I'm reading it in my own extra-curricular.

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  • 4 weeks later...

You are correct, you can use the iOS version independently.

Are there pre-made flash cards for either BBG or Greek for the rest of us in Mental Case 2.0?

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