[B-Greek] Machen-Modern vs Mounce-Classical

Raymond Regalado fwgk5942 at mb.infoweb.ne.jp
Sat Dec 20 09:39:58 EST 2003


On 2003.12.20, at 10:43  PM, Katb4now at aol.com wrote:

> I'm a homeschool mom of a 15 year old trying to pick a curriculum for 
> Janaury
> that we will STICK to and finish.

Greetings from a homeschool dad of a 9, 7 and 3 year old.  I'm 
preparing to teach my own kids Greek (and Hebrew and Latin) in maybe 
two years time by teaching *myself* first.

> It seems to me there are 2 really good curriculums for self study of 
> Koine,
> with many supplements.
>
> Mounce using a classical pronunciation has a CD, flash card software,
> cartoons, quizzes.

Mounce uses an "American" version of the Erasmian pronunciation 
convention.  I had a German friend read from the Greek NT the other 
day, and I heard how different his pronunciation was from Mounce's, 
although both are using Erasmian.  I don't know that there are 
"cartoons" that go with Mounce's material, though.  But Mounce's system 
should be more than okay, if the goal is to be able to read the NT.  If 
you're concerned (as I am) about the art of reading Scripture out loud, 
then I guess you should either go for Modern Greek pronunciation (maybe 
later, not immediately) or cultivate an "Erasmian" that sounds the 
vowels in a more pure manner (i.e. such as a German or Spanish person 
would perhaps do).

> Machen using a modern pronunciation has videos, software, printed flash
> cards. THe Machen videos also teach sentence diagramming which looks 
> REALLY good to
> me with my latin backround.

I don't know about this "Machen curriculum" you mention here.  Could 
you perhaps send me some information?  I have Machen's Grammar and an 
answers to exercises book, but that's all.  Perhaps you are talking 
about Dr. Spiros Zodhiates' audio recordings of the vocab and exercises 
in Machen (which I don't have but would like to have but then it seems 
to be unavailable)?  Dr. Zodhiates' pronunciation would be Modern Greek 
all right.

> This modern pronunciation makes me a bit nervous.

At first I thought the modern Greek pronunciation was a bit scary, too, 
but then it turns out it seems to be no big deal at all -- just a bit 
of adjustment from the Erasmian.  In fact, I have decided to learn 
both.  I'm focusing on Erasmian now, while I'm learning Koine, then 
later I plan to study Modern Greek itself, to learn a "living" 
language, too, and I expect to shift my Koine pronunciation to Modern 
Greek pronunciation when the time comes.

Blessings,

Raymond Regalado
Tokyo, Japan




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