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This is an experiment. I think it is possible for people from all walks of life and levels of education to learn to read Greek (or any other language for that matter). I’d like to find out if that is true or not. This should take you perhaps 15 to 20 minutes or so.
Learning to read Greek (or use any language) is not an academic exercise. It is picking up a skill like playing guitar, riding bike, or knitting. Most people who feel like they failed at language learning usually have put their efforts into learning *about* the language. They often simply never tried to actually develop skills because the course was focused on rote memorizing of grammar and vocabulary. I think anyone who knows their native language is capable of learning another language if they work on it as a skill to be acquired.
Let’s hop in right now. Let’s see if you can indeed learn some Greek and have fun doing it. The key is starting to use the actual language centers of your brain to learn Greek. To do this, you need to listen as well as read. We are going to use John 1:1-2 (in ancient NT Greek of course) as the example. At the end, I’m going to show you the text of John 1:1-2 and you can see how much of it you can then understand.
Take a deep breath and relax. It is about learning how to naturally assimilate a language enjoyably, not labor at rote memorization. If you are in a hurry and anxious right now, please come back and try this later when you are more relaxed. If you get frustrated in any of the steps, take a break and try it later. It’s not a race. It’s about trying to learn to do this enjoyably and effectively. If you are one of those people who got burned out on learning in school, it might take some effort to learn how to relax when doing this.
Step 1. Listen and enjoy!
Ignore the written Greek on this page and the graphics on the videos for now, just listen. Here are 3 different speakers reading John 1:1-2 of the ancient Greek text. Pella Ikonomaki is a native Greek using her modern pronunciation. John Simon is an American using a modern Greek pronunciation with attempt to add in more authentic ancient vowel sounds. Randall Buth is a professor using a reconstructed accent something like what NT Greek might have sounded like. Note that in the ancient world, there was a wide range of Greek accents and pronunciations. Much like the variation in modern English and Spanish around the world.
The audio in these clips is duplicated so that John 1:1-2 is repeated 5 times with a tone in between in each repetition. Ignore the graphics for now.
Listen to each of them and decide which you’d prefer to listen to for the rest of this experiment. Or if you want to switch between them, that’s fine. Whatever you like. Just get a sense of the rhythm and sounds of Greek. The point is not to understand it or worry about it. The point is to relax and just enjoy hearing the new pattern, rhythm, and sound of it. It is about getting your brain and ears used to hearing the sounds and patterns of Greek.
Step 2: Try to pick out a few words by just listening. Don’t look at the text yet.
I’ll remind you. John 1:1-2 is “In the beginning was the Word,and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”
Using the audio clip you like best, try to pick out the following 3 words. They each occur multiple times.
1. Ar-Kay means “beginning”. (2 times)
2. Lo-Gos means “word”. (3 times)
3. They-Ohs and They-On mean “God”. (3 times)
Listen to the video and see if you can pick each word out when it’s spoken. It might be easiest to repeat the video 3 times listening for a different word each time. Don’t get into a panicky frustrated mindset when most of it makes no sense. Each time a word jumps out at you and you understand it, that is an accomplishment. Chances are, the first time you focus on trying to hear Ar-Kay, you will hear blah blah ARKAY blah blah blah… blah blah ARKAY blah blah. Don’t be discouraged. Be happy. You are successfully picking out a Greek work in a Greek sentence! Not many people can do that!
Don’t keep doing this until it’s “perfect”. Stop before it gets laborious and frustrating. If any of these words are jumping out at you at all, you’ve made some good progress. You are understanding some Greek words in some Greek sentences.
Step 3: Try to follow the interlinear text with the video.
Don’t worry about perfection. Just listen and try to follow along. One hint, the speakers use the commas and periods as verbal pauses to some extent. That can help you keep your bearings at first. Don’t worry if you are bouncing back and forth between looking at the English and the Greek words. It will happen for awhile. Think of the English words as training wheels for learning to ride a bike. This is NOT an academic exercise you will be tested on for right or wrong. This is practicing a skill like learning to ride bike by actually riding or learning to knit by picking up some knitting needles and yarn. You get better at it as you do it more.
