[B-Greek] Learning KOINE

Eric Weiss papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Tue Feb 24 14:01:40 EST 2004


> There are 2 other books I'd like to mention: one is Dobson's "Learn NT 
> Greek" and the other is "Living KOINE Greek for Everyone", by Randall 
> Buth.  I could comment on these further if they have not already been 
> through the list mill.
 
I have both (or at least the first volume -- 3 CDs -- of Buth). I used Dobson 
to teach a class at church, and had disappointing results. I think the lack 
of written exercises hurts his method. While at a glance it appears to be 
a good method for making Greek easy to learn and absorb, the experience 
of my students was that it did not "take," and several of them are now taking 
a class with me using a more traditional grammar (Story's GREEK TO ME). 
This time they seem to be learning the vocabulary and grammar. Perhaps 
their weak showing with Dobson was due (I suspect) to them not spending 
the necessary time reading and rereading the selections each week. If one 
were to do this, then maybe one would achieve Dobson's claim that after 
finishing the book, one can read large parts of the NT with ease (or 
something like that). I liked the fact that Dobson exposed students to 
areas and subjects normally reserved for 2nd year Greek (e.g., textual 
criticism; translation theory; etc.).
 
I've only gone through some of Buth, to get my impression of his method 
(an expensive choice, I know -- and I also got his Hebrew CDs!). I didn't 
use it enough to gauge its effectiveness, and now I'm relearning my Hebrew 
with a traditional grammar -- but I'll likely plug into Buth's Hebrew CDs again 
to improve my Hebrew proficiency.
 
Buth's Greek CDs give a scholarly re-creation of 1st-century Koine 
pronunciation (with some slight variation, e.g., to make eta distinct from "ee"). 
OI and U are pronounced like a French "u" and gamma has a distinct guttural 
sound. I like them for this, and actually try to read my Greek NT using Buth's 
pronunciation, which doesn't differ that much from Modern Greek (for which 
you can order Spiros Zodhiates' tapes of the NT). It sounds more "real" than 
the Erasmian pronunciation, even though it's harder to listen to in the sense 
that many letters sound the same; Erasmian gives almost every consonant 
and vowel and diphthong a distinct sound (except eta and EI, which are both 
pronounced as the "ey" in "they").


Eric S. Weiss
http://www.geocities.com/papaweiss1/index.htm



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