Customer Reviews

Biblical Greek Survival Kit

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

 

 

This Biblical Greek Survival Kit is intended for use with William Mounce's "Basics of Biblical Greek" (BBG) textbook and workbook for first-year Koine Greek. The Kit includes 1000 vocabulary flash cards, an audio CD of 35 chapters (about 320 words) of vocabulary from the "Basics of Biblical Greek" textbook, and a laminated Study Guide of basic Koine Greek grammar. The Study Guide has 3 holes punched in it for insertion into a 3-ring binder. It lists the alphabet, definite articles, noun inflections and rules, prepositions, pronouns, adjectives, and a lot of verb charts. Some of it could have been labeled better, but it's a handy "cheat sheet" if you're stumped while translating or for a quick review before a test.

The vocabulary flash cards come in a cardboard box. They are 2 x 3 ¼ inches in size, so are meant to be portable. They are not laminated. They're printed on a fairly flimsy white stock, like that of a typical 3 x 5 card. But the content of the cards is well-designed. The Greek word is printed clearly on the front of each card in black ink. This includes the lexical form, genitive, and definite article for nouns. On the back of each card, in gray, are the definition and principle parts of verbs, as well as the BBG chapter number if there is one, the frequency of occurrence in the New Testament, and the card number (1-1000). This makes it easy to put the cards back in order or to review a particular chapter. BBG only contains 320 vocabulary words. The additional 680 cards in this set are words that occur 10 or more times in the New Testament.

The audio CD offers both MP3 and M4B (MP4) formats. They go into Audiobooks in your music player, and each word is a separate file. William Mounce pronounces the word in Greek (Erasmian pronunciation), followed by the definition in English. I wouldn't call this Survival Kit "essential", but it is handy. The only place you can look at the word and hear it pronounced at the same time seems to be the Teknia web site, which I use more than this Kit. But if you would like to listen to your Greek vocabulary lessons on an iPod or other portable device, this is the ticket. If you like flashcards, this is a lot easier than making your own. Actually, the flashcards are useful even if they are not your favorite way to learn vocabulary, because you get every word occurring ten times or more in the NT.

Between the chart, cd, and the gram cards (all numbered and in order with chapters) you cannot do better even if you did them yourself.

I'm taking a greek class now and boy has this helped. And was I in need of help. The flashcards are great if you are not around a computer and the laminated sheets keep the information you need right at your fingertips!

I am using it with "Basics of Biblical Greek" Grammar by William D. Mounce [plus "Sing and Learn New Testament Greek" audio CD by Kenneth Berding and "English Grammar in Use" by Raymond Murphy (Third Edition with Cd-Rom)]. Awesome!

If your useing the Mounce greek curicculm then you absoulutly need this survival kit, because that is exactly what it is!

Bill Mounce is a superb teacher. He knows what the student needs to enhance his ability to learn Koine. Every student ought to purchase this Survival Kit as part of his learning equipment. It will be useful as well for use as a refresher for years to come.

I took Greek in college, and I wanted to brush up for Biblical studies that I am conducting. This product is good for vocabulary, but it is in no way helpful for grammar. The cheat sheet is not sufficient assistance even for someone like me, who is trying to refresh on four years of Greek. If I were a beginner, I would not have any better idea about the grammar or much else by buying this. The workbook provides no guidance, so that was my reason for buying this kit. The CD is vocabulary-focused; the flashcards are useful--probably the most useful portion of the kit. I wouldn't recommend this kit to anyone in the beginning phases of learning the language. Unless you can learn a 2000-year-old language from a phone book, this kit will not help much. I would sooner recommend Athenaze I and II or the intensive Greek textbooks that are available (although expensive).