Don’t worry about not knowing the Greek letters at first. Some are similar to English, some are not. You should start to see that certain words in their entirety will start to become familiar even if you don’t know the name of each and every letter. This is about *internalizing* the letters and how they are used, not rote memorization where you can spell their names and say them in order. If you do this for a few minutes, you’ll probably find that certain words start leaping out at you as familiar. For example, Logos (λογος) will probably start seeming familiar even if a couple of its letters are unfamiliar.
If you find yourself getting into a frustrated mindset, please just step away and stop, and come back later. At its best, this type of exercise should be more like a fun game where you feel like you are achieving wins each time you understand a word or phrase. If it’s frustrating, it’s becoming counterproductive.
A few notes on things. Different languages use different word orders and methods to express meaning. It is not a matter of simply putting Greek words into an English word order. Greek expresses different parts of meaning by changing word endings. It is not that Greek has the “wrong” word order. It’s that it uses word order differently than English. Also, various Greek and English words do not exactly translate to each other. For example, Greek has several versions of the English word “the” and does not use it in the same manner.
At some point, you should be starting to recognize a few of the Greek letters. The vowels, a, e, o, i, and u are not too far removed from English and they look similar. The s sound at the ends of words and the k sound are not too different from English. You might recognize θ (theta) from math classes which is close to the English “th” sound. The big X is sort of k-like in sound (though closer to the English h sound in human or huge). Pi π, rho ρ, gamma γ, nu ν , eta η, and lambda λ are not part of the usual roman alphabet. The first two letters EN are capital letters and look like their English counterparts.
Step 4: Try to read aloud along with the audio!
You will not be perfect at it. Indeed, it would probably take some time to actually learn how to match the pronunciation of one or more of the speakers. Though, if you are fluent in Spanish (or another language with sounds close to Greek), you probably won’t be doing too bad already. The main idea is just to start reinforcing what you’ve been hearing and force you to concentrate on the Greek text.
Try this a handful of times (as long as it is still fun). If it’s really frustrating, stop trying to read out loud before you hate Greek.
Step 5: Figure out if you learned anything.
Here is John 1:1-2 in Greek (assuming your display device can handle it). How much of this now makes a bit of sense to you?
ἒν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.
Obviously, there are a lot of details not discussed here. But the main question is this. Did you learn something? Are you able to look at this Greek text and have a sense that some of it is no longer completely foreign? Can you look at some words and recognize them and maybe even hear the sound of the speaker in your head?
This is what learning to read Greek is about. It is starting to assimilate the sound, rhythm, and meaning of phrases and sentences. In the long run, learning grammar and other things are useful tools that will speed the learning process and improve your skills. But over time, you will become good at what you practice. If you spend most of your time listening and reading, you will become better at listening and reading. If you spend very little time listening and reading, no amount of memorizing grammar tables and vocabulary will make you a good reader. Note that this is true for other modern living languages as well.
Now, I’m curious what your experience was with this. How did it go? Did you like it? Are you interested in pursuing this more? Do you think this would work for other languages?
I’m trying to gauge the potential effectiveness of this type of approach and how much interest there is in something like this. I know that many believers of various levels of education want to learn Greek and Hebrew (and other languages) but have been put off because they’ve been unsuccessful in formal classes that follow a more traditional grammar-translation approach. I put this post and experiment up because I’d like to get feedback of all types from people on language learning interest, success, and failures.
Resources:
The 3 audio excerpts have been extracted for convenience from the following sources.
Pella’s recording is from the Librivox site. LibriVox
John Simon’s recording is from a site formerly called greekandlatinaudio.com. Index of /greeklatinaudio/greek
Randall Buth’s recording is from Learning Biblical Languages Just Got Easier.
The interlinear text is from The interlinear literal translation of the Greek New Testament with the authorized version conveniently presented in the margins for ready reference : Berry, George Ricker, 1865-1945 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive . It is from George Ricker Berry's Interlinear New Testament. It's an old work with free PDFs available in various places.
