Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

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Sebastian Satkurunath
Posts: 27
Joined: December 28th, 2022, 2:33 pm

Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Hi folks,

I'm Sebastian, and I started teaching myself NT Greek all of four days ago. I'm in the process of applying to go back to university and read the Theology Tripos from September, so this is mostly to give me a head start. I've been using a mixture of the ginoskos mobile phone app to drill vocabulary, and the J.W. Wenham edition of "The Elements of New Testament Greek" for the grammar. (I realise this has now been superseded by Dunn, but it's the one we already had a copy of in the house).

I anticipate asking lots of stupid questions in the beginners forum for the foreseeable future, but hope to eventually be able to contribute something useful.

Cheers,

Sebastian
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
mikeatnip
Posts: 75
Joined: May 6th, 2020, 12:07 pm

Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by mikeatnip »

Welcome! And for the record, asking stupid beginner questions is allowed around here. Been there, done that. And not sure I am past that stage even yet. :-)
Mike Atnip
May I not debate presumptuously; may I not be silent impudently. May I learn beneficial speech; may I acquire discerning silence. -Ephrem the Syrian
Jonathan Robie
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Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Welcome, Sebastian! Would you mind if I changed your user name to your real name? I like your chosen name, but we use real names here unless there's a reason not to.

I started to learn Greek by showing up on a mailing list - not yet a forum - back in the early 1990s and asking stupid questions. So your questions are welcome here.

Jonathan
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Sebastian Satkurunath
Posts: 27
Joined: December 28th, 2022, 2:33 pm

Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Thanks Jonathan, and please do go ahead and change the name. I created the account before I noticed the real names policy.
Cheers,
Sebastian
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
Jason Hare
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Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Jason Hare »

Sebastian Satkurunath wrote: December 29th, 2022, 10:49 am Thanks Jonathan, and please do go ahead and change the name. I created the account before I noticed the real names policy.
Cheers,
Sebastian
Your username has been changed to Sebastian Satkurunath (without your middle name) as per your request to change your username and as per your introduction title. Your password has not been altered. Welcome to B-Greek!
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
Jason Hare
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Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Jason Hare »

Sebastian Satkurunath wrote: December 28th, 2022, 2:58 pm I anticipate asking lots of stupid questions in the beginners forum for the foreseeable future, but hope to eventually be able to contribute something useful.
Asking stupid questions is far better than professing stupid opinions. :) Welcome to the study of Greek!
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Jonathan Robie »

FWIW, you might accelerate your learning quite a bit by starting with Alpha with Angela:

https://freegreek.online/about/

There are only about 20 lessons so far, and it's the first cut, so it's not yet as good as the Aleph with Beth for Hebrew (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKmeT ... syZPKrzWQQ), but it's moving along in a healthy direction.

Getting some living language lessons under your belt is usually the most efficient way to start learning Greek. You will also want an efficient way to read and understand what you are reading. I have my own ideas about that and hope to be able to announce an early prototype in January or so, but it's not quite ready for beginners, it needs to be improved before it's as helpful as I would like.

Perhaps people can weigh in on their favorite reading environments for Greek?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Sebastian Satkurunath
Posts: 27
Joined: December 28th, 2022, 2:33 pm

Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Thanks for fixing the username, and for the links to resources. I suspect that whilst the videos look like they'll be a great resource for many, my brain just isn't wired that way. My reading fluency in English outstripped my auditory processing within a few months of starting to speak, and it's even more marked in French, in which I can read at close to native fluency, but still only follow fast moving dialogue with the (French) subtitles turned on.

I'm also enough of a geek that learning grammatical structures first feels more like a puzzle or a game than a chore to me. I like understanding how language fits together, and find it much easier to learn the things that need to be learned by rote if I've got a sense of how they fit into a bigger picture.

I've picked up a kindle copy of the Goodrich and Lukaszewski Reader's New Testament, so once I've finished working through all of the 20+frequency vocab, which I should have managed within the next couple of days, I was thinking of starting to have a look at the Johannine corpus and seeing how I get on.
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Jonathan Robie »

You obviously know about language learning and your own personal learning style. I'm curious - what are the languages that you know?

Sounds like you also prefer paper to digital?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Sebastian Satkurunath
Posts: 27
Joined: December 28th, 2022, 2:33 pm

Re: Introduction, Sebastian Satkurunath, absolute beginner

Post by Sebastian Satkurunath »

Just French with any degree of fluency. I did GSCE German mumble years ago, but have forgotten most of it, and have a tiny smattering of Latin and Italian, mostly from singing. Also SQL, C++, VBScript &c, but whilst I think there are some interesting questions about the interplay between linguistics and programming language design, I don't have deep enough understanding of either to really explore them :)

Digital vs dead tree is highly context dependent. For long/serious books that I'm going to read cover to cover, or at least in whole chapters, then I prefer a kindle because it doesn't weigh as much. For trashy romance novels I prefer paper because it's expensive to keep replacing kindles when I drop them in the bath. For reference books I quite like having both formats, because sometimes I'm moving back and forth between several books and I just want them all open on the desk in front of me, but sometimes I want to be able to refer to things whilst I'm out and about, and again we're back to weight.
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Sebastian James Satkurunath
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