[B-Greek] Greek text with lexicon

Barry nebarry at verizon.net
Wed Dec 2 21:58:12 EST 2009



--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Barach" <johnbarach at shaw.ca>
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2009 10:19 PM
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [B-Greek] Greek text with lexicon

> I have taught Greek for over 15 years and in my experience Greek
> students would like to read the NT, but they are deficient in vocabulary.
> No sooner do they begin, than they are confronted with a word that was
> not learned in their grammar.
> They look it up in the analytical lexicon, read two more short words and
> are back to the lexicon.
> For that reason, I have developed the following Greek NT text with links
> for each word to a lexicon.
> I think it has an advantage over an interlinear approach because it
> encourages learning new words by remembering what had been "clicked"
> previously.
> Would you do me a favor by looking at the site and giving me your input?
> This link is to the main index.
> http://www.motorera.com/bible/greek/nt.html

Something like this is good if the student has to read quickly through a 
text, but I question to what degree it really helps them to learn the 
language.  My college Greek professor's rule of thumb: if you have to look 
up the word three times, make up a vocabulary card for it, and then own the 
word.  Get a good sense of the entire semantic range and include it on the 
card with representative glosses.  If the student can do this with an 
electronic tool as well as a hard copy lexicon, then fine.

Once a sufficient base vocabulary is in place, look up as few words as 
possible -- get the sense from the context, or as I tell my students, "what 
does it have to mean?"  Only bother to look it up if you have to do 
something official with it, like teaching it, or considering this group, 
preaching it.

Of course, it would be quite helpful if the student read Greek outside of 
the NT and even the LXX...

Which reminds me, the request  is occasionally made on this list concerning 
reading Greek texts outside the NT.  Freeman and Lowe's *A Greek Reader for 
Schools* was written as an intermediate or advanced beginner text for 
younger students.  It includes Aesop, Theophrastus, Lucian, Herodotus, 
Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plato.  The texts have been edited and in some 
cases, simplified from the originals (Herodotus has been revised as Attic 
Greek).  However, it is still fairly close to the original texts and allows 
the student a positive reading experience without being overwhelming.  I 
would recommend it for students who have a year of beginning Greek or the 
equivalent.  I like it for students who are in their final throes of Greek 
and may never continue it beyond TAA, since it gives them a taste of several 
different Greek authors.  It includes notes on the texts and the typical 
dictionary with mostly one word glosses designed for the included texts.

N.E. Barry Hofstetter

Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te...
    -- Augustine, Confessions 1:1

http://mysite.verizon.net/nebarry/
http://my.opera.com/BarryHofstetter/blog/

 




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