My understanding is that the use of these materials in this post are within the bounds of fair use being very small excerpts of much larger works for non-commercial educational purposes wherein this is a work with a wider purpose and a scope well beyond these materials.
Learning to read Greek (or use any language) is not an academic exercise. It is picking up a skill like playing guitar, riding bike, or knitting. Most people who feel like they failed at language learning usually have put their efforts into learning *about* the language. They often simply never tried to actually develop skills because the course was focused on rote memorizing of grammar and vocabulary. I think anyone who knows their native language is capable of learning another language if they work on it as a skill to be acquired.
Let’s hop in right now. Let’s see if you can indeed learn some Greek and have fun doing it. The key is starting to use the actual language centers of your brain to learn Greek. To do this, you need to listen as well as read. We are going to use John 1:1-2 (in ancient NT Greek of course) as the example. At the end, I’m going to show you the text of John 1:1-2 and you can see how much of it you can then understand.
Take a deep breath and relax. It is about learning how to naturally assimilate a language enjoyably, not labor at rote memorization. If you are in a hurry and anxious right now, please come back and try this later when you are more relaxed. If you get frustrated in any of the steps, take a break and try it later. It’s not a race. It’s about trying to learn to do this enjoyably and effectively. If you are one of those people who got burned out on learning in school, it might take some effort to learn how to relax when doing this.
Step 1. Listen and enjoy!
Ignore the written Greek on this page and the graphics on the videos for now, just listen. Here are 3 different speakers reading John 1:1-2 of the ancient Greek text. Pella Ikonomaki is a native Greek using her modern pronunciation. John Simon is an American using a modern Greek pronunciation with attempt to add in more authentic ancient vowel sounds. Randall Buth is a professor using a reconstructed accent something like what NT Greek might have sounded like. Note that in the ancient world, there was a wide range of Greek accents and pronunciations. Much like the variation in modern English and Spanish around the world.
The audio in these clips is duplicated so that John 1:1-2 is repeated 5 times with a tone in between in each repetition. Ignore the graphics for now.
Listen to each of them and decide which you’d prefer to listen to for the rest of this experiment. Or if you want to switch between them, that’s fine. Whatever you like. Just get a sense of the rhythm and sounds of Greek. The point is not to understand it or worry about it. The point is to relax and just enjoy hearing the new pattern, rhythm, and sound of it. It is about getting your brain and ears used to hearing the sounds and patterns of Greek.
Step 2: Try to pick out a few words by just listening. Don’t look at the text yet.
I’ll remind you. John 1:1-2 is “In the beginning was the Word,and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”
Using the audio clip you like best, try to pick out the following 3 words. They each occur multiple times.
1. Ar-Kay means “beginning”. (2 times)
2. Lo-Gos means “word”. (3 times)
3. They-Ohs and They-On mean “God”. (3 times)
Listen to the video and see if you can pick each word out when it’s spoken. It might be easiest to repeat the video 3 times listening for a different word each time. Don’t get into a panicky frustrated mindset when most of it makes no sense. Each time a word jumps out at you and you understand it, that is an accomplishment. Chances are, the first time you focus on trying to hear Ar-Kay, you will hear blah blah ARKAY blah blah blah… blah blah ARKAY blah blah. Don’t be discouraged. Be happy. You are successfully picking out a Greek work in a Greek sentence! Not many people can do that!
Don’t keep doing this until it’s “perfect”. Stop before it gets laborious and frustrating. If any of these words are jumping out at you at all, you’ve made some good progress. You are understanding some Greek words in some Greek sentences.
Step 3: Try to follow the interlinear text with the video.
Don’t worry about perfection. Just listen and try to follow along. One hint, the speakers use the commas and periods as verbal pauses to some extent. That can help you keep your bearings at first. Don’t worry if you are bouncing back and forth between looking at the English and the Greek words. It will happen for awhile. Think of the English words as training wheels for learning to ride a bike. This is NOT an academic exercise you will be tested on for right or wrong. This is practicing a skill like learning to ride bike by actually riding or learning to knit by picking up some knitting needles and yarn. You get better at it as you do it more.
