Customer Reviews

Basic Greek in Thirty Minutes a Day: New Testament Greek Workbook for Laymen

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have no previous exposure to New Testament Greek and are wondering if this is a language study you would like to pursue (is it worth the time, effort, and money?), this is a good book to work through. It builds up your confidence and gives a strong introductory look at New Testament Greek.

That said, you will not learn Greek from this book. This is spoonfeeding 101. This is not a serious textbook, grammar text, or selfstudy program. It is what it is...a glimpse, an introduction, a little dabbling... If you like this book, then you can go onto the bigboys and really begin to learn the language.

I gave this book 5 stars for how well it serves its purpose. If you are looking for a serious, academic, selfstudy text, this is not it. This is a get your feet wet and see if you like what you see book...very easy, very basic, very breezy, but very well planned and presented. Cute, even.

This book is great because it builds your confidence up very early. From the beginning, you are translating large sections of verses, without having to worry about the specific cases of nouns and tenses of verbs and markings of letters and such. You fill in the blanks and complete Scripture, and he gives references so you can check yourself and also see how different translations tackle controversial passages.

Here are the sections: (1) In the first section, you start off very easily: you learn the easiest Greek letters (which look like English letters), easy vocabulary cognates, which are Greek words that are very similar to English words), and very little grammar. You eventually learn the rest of the letters (such as pi& which is pronounced like the letter ;p and theta, which is like th and so on). You also learn where ichthus (the Greek letters in the Christian fish symbol) comes from. (2) The second section gets your feet wet with a little grammar and you start to learn different endings for nouns and stuff. (3) In the third section you learn those little words such as for, but, because, in order that, and therefore (4) In the fourth section you learn where many theological words come from (such as the fact that the wordsin comes from the Greek for missing the mark the word saints cmes from the Greek for holy [ones] the word edify is based on the word for "house", and so on). (5) The fifth and last section you tackle the dreaded verb endings.

The book is divided into about 50 lessons, each of which can be done in probably less than 30 minutes on average.

Note that the book is focused on *reading* New Testament Greek, and not necessarily *writing* Greek. Some attention is given to pronunciation. It is designed for people who want to be able to *recognize* the meaning of words in the Greek New Testament, rather than worry about frustrating details that matter little, or having to write Greek on your own. Two examples are: (1) You are encouraged not to worry about the little marks above the Greek letters, except in the cases where they make a difference in the meaning of the word; and (2) the author helps you with the noun-cases and verb-tenses at the beginning of the book, so that you only worry about the root meaning of Greek words.

Inidentally, I recommend Alfred Marshall's Interlinear Greek New Testament, which shows the NASB translation on the left (practically a literal translation) and the NIV on the right (an easy-to-read more contemporary English translation).

One of the best kept secrets today is that the scholarly Biblical reference works that were once the domain of the language lawyers, are now made accesible to the Christian layman if they are willing to learn the basics of the language -- the alphabet, prepositions and a basic vocabulary.

This book teaches the Greek alphabet along with the basic skills needed to use the more scholarly works available to the laymen. One word of caution: This is a primer only. It will not replace 2 or more years of studying Greek. It will, however, introduce you to the basics and all you need to know to use the scholarly tools.

Gives all the basics needed to start your journey toward knowledge of New Testament Greek. To me, the exercises are the best part of the book.

The key to this book is to actually do the exercises consistently, and not to let too much time lag between doing them. Repetition is the key to learning any new language, of course. Put yourself on a regular schedule, stick to it, and keep building on your knowledge of Greek through this book, and the results will be very gratifying by the time you finish this workbook.

It's only a beginning, of course, but like they say,even a journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step. This book is definitely a good first step.

Brilliantly put together. It's structured learning actually makes it easy and enjoyable to work through. As a reluctant student, I found the half hour exercises weren't too intense and because I could actually do it, I just kept coming back for more.

Found's book is the best book I have seen to begin the study of Greek. I have had two years of Master's Degree level Greek and am currently teaching beginning Greek live over the Internet using Found's book. It is a good way to review or get started in the study of Koine Greek.

I have other materials and software that start with the Greek alphabet. ( very dry!!! )
But this one was fun from the very start as it bypassed all that, going straight into learning and reading easy words.

You learn a few keys, then practice with NT verses with the newly learned Greek words inter-dispersed allowing you to get better cognizance of how they are used.

This gets you started right away with a minimum of dry memorization making the experience much more fun.

Each step adds a little level of complexity.
Some steps have pictures.

The best part is how fun it is.
Anyone from 8th grade up could have fun with this method.

I use the Spiro Zodhiates audio NT for pronunciation and I also enjoy the reverse interlinear Greek NT for practice reading.

I also have a good Greek-English Lexicon of the NT (Elsasser & Gingrich's) where the words are set in alphabetical order by the Greek and not the English.

Bruce Metzger's Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek would be another good piece to have.
Bruce's book has a section on words based on frequency of usage, but you can do this on your own by downloading a text copy of Strong's and re-arranging in descending order of count.

Learning Greek doesn't have to be drudgery!
Give this cool book a test run :)

Brilliantly put together. It's structured learning actually makes it easy and enjoyable to work through. As a reluctant student, I found the half hour exercises weren't too intense and because I could actually do it, I just kept coming back for more.

Having worked through James Found's "Basic Greek in 30 Minute a Day" from cover to cover, I found it a very poor way to start learning Greek. Your mileage may vary, of course. The book takes a highly analytical (deductive) approach to Greek word forms. By the time that you have worked through the book you will have acquired a bunch of charts that would allow you to translate Greek, with difficulty, but not to read it.

Found gives minimal grammar, and the vocabulary he presents is all based on English cognates.

Even as a tyro in Greek, I discovered several typos in the book. Also, the book seems to have been typed rather than typeset. The result is a font that is ugly and difficult to read. Accents, when they are applied at all, have been handwritten.

I like the general idea of this book, but found it unhelpful in my efforts to learn New Testament Greek.

A better place to start, at least for inductive learners like me, is John Dobson's "Learn New Testament Greek." Dobson's book is a good resource for self-learning. More deductive learners will probably prefer Bill Mounce's "Basics of Biblical Greek" though I think it is better used in a classroom setting.

Brilliantly put together. It's structured learning actually makes it easy and enjoyable to work through. As a reluctant student, I found the half hour exercises weren't too intense and because I could actually do it, I just kept coming back for more.