# Declinsions in the Greek



## Founded on the Rock (Oct 22, 2006)

I am taking a Greek independent studies course right now and I am using Ray Summers book, "Essentials of New Testament Greek".

I have a question concerning declinsions though. What good does understanding and learning declinsions do for me in translating the text? I know the endings on the declinsions, but I do not know why it is important to understand declinsions. 

Is there something I am missing or is there something coming down the road that I need to be preapred for? Any help would be GREATLY aprreciated


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## Archlute (Oct 23, 2006)

Founded on the Rock said:


> I have a question concerning declinsions though. What good does understanding and learning declinsions do for me in translating the text? I know the endings on the declinsions, but I do not know why it is important to understand declinsions.



Dude, those things are the foundation of the REAL ULTIMATE POWER of Greek mastery!!!! (somebody should get a parody of that site going for Greek/Hebrew students ) If you cannot quickly identify whether or not you have a masculine genitive plural on your hands, then good luck in trying to figure out the syntax (i.e. one must know that it _is_ a genitive before one can decide what type of genitive it is - subjective, partative, adjectival, etc.)



> Is there something I am missing or is there something coming down the road that I need to be preapred for? Any help would be GREATLY aprreciated



Yeah, wait 'til you get to participles, where you have noun declensions tacked onto verbal stems Really, participles are not bad at all if you've learned your declensions/stems/tenses. They get a little trickier to figure out when you get to their syntax, but first things first!


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## Founded on the Rock (Oct 23, 2006)

Thanks a lot guys! I know the declinsions, it is just a matter of trying to figure out why in the world I am learning this stuff!  Also in my book we have the: Nominative, Genative, Ablative, Dative, Locative, Instrumental, Accusative, and Vocative. 

I have had friends tell me I will not need to know ablative, locative, and instrumental. Is this true or not?


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## rmdmphilosopher (Oct 23, 2006)

I'm not studying Greek yet, but I am an avid student of Latin... And from my experience, it's never safe to avoid learning something at the base of a language according to the prediction that you won't use it later. It may be hard, but if I were you I would do my best to learn everything I could about the language now with no regard whatsoever for future applicability: you just won't know what was necessary and what was unnecessary til you get there! So keep plugging away at those declensions!


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## gregbed (Oct 23, 2006)

Founded on the Rock said:


> I am taking a Greek independent studies course right now and I am using Ray Summers book, "Essentials of New Testament Greek".
> 
> I have a question concerning declinsions though. What good does understanding and learning declinsions do for me in translating the text? I know the endings on the declinsions, but I do not know why it is important to understand declinsions.
> 
> Is there something I am missing or is there something coming down the road that I need to be preapred for? Any help would be GREATLY aprreciated



I am just starting to take a stab at Greek (even as young as 48 these things do come a bit slower). My understanding is that in English grammar we use word order to indicates the parts of speech. e.g. Subject-Verb-Object. In Greek you use the declensions to accomplish this (and more, such as the gender agreements). This frees up word order to be used to denote relative importance. 
I would appreciate any correction here, if I have misstated.


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## R. Scott Clark (Oct 23, 2006)

Brandon,

You can't read Greek unless you know what case the nouns, adjectives, and participles are and you can't read Greek unless you know what form the verbs are.

Trust me. Just do the work. Memorize the forms. 

When you've done that you and you begin to apply what you've learned to actual sentences, you'll be glad you've done it. 

The question is: Do you want to learn Greek, do you want to read Scripture in the original languages? It's a struggle now, but 20 years from now, when its really hard to learn a language, you'll be reading Greek like it was English.

Hang in there.

rsc



Founded on the Rock said:


> Thanks a lot guys! I know the declinsions, it is just a matter of trying to figure out why in the world I am learning this stuff!  Also in my book we have the: Nominative, Genative, Ablative, Dative, Locative, Instrumental, Accusative, and Vocative.
> 
> I have had friends tell me I will not need to know ablative, locative, and instrumental. Is this true or not?


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## RamistThomist (Oct 24, 2006)

Ditto to above. Declensions are easy compared to what's coming. Just do some hard memorize work for a week and work with a reader. Should be easy after that. I ahve been reading greek for five years now. It really gets easier to read while you have to brave some hard stuff.


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## RamistThomist (Oct 24, 2006)

I said hard memory work for a week? Nah, make it a month and then try not to forget it.


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