Resources for Greek Paradigms

[swagner1187]

Hello all,

I'm a new Greek student at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. As we're moving into verbs, I've realized the importance of memorizing paradigms.

Does anyone have any tips and tricks for learning paradigms? Or any good resources for practicing them?

Thanks!

 

[JP Wallace]

The only way that worked for me was repeatedly writing them out and saying them as I wrote them, I mean dozens and dozens of times.

Flash cards didn't work for me or anything else.

 

[swagner1187]

The only way that worked for me was repeatedly writing them out and saying them as I wrote them, I mean dozens and dozens of times.

Flash cards didn't work for me or anything else.

That makes sense. Nothing beats pen on paper!

Thanks, Paul.

 

[FidesQuaerens]

I highly recommend recording yourself saying them then listening to your recording on repeat while driving, cleaning, working out, or performing other monotonous tasks. Say them aloud as you listen when circumstances allow, and try to get to the point where you can say each form before your recording gets to it. Combine this with repeatedly writing them out, and pay special attention to vowels that are hard to distinguish audibly like ο and α or ει and η.

 

[DNM300]

I’m throwing this is in only because I suspect it’s a highly elementary question, and thus will be easily answered.

What is the normally order to learning Greek?

Alphabet, then…? Basic vocabulary? Nouns first? Then verb endings? Etc. thanks for any input

 

[swagner1187]

I highly recommend recording yourself saying them then listening to your recording on repeat while driving, cleaning, working out, or performing other monotonous tasks. Say them aloud as you listen when circumstances allow, and try to get to the point where you can say each form before your recording gets to it. Combine this with repeatedly writing them out, and pay special attention to vowels that are hard to distinguish audibly like ο and α or ει and η.

This makes sense. I have a 5-10 minute walk from my car to my office, and I've used this time to focus on individual paradigms. It's proven to be helpful, and having recordings could make it useful at other times.

Thanks for the recommendation

 

[swagner1187]

I’m throwing this is in only because I suspect it’s a highly elementary question, and thus will be easily answered.

What is the normally order to learning Greek?

Alphabet, then…? Basic vocabulary? Nouns first? Then verb endings? Etc. thanks for any input

We're following Merkle and Plummer's Beginning New Testament Greek grammar, and that seems to be close to the order we're going in:

1. Alphabet/pronunciation
2. Nouns (1st Declension Female, 2nd Declension Male/Neuter)
3. Introduction to verbs
4. εἰμί ("I am") and its forms
5. Present Active Indicative Verbs
6. Present Middle/Passive Indicative Verbs

I don't really know what's after that, cause I've only gotten that far at this point in the class. Vocabulary comes as we go through the book, normally adding ~15 words per chapter.

 

[DNM300]

We're following Merkle and Plummer's Beginning New Testament Greek grammar, and that seems to be close to the order we're going in:

1. Alphabet/pronunciation
2. Nouns (1st Declension Female, 2nd Declension Male/Neuter)
3. Introduction to verbs
4. εἰμί ("I am") and its forms
5. Present Active Indicative Verbs
6. Present Middle/Passive Indicative Verbs

I don't really know what's after that, cause I've only gotten that far at this point in the class. Vocabulary comes as we go through the book, normally adding ~15 words per chapter.

Thank u!

 

[swagner1187]

Thank u!

You're welcome!

 

[frog]

Does anyone have any tips and tricks for learning paradigms? Or any good resources for practicing them?

I used a deductive approach to learn Greek verbs. Personally, memorisation is hard and this approach reduced the load on my memory while helping me to more quickly parse. I thought of it as "rules" combined with some memorisation, not wholly memorisation.

The basic “rules” were:

1. Verb morphology is <stem> + <ending>
2. Verb endings fall into one of four-quadrants: primary+active, primary+middle/passive, secondary+active, secondary+middle/passive.
3. The six tense-forms were categorised as using primary or secondary endings.
4. The six tense-forms in the indicative each have their own morphology. E.g., the present (<present tense stem> + <ending>), imperfect (<augment> + <present tense stem> + <ending>), future (<root> + <tense-formative> + <ending> with three “gotchas”, one on root, one on the tense formative and another for the passive tense formative) etc..
5. Then also the morphology for the other moods, which had their own variations.

