What you can do about it
— Greg's program for YOU to Learn Greek
On Your Own
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| The Task |
You must not sit down and mindlessly memorize tables of word
endings. That way lies madness. Instead you should:
| Academics |
Formally learn a)
all those endings, and
Formally learn b) the big-picture logical structure those
endings fit in. |
| Practical |
Drill drill drill simple
Greek sentences—with English translations—to
get your brain to recognize Greek words as thoughts, not
just as table entries.
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| The Plan |
Plan on two or three passes through the material.
Drill drill drill sentences.
| Formal
Learning |
As
a practical matter you won't be able to read ancient Greek
without a formal knowledge of Greek grammar. You are going
to need to puzzle out whether this verb is aorist or pluperfect
and that noun genitive or accusative. Sorry. That's the
way Greeks minds worked.
The important thing is to understand, the thing Learn Greek
books aren't good at pointing out, is that Greek grammar
has several levels of structure. The books and teachers
focus on the lower levels. Ending rules, and exceptions
to the rules, and exceptions to exceptions.
You must do two things on your own.
1) Understand that there is a big structure --
a structure to verbs in general, a structure to nouns in
general -- and fit each new table into that structure. Find
and understand the connections between each table and the
bigger structure.
2) Understand that exceptions to exceptions to exceptions
is a convenient way to stuff everything into a book, but
it's a terrible way to stuff everything into your brain.
There's too much to learn with one pass.
Simple solution. Make several passes. Self learners set
their own schedule, so they have a big advantage here. 
For verbs, say, learn the standard -o
verb endings in all the tenses. Drill and practice. Get
that down. Then go back and do it again, this time picking
up the -a and -e and u- contract verbs. Then go a third
time and pick up the odd ball stuff. Menos, idzos, like
that.
For nouns, learn all 24 forms of "the"
absolutely cold. Write them up and down. Write them sideways.
Write them in different gender order. Learn the basic patterns
for the three declensions absolutely perfectly. Do not,
at first, worry your pretty head about the sub-declensions.
Drill drill drill on the basics. Write them up and down.
Write them side to side. Know them before you move on. If
you don't know the basic declensions, participles, say,
are impossible. If you do, participles are drop dead easy.
Ditto adjectives. Etc.
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| Practical |
All
this formal stuff is useless on it's own. Your brain treats
table entries as table entries, not as thoughts. To recognize
Greek words as thoughts your brain needs repetition in context.
Greek sentences. Lots of them.
The traditional way to do this is, as I said, to puzzle
out fragments of Xenophon or Paul clause by impenetrable
clause. This works. Eventually. But it is slow and frustrating
as hell.
The better way is to read short, simple Greek sentences,
and lots of them. Repetition in context. My own opinion
is, it's better to read sentences that come with English
translations. That way you maximize repetitions. Perfect.
Since some books, even best sellers, have essentially no
Greek practice sentences at all, and many others have no
translations, this is is harder to do than you'd think.
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Ready? Here's Greg's program, step by
step.
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Step 1
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Learn by doing introduction.
This should take many weeks.
Learn
New Testament Greek by John Dobson
Hundreds of short Greek sentences make this a natural,
fun, fast paced, and rewarding way to get started. Unfortunately
there's not nearly enough detail here for this to be the only
Learn Greek book you use. Formal grammar always sits at the back
of the bus, and after about Chapter 20 everything gets murky.
Do chapters 1 - 19 first, then move on to Mounce.
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When you are done with step 1,
make at least one pass through Mounce.
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Step 2
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Suck it up and memorize
the forms. This should take several months.
Basics
of Biblical Greek Grammar
by William Mounce
Mounce is famous and popular because it clearly explains all the
basic grammatical essentials and none of the other stuff.
Like tables? We got tables! Get ready to memorize. The good news:
this doesn't take brains, it just takes persistence.
Be aware of Mounce's two
great flaws
1. It's full of minute detail, empty of big picture overview.
I myself am not smart enough to memorize 230 verb forms, 144 participle
forms, etc, without seeing where each bit fits in the bigger picture.
Even if you are smart enough to do that, you'll still benefit
from having a big-picture overview of the structure of Greek grammar.
But you won't find the big picture in Mounce.
The workaround is, figure out and diagram the big picture yourself.
It's not that hard to do, so long as you know you need to do it.
Here are some tips:
1a. Make at least two passes through the book. Why?
Because Mounce mushes together the basics, and the exceptions
to the basics, and many alternative nuances of the exceptions
to the basics. For me, that's too much to take in all
at once. If you're the same, be sure to take at least
two passes through Mounce: once for the main stuff, the second
time for the exceptions and nuances.
1b Reorganize the verbs in standard order. Standard
practice is to organize—and think about— verbs by
"principal parts. " Present, Future, Past (aorist), Perfect
1, Perfect 2, Aorist passive. Mounce fails to stick to this order,
instead he often orders verb tenses by ending pattern(!)
rather than by meaning. This is highly confusing to not-very-smart
people like me. Solution: realize that the principal parts ordering
is standard because it is also logical; reorganize your verb study
around the standard order.
1c. Here's a key table Mounce leaves out. It's
the master verb ending chart on page
184. Mounce's table gives the verb-stem endings, but fails
to show you which moods/tenses go with each box. Big,
confusing, time-wasting omission. The table here lists the type
of verb that goes in each box. The patterns are pretty obvious,
once you save and print this table (which is squashed down to
fit on this page, but will print big and readable. ) The pink numbers
are the principal part numbers, the red letters are the tense
formative letters, and the columns on the right are the section
and page numbers in my edition of Mounce.
Once you see them in this table, the patterns are incredibly
obvious, and understanding them will let you recognize each of
those 230 verb forms quickly and easily. 
2. The Gap. Mounce has no brain-training
Greek sentences at all. Do not be surprised if after
several months memorizing Mounce tables you pick up a simple Greek
text and can't understand one sentence.
Mounce does sell a couple workbooks. They're jump-in-the-deep-end
"translation" stuff that I found frustrating and unuseful.
You're going to have to look elsewhere to fill in the gap. |
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After at least one pass through Mounce,
move on to:
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Step 3
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Fill in the Gap. This
should take many months.
Your goal now is to find Greek sentences that are so simple you
don't have to decode/"translate" them, you can just
read them with comprehension. The more you practice, the better
your comprehension will get. You're looking not just for simple
Greek sentences, but for simple Greek sentences with accompanying
English translations. These are surprisingly hard to
find.
You should buy and carefully read the simple Greek sentences
in each of these books. Now that you've memorized your
Mounce tables, that will be much easier than you expect. 
Learn New Testament Greek
by John Dobson
You already own Dobson. Now that you've memorized your Mounce
tables, Dobson's otherwise confusing later chapters will make
more sense.
You'll find dozens of helpful practice sentences here.

