[B-Greek] Re: Greek & Hebrew brush-up" tools

John Byron jbyron at ashland.edu
Fri Feb 27 14:04:08 EST 2004


I too am using Story's Greek to Me and have found that it is not only an efficient way to teach Greek but it makes the language accessible. The latter is particulary important when teaching a language to a group of students who have little or no prior language training. As far as the mnemonic devices . . . true not all of them work for everyone, but I would still conclude that a high percentage of the devices are very helpful. Most students will invent their own devices. Story's system allows the student the luxury of spending more time on memorizing the grammar and vocabulary rather than simple rote memory. 

Another advantage to Story's book is the translation exercises which are stories based on biblical events. Rather than having students translate context less sentences, Story's exercises allow students to read Greek the way they will in the NT; in multiple paragraph blocks.

I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. 
(Two of my colleagues learned Greek from Story when they were at Princetion). 

John Byron Ph.D.
Ashland Theological Seminary
910 Center St.
Ashland, OH 44805
jbyron at ashland.edu

>>> Eric Weiss <papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> 02/27/04 01:23PM >>>
> I borrowed a book once that was meant to make memorization easier. I can't 
> remember the name of the book but it had all sorts of absurd mnemonics for endings 
> that correspond to moods and tenses etc. My memory was not good enough to be 
> able to use these "memory aids". (About all I remember of this book was that the 
> picture for the subjunctive was a 'junk sub'marine.)
> 
> Bert de Haan.

The book with the "subjunk" is GREEK TO ME by J. Lyle Story and Cullen I. K. Story, 
now published by Xulon Press. I am currently using it to teach a class at church, and 
Dale M. Wheeler at Multnomah (who took Edward Goodrick's position after Goodrick 
died) has used it with great success for years. In fact, Cullen Story was at Princeton 
Theological Seminary when he and his son wrote the book, and it was used at 
Princeton.
 
The separate "silly picture" vocabulary cards (nearly every word that occurs 25x or 
more, and several that occur less) will DEFINITELY work for learning your vocabulary, 
and any student using a text like Mounce that only teaches words that occur 50x or 
more would benefit by buying THE GREEK MEMORY SYSTEM cards to double their 
vocabulary in short order (from 315 or so words to 630 or so words) after they complete 
their course (or even while taking it). 
 
I have info about it at my Web page:
 
http://www.geocities.com/dbcgreek/ntgreek/resources.htm 
 
Don't give up so easily on "silly pictures." For many people they work very well.


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



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