Now a verb could be identified or produced (e.g. for paradigms) based on (1) its morphology and (2) its ending. I memorised the quadrant of endings (with song or mnemonics) and learnt the morphology.

Decker's "Reading Koine Greek" was helpful for this approach.

 

[dsanch1120]

Chanting and very regular practice. I made a template on my tablet which I could erase and fill out whenever I got bored. Also made some flash cards which I would lay out in the correct structure.
Also super helpful was ditching time-wasters on my phone and kinda forcing myself to practice paradigms when bored.
Most of all, would recommend picking a random verse in your GNT and with a paradigm chart nearby, go through the verse and try to identify each paradigm and quiz yourself

 

[SomberSoul]

With Greek and Latin, depending on which is best for you, you can either memorize the endings directly and then remember how they lengthen or shorten when combined with connecting vowels and the stems. Or you can go the other way - memorize example words as declined/conjugated and then remember how you got there.

Verbs will eventually get more complicated due to all of the different principal parts. Just make sure you know all the principal parts of the verb, not just the 1st and 2nd. Its more up front work, but better for you in the long run.

 

[swagner1187]

I used a deductive approach to learn Greek verbs. Personally, memorisation is hard and this approach reduced the load on my memory while helping me to more quickly parse. I thought of it as "rules" combined with some memorisation, not wholly memorisation.

The basic “rules” were:

1. Verb morphology is <stem> + <ending>
2. Verb endings fall into one of four-quadrants: primary+active, primary+middle/passive, secondary+active, secondary+middle/passive.
3. The six tense-forms were categorised as using primary or secondary endings.
4. The six tense-forms in the indicative each have their own morphology. E.g., the present (<present tense stem> + <ending>), imperfect (<augment> + <present tense stem> + <ending>), future (<root> + <tense-formative> + <ending> with three “gotchas”, one on root, one on the tense formative and another for the passive tense formative) etc..
5. Then also the morphology for the other moods, which had their own variations.

Now a verb could be identified or produced (e.g. for paradigms) based on (1) its morphology and (2) its ending. I memorised the quadrant of endings (with song or mnemonics) and learnt the morphology.

Decker's "Reading Koine Greek" was helpful for this approach.

This sounds like a good way to memorize things, thanks for the links. I read some of Dr. Plummer's mnemonic devices in either his grammar or companion books, helpful devices!

 

[swagner1187]

Chanting and very regular practice. I made a template on my tablet which I could erase and fill out whenever I got bored. Also made some flash cards which I would lay out in the correct structure.
Also super helpful was ditching time-wasters on my phone and kinda forcing myself to practice paradigms when bored.
Most of all, would recommend picking a random verse in your GNT and with a paradigm chart nearby, go through the verse and try to identify each paradigm and quiz yourself

Those all sound like great ways, I've found chanting through them are very helpful. The tablet idea is really cool, I may have to find a way to replicate that. Deleting time-wasters would certainly help, and I've been slowly reading through 2 John in my NA28, and it's taking a very long time, but I think it's been good practice!

 

[swagner1187]

With Greek and Latin, depending on which is best for you, you can either memorize the endings directly and then remember how they lengthen or shorten when combined with connecting vowels and the stems. Or you can go the other way - memorize example words as declined/conjugated and then remember how you got there.

Verbs will eventually get more complicated due to all of the different principal parts. Just make sure you know all the principal parts of the verb, not just the 1st and 2nd. Its more up front work, but better for you in the long run.

That is a helpful point. I definitely have tried some of both, and it's helpful! The part I need to work on is the breaking down of the ending, as in the connecting vowel + the personal ending, as I know it will get more complicated as we go.