Greek Language and Linguistics
Ancient Greek, mostly Hellenistic
Posts discussing issues relevant to language acquisition and Hellenistic Greek. What is necessary to become competent in reading Ancient Greek? What is the difference between learning and acquiring Greek? These and related questions appear in the category “Acquisition” and its daughter categories “Learn Greek” and “Learning Greek.”
Every year at this time I post a Christmas greeting including the Greek phrase καλά χριστούγεννα. I wish all of you a beautiful and joyous holiday.
To hear the pronunciation of καλά χριστούγεννα, click the triangle below.
| New audio added November 25, 2016 |
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I have added the vocabulary from Lesson 23: Verbs: The Imperfect Middle and Passive to the course lexicon (the cumulative vocabulary list). If you’ve visited the course lexicon recently, you may need to refresh the page to see the changes.
I discovered Michael W Halcomb’s series of videos on Koine Greek today and would like to recommend them to anyone beginning the process of learning to speak biblical Greek. I’ve only watch a few of the videos so far, but can tell that Michael’s method is well founded in language acquisition theory.
The videos should work very well for creating fluency. Each one is only a few minutes long and is focussed clearly on a single lesson objective.
Here’s the link: Michael W Halcomb’s Koine Greek Videos
The title of this post, Καλὰ Χριστούγεννα, means “Merry Christmas” in Greek. I wish all of you a very joyous holiday. To hear the pronunciation of Καλὰ Χριστούγεννα, click the triangle below.
| New audio added November 25, 2016 |
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The original audio for this post was provided by Omniglot.com. That audio file ran here on this post from 2011 to 2015 and was played thousands of times. The new version is my own recording.
I just read a very honest assessment by Daniel R. Streett of the state of Ancient Greek instruction at very many institutions in the U.S. If you’ve studied Greek, take a look at his post and see if it matches your experience. I matches mine. It took me many years of hard work to overcome the drawbacks of this method!
You can read his discussion here: The Dirty Truth About Most New Testament Greek Classes
Thanks to Mike Aubrey for pointing this out over at ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ.
I have updated lessons 22 and 23 (Present and Imperfect Middle/Passive). The changes to lesson 22 are very minor—just a few wording changes. The main change to lesson 23, though, is the deletion of the discussion on transitivity. I will introduce that topic in a later lesson with much better examples. This change helps unnecessary complication, tightening the focus on the issue of voice.
I also made a few changes to the course lexicon (cumulative vocabulary list) to improve entries for some of the verbs presented in these lessons.
I’ve uploaded lesson 23: “Imperfect Middle and Passive” to my online grammar. It has six vocabulary exercises, but is still missing a couple of practice exercises for recognizing imperfect middle/passive forms that I will add over the next few days.
The vocabulary exercises consist of a flashcard set, four brief drag and drop vocabulary games, and a practice vocabulary quiz.
Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you notice any typographical error or other problem.
In each of the lessons dealing with the middle and passive voices, I have taken the opportunity to introduce a little more detail needed for a clear understanding of the functions of these voice categories. In lesson 22 I have included an unusually long discussion of transitivity as it relates to the passive voice.
While I think understanding transitivity is crucial for correctly understanding Greek voice, I’m unsure about how helpful my discussion of it is for beginning students. I would love to hear candid remarks on how helpful this discussion is or how obscure, confusing, or problematic you consider it to be.
I have thick skin. I can take criticism. I want the grammar to be useful to as many students as possible, so I don’t mind hearing recommendations for change!
Lesson 22: The Present Middle and Passive is now up and running. It has exercises for recognizing both Ω conjugation and ΜΙ conjugation verbs as well as several vocabulary exercises.
I have added six short exercises to lesson 21: More on the Aorist Middle and Passive. The exercises provide practice recognizing the aorist middle/passive forms of the following six verbs:
If you learn the aorist middle/passive forms of these six verbs you will be able to recognize the aorist middle and passive forms of all verbs in the New Testament.