JACT, Joint
Association of Classical Teachers series of college
texts intended to teach Attic (=Athenian) Greek
#1 Reading Greek Text and Vocabulary
#2 Reading Greek Grammar and Exercises
#3 An Independent Study Guide
to Reading Greek
Until 2008 the JACT Reading Greek series was OK,
but not great. In '08 they came out with the second edition, and
Wow! is it wonderful. There are lots
and lots and lots of simple Greek stories to read, with
tons of repetition. "Yes captain, I will go. You will go.
The rhapsode will also go. " Different endings for each person.
Over and over. Very very useful.
Meticulously charted journey through the larger
structure of ancient Greek grammar. Very nice.
Too advanced to be a first and only Learn Greek book. Excellent
second book.
Very useful as your second pass through the material. I'd suggest
this rather than a second pass through Mounce.
To use any one book you must buy all three books in the set—about
$100. Worth the money at twice the price.

Athenaze is
a college textbook of Attic (=Athenian) Greek. Each chapter
begins with a one or two page reading in ancient Greek.
These are simple, repetitious and highly instructive.
Unlike Mounce, but like JACT, Athenaze teaches Greek
a little bit at a time. A little verb, a little participle, a
little noun in each chapter. Because I myself need to fit each
new idea into the big picture, I find this confusing. If you don't,
you might try Athenaze all by itself. At any rate, once you've
memorized the Mounce tables, you can breeze through Athenaze,
or even just through it's simple readings. Very very useful.
Translations are in the separate answer book. But
the readings are so easy, you probably won't need translations.
Answers to exercises are in the Teacher's Handbook -- which unfortunately
never got printed in the second edition. That makes Athenaze much
less useful than JACT.
I suggest JACT as your second pass, Athenaze as
your third pass.
BTW, even if you're learning Greek just to read
the NT, you'll still find Athenaze and JACT useful for filling
in the Gap. Yes you will have to learn some non-NT vocabulary.
So what? Also, people blather about Attic and Koine Greek being
different. They are. But not so much as you've been lead to believe.

Interlinear New Testaments
have the Greek of the NT on one line, and the English translation
of each Greek word on the line right below it.
Just cover up the English, and read away. Even if
your main interest is Attic Greek, the practice you'll get will
be highly instructive.

Greek Prose Composition
& Keys , by
North & Hilliard'
John White
Arthur Sidgwick
A hundred years ago ancient Greek was a standard
part of English schoolboy education. Not only did the wee lads
read Greek, they also had to write Greek. That's where you come
in. The 100+ year old Greek Composition textbooks are out of copyright
and available free on the internet. They're a
handy source of free simple Greek sentences (the keys)
with English translations (the exercises in the composition books).
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When you are done with step 3,
move on to:
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Step 4
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Fly
little birdie, fly!
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library publishes more than five hundred titles
in ancient Greek. At Thermopylae, when the certainly
soon to die Dieneces the Spartan was told the
Persian army was so vast that, shooting together, their arrows
blotted out the sun, he laughed, "Good, then
we will advance to battle in the shade. " With
the Loeb books you will reach back two or two and a half thousand
years and hear and understand and feel the words and thoughts
of brave, cowardly, truthful, duplicitous, greedy, loving, hating,
living breathing mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, just as
they spoke them to themselves. Absolutely fucking amazing.
The books have the Greek text on the left page
and the accompanying English translation on the right
page. Read the Greek all on your own; if you run into
trouble, there's quick, easy help on the facing page.
There are enough fun, delightful, fascinating, moving books here
to keep you busy for the rest of your life. The standard beginners
book is Xenophon's swashbuckling Anabasis.
If you're interested in Greek in NT times, try Plutarch
and Lucian, the Apostolic Fathers,or
the Selected Papyri-useses.
Unless you know for sure it is what you want, you should avoid
the temptation to start with the very old Greek of Homer,
Hesiod, and Pindar, etc. That
way lies madness. |
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