Elementary Greek Koine for Beginners, Year One Textbook

by Christine Gatchell

Elementary Greek, Year 1: Koine for Beginners, 2nd Edition is the primary textbook for the first year of Memoria Press' Elementary Greek curriculum. Thirty easy-to-use lessons include memory work, grammar lessons, review work, and practice exercises. Lessons are addressed directly to the student with clear explanations and instructions, and are organized by week and day. Content incrementally covers Greek letters and their pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical rules, and translation in simple, uncomplicated terms. Students will write out exercises in another notebook. Flashcards, an audio CD, and a workbook are all available separately.

Genres: Language

147 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2005

Reviews

[Michelle Jorgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great, easy to follow introduction.

[Leila Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very easy and gentle introduction to koine Greek. I did the whole program without an instructor, in about 20 weeks. The book goes slowly and assumes you know nothing about grammar. Only two declensions are taught, along with regular verbs, and only the nominative and genitive case are used in translating. It has quite a lot of repitition, which helps the paradigms to sink in. It is definitely a grammar-based approach to Greek and not one of the newer "communicative" approaches. I will now embark on Bill Mounce, and from what I've already read in that book, this program is going to give me a great advantage.

One thing that really annoyed me was that there were errors in the answer key. I also have a Latin book by Memoria Press that has errors in. Very unprofessional. And yes, I verified they were indeed errors with a Latin and Greek instructor. I even was using the second edition, so I don't know why those errors were not caught and corrected in its second publication.

[Laura Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating may be influenced by the fact that I had no desire to learn Greek but it was a required class in seminary.
The handbook was not very helpful. Some days there was only a small paragraph. This would not be a good course for someone learning Greek on their own. I don't know if there's an accompanying DVD or something. But I can't imagine being able to understand this with just the handbook and workbook.
This says that the book was designed for elementary students but I don't see how that is possible. I am 34, an English major, and have a better grasp on the English language than most, and I struggled with the concepts in this book. It felt like it was going too fast. I barely had time to understand one declension chart before another one was thrown at me.
It wasn't terrible, but it was not my favorite learning experience.