Reboot Your Greek. Darin H. Land
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the word in the previous verse or two. If you can’t find it, then move on to option 2 or 3. If you try looking it up in the lexicon in the back and it’s not there, that probably means it is an omission. In that case, you can either stick with option 3, look up the word in a full-sized lexicon, or look up your verse in a modern translation and try to figure out the meaning of your word by the process of elimination.
Exercise 2
Directions: Look up the following verses in the UBS Greek New Testament Reader’s Edition.4 Skim as many of the verses as possible in the allotted thirty minutes (see the preface). As you look at each verse, see if there are any words you recognize. Also, pay attention to the footnotes. See how helpful they can be! Don’t worry too much about comprehension at this point. Celebrate those words you recognize (if any), but don’t feel bad about the ones you can’t figure out. We’ll build comprehension throughout the coming forty days. (If you are able to read all the verses within thirty minutes, you may either read them again or read another passage of your choice.)
| 1. Luke 2:522. Mark 10:143. John 3:164. Rom 3:235. Rom 6:236. Eph 2:8–97. 1 John 4:7–88. John 11:35 | 9. John 8:1210. Rom 1:1611. 2 Cor 12:912. Eph 3:20–2113. Rev 1:814. Rom 10:1315. Gal 1:10 |
Reminder: If you committed to spending an extra fifteen minutes per day, be sure to set aside time to do that today, too.
4. If you have chosen to use an electronic text rather than the Reader’s Edition, feel free to look up the same verses listed here. Practice looking up the meaning and parsing of words using the built-in tools.
Day 3: Alphabet and Pronunciation
Without looking, recite the letters of the Greek alphabet in order. How did you do? Were you surprised by how much you remembered, or by how much you forgot? No matter, it’s good to review the alphabet as a way of getting back into Greek. Don’t feel that you have to memorize the alphabet again. The main thing at this point is that you can read every letter and make the correct sounds associated with each one.5
Many of the letters look a lot like their English counterparts that are pronounced the same way, so we won’t spend time on those.6 Here are the ones you may have forgotten:
| γ | gamma | makes the hard “g” sound (like gate) |
| makes a “ng” sound when there are two gammas together (like singing) | ||
| ζ | zeta | makes a “z” or “dz” sound (like zoo or ads) |
| η | eta | makes a long “a” sound (like eight) |
| θ | theta | makes a soft “th” sound (like theater) |
| μ | mu | just like “m” in English |
| ν | nu | looks like English “v” but sounds like English “n” |
| ξ | xi | makes the “ks” sound (like the x in taxi) |
| π | pi | just like “p” in English |
| ρ | rho | looks like English “p” but sounds like English “r” |
| σ | sigma | just like “s” in English (the sigma looks a lot like “s” when it comes at the end of a word) |
| φ | phi | just like English “f” |
| χ | chi | like the German “ch” (as in Loch Ness monster) or like English k |
| ψ | psi | makes “ps” sound (like oops) |
| ω | omega | makes long “o” sound (like no) |
Hopefully the letters are coming back to you pretty well now. Let’s move on to something just a little bit harder: doubled vowel sounds, aka diphthongs. When two vowels come together in Greek, they usually make a single sound—but not always. The trick is remembering what that single sound is and when they make two sounds. The rule is: If the two vowels make a diphthong, they make one sound; if they do not make a diphthong, they make two sounds. Here are the diphthongs you need to know:
| αι | makes English “ai” sound (like the ai in aisle) |
| ει | like the Greek η and the long English “a” (like the ei in eight) |
| ευ | like “eu” in the word feud |
| οι | like the “oi” in oil |
| ου | like the Greek υ and the English “ou” (like through) |
| ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ | some people consider the iota subscript to be a diphthong; pronounce as if the iota isn’t there—but pay attention to this letter later, as it makes a difference for translation |
There’s also the diaeresis, which is two dots over the second letter of what is normally a diphthong (¨), indicating that you should pronounce both letters separately, like the “ai” in the English word naïve.
So, there you have it, a quick review of the things you need to know in order to read the Greek words out loud. We’re not yet worried about knowing what all the words mean, just being able to sound them out. Understanding the words will follow along directly!
Exercise 3
Reread the verses from day 2’s exercise. This time, read each verse out loud. Spend thirty minutes reading aloud. Again, if you are able to read all the verses within thirty minutes, you may either read them again or read another passage of your choice.
| 1. Luke 2:522. Mark 10:143. John 3:164. Rom 3:235. Rom 6:236. Eph 2:8–97. 1 John 4:7–88. John 11:35 | 9. John 8:1210. Rom 1:1611. 2 Cor 12:912. Eph 3:20–2113. Rev 1:814. Rom 10:1315. Gal 1:10 |
Bonus: Pick one or two of these verses and memorize them in Greek!
Reminder: Are you doing the fifteen extra minutes each day? If you didn’t commit to that already, it’s not too late. Start today!
5. Recent research supports the claim that Koine Greek was pronounced more like modern Greek than like the “Seminary Greek” that you probably learned. Nevertheless, since this book aims to be a refresher for what you already learned—and since you probably already learned the “Seminary Greek” pronunciations—I will continue to use those here. If this topic interests you, you can learn more in Constantine R. Campbell, “Pronunciation,” in Advances in the Study of Greek: New Insights for Reading the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 192–99.
6. Here is the complete alphabet: α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, σ/ς, τ, υ φ, χ, ψ, ω.
Day 4: (Re)building Your Vocabulary
Building your Greek vocabulary is a complex undertaking. Second-language acquisition specialists tend to downplay the value of memorizing vocabulary words. Yet many beginners feel they cannot make any progress in reading the Greek NT until they have at least some basic glosses memorized. It is common for first-year Greek students to be required to memorize words that occur fifty times or more in the New Testament. But of course, unless you were an exceptional student, you didn’t learn all those words with 100 percent recall the first time through. And yet you were able to read many of the sentences, exercises, or verses that you were assigned. You were able to do that by using contextual clues to help you remember the meaning of unknown words.
For these and other reasons, I do not recommend that you spend a lot of time re-memorizing long lists of Greek words and their glosses. Not only does that take a lot of time, it can result in discouragement as progress can seem slow—not to mention that it feels a little bit like punishment for not remembering these words from before.
On the other hand, without having a working knowledge of a critical mass of Greek words, you won’t be able to even get started with reading a Greek sentence. You can’t use contextual clues