Re: How to study, what to use....

From: Steve Long (steve@allegrographics.com)
Date: Wed Jun 10 1998 - 08:08:45 EDT


>Dear B-Greekers,
> Having just completed my "formal" study of Greek, I am left wondering
>where to go next. I want to continue working with my GNT and learning more
>and more, but I'm not certain if my method of study is the best. This was my
>method for my last year of college:
>
>1. Translate the verse (or paragraph, book, etc.).
>2. Diagram if it wasn't too terribly difficult (I'm not very good at it).
>3. Do Word Studies on words that seemed particularly interesting.
>
>While doing this I would frequently use BAGD and Reinecker and Rodgers.
>
>Now, what I need to know, is if this is a beneficial way for me to continue
>my study of Greek on my own, and if I should purchase these books for
>myself. Any information about good study tools and/or study methods would be
>a great help!
>
>Thanks!
>
>Allison
>

This is my first post to the list and I am definitely a little greek, but I
have found a study method that helped me quite a bit.

I was teaching a Sunday school class back in the early '80s and I wanted to
learn enough Greek to share some of its richness with my students, so I
studied with a tutor, bought all the right reference books etc. and I got
to the level of proficiency where I could parse the verb, do word studies
and not make to many stupid statements about grammar when teaching (ie.
learned to say nothing).

About 2 years ago, I wanted to enrich my personal understanding of the New
Testament by becoming a fluent reader. I found my copy of Marshall's
interlinear of the Nestle text and I started reading a chapter a day from
the Greek with modern pronunciation (I know several Greeks who would laugh
at me if I used scholarly pronuciation). The value of using an interlinear
was enormous, I began to recognize words by their sound without having to
look them up. The audible Greek helped me to memorize vocabulary by
sounding like an English word. You can cover a lot of ground if don't have
to look up every verb ending. I very quickly gained enough fluency so that
now I can read most of the New Testament (noninterlinear) without
consulting a lexicon and I can even appreciate some of Paul's puns or
double entendres. Even on less familiar ground like the Septuagint, I find
my comprehension greatly increased.

I wanted the New Testament to become less like a secret code that has to be
decoded and more like a living language. The goal I set for myself (which I
am a very long way from obtaining) is to be able to think in Greek. So I
have also set myself to learn modern Greek using a modern Greek grammar,
modern Greek-English dictionary (also useful for word studies to see how a
word meaning has been distilled) and a CD-Rom, so that I can converse in
Greek (the first step toward thinking?) (do we always learn to speak before
we learn to think?) (am I even beginning to write like Paul?) MH GENOITO!
;-)

Any way there may be others who have had different experiences, but this
worked very well for me. I gained more ground in a few months than I did in
years of look-it-up type of study (I still look stuff up for topical or
word studies, I'm just talking about daily devotional reading).

Steve

______________________________________________________________________________
Steve Long
president
Allegro Graphics, Inc., Allegro Digital Media, Inc.
4132 Industrial Drive, Saint Peters, Missouri 63376
1-888-819-8166 toll-free
steve@websrv.com, steve@allegrographics.com
http://www.websrv.com/
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