Don’t worry about not knowing the Greek letters at first. Some are similar to English, some are not. You should start to see that certain words in their entirety will start to become familiar even if you don’t know the name of each and every letter. This is about *internalizing* the letters and how they are used, not rote memorization where you can spell their names and say them in order. If you do this for a few minutes, you’ll probably find that certain words start leaping out at you as familiar. For example, Logos (λογος) will probably start seeming familiar even if a couple of its letters are unfamiliar.
If you find yourself getting into a frustrated mindset, please just step away and stop, and come back later. At its best, this type of exercise should be more like a fun game where you feel like you are achieving wins each time you understand a word or phrase. If it’s frustrating, it’s becoming counterproductive.
A few notes on things. Different languages use different word orders and methods to express meaning. It is not a matter of simply putting Greek words into an English word order. Greek expresses different parts of meaning by changing word endings. It is not that Greek has the “wrong” word order. It’s that it uses word order differently than English. Also, various Greek and English words do not exactly translate to each other. For example, Greek has several versions of the English word “the” and does not use it in the same manner.
At some point, you should be starting to recognize a few of the Greek letters. The vowels, a, e, o, i, and u are not too far removed from English and they look similar. The s sound at the ends of words and the k sound are not too different from English. You might recognize θ (theta) from math classes which is close to the English “th” sound. The big X is sort of k-like in sound (though closer to the English h sound in human or huge). Pi π, rho ρ, gamma γ, nu ν , eta η, and lambda λ are not part of the usual roman alphabet. The first two letters EN are capital letters and look like their English counterparts.
Step 4: Try to read aloud along with the audio!
You will not be perfect at it. Indeed, it would probably take some time to actually learn how to match the pronunciation of one or more of the speakers. Though, if you are fluent in Spanish (or another language with sounds close to Greek), you probably won’t be doing too bad already. The main idea is just to start reinforcing what you’ve been hearing and force you to concentrate on the Greek text.
Try this a handful of times (as long as it is still fun). If it’s really frustrating, stop trying to read out loud before you hate Greek.
Step 5: Figure out if you learned anything.
Here is John 1:1-2 in Greek (assuming your display device can handle it). How much of this now makes a bit of sense to you?
ἒν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.
Obviously, there are a lot of details not discussed here. But the main question is this. Did you learn something? Are you able to look at this Greek text and have a sense that some of it is no longer completely foreign? Can you look at some words and recognize them and maybe even hear the sound of the speaker in your head?
This is what learning to read Greek is about. It is starting to assimilate the sound, rhythm, and meaning of phrases and sentences. In the long run, learning grammar and other things are useful tools that will speed the learning process and improve your skills. But over time, you will become good at what you practice. If you spend most of your time listening and reading, you will become better at listening and reading. If you spend very little time listening and reading, no amount of memorizing grammar tables and vocabulary will make you a good reader. Note that this is true for other modern living languages as well.
Now, I’m curious what your experience was with this. How did it go? Did you like it? Are you interested in pursuing this more? Do you think this would work for other languages?
I’m trying to gauge the potential effectiveness of this type of approach and how much interest there is in something like this. I know that many believers of various levels of education want to learn Greek and Hebrew (and other languages) but have been put off because they’ve been unsuccessful in formal classes that follow a more traditional grammar-translation approach. I put this post and experiment up because I’d like to get feedback of all types from people on language learning interest, success, and failures.
Resources:
The 3 audio excerpts have been extracted for convenience from the following sources.
Pella’s recording is from the Librivox site. LibriVox
John Simon’s recording is from a site formerly called greekandlatinaudio.com. Index of /greeklatinaudio/greek
Randall Buth’s recording is from Learning Biblical Languages Just Got Easier.
The interlinear text is from The interlinear literal translation of the Greek New Testament with the authorized version conveniently presented in the margins for ready reference : Berry, George Ricker, 1865-1945 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive . It is from George Ricker Berry's Interlinear New Testament. It's an old work with free PDFs available in various places.
My understanding is that the use of these materials in this post are within the bounds of fair use being very small excerpts of much larger works for non-commercial educational purposes wherein this is a work with a wider purpose and a scope well beyond these materials.
