The easiest way to read the Greek New Testament! (now even easier!)

There are two things that tend to hold people back from reading the Greek New Testament fluently. In this video, we'll discuss how to overcome them - or most particularly the main one!

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[jimatreidēs]

As a modern Greek speaker, I would suggest learning the modern Greek language first which comes directly from Koine Greek. The similarities in terms of vocabulary, cases and syntax are remarkable. Plus, I would suggest doing away with the artificial Erasmian pronunciation and use the modern Greek one. It sounds more Dutch and Germanic than it does Greek. If any pronunciation is close to the Koine Greek, it is the modern Greek language.

[alexandersmith]

In June 2023, I came across your channel. The next month I found this video which is by far my favorite in your series which I watch repeatedly. Your vocabulary pack is exactly what I needed after completing BG. Over the course of the year I have learned to read the first eight books according to your plan. I am consistently establishing the rhythm of reading, rereading and learning the vocabulary for the next book. Your plan works. Many thanks to you and your staff for all that you do. You are truly making a difference for the kingdom of God.

[noahc]

One of the best ways to learn I find is through daily dose of Greek app it breaks down the Greek verse by verse

[ksnunema]

Great reminder of how great this system is. I started on January 5, 2022 using the system that Darryl outlines in this video. Almost 1 year in, and by year's end I will have read 13 books of the Greek New Testament without any vocabulary aids, and I already know a full 45% of the total NT vocabulary.

[sethtbaguley]

I've had a wild june-december. I was long-distance with my wife due to VISA reasons and had to move back to the UK, work a supermarket job - to satisfy a UK VISA - whilst runnning my two businesses. I've worked 7 day weeks - across all 3 jobs - for 6 months. I wake up for work at 3:45am and only get home the same time in the afternoon for 45 hr's a week at the supermarket. Whilist there I manually shift 4, 000kg of stock a day and average a half-marathon in walking a day.

Yet amongst this, two habits have kept me grounded - meditative prayer with the scriptures and reviewing my MNTG flashcards. Getting to the end of this journey knowing that I've still been able to keep up on Greek memorization makes me feel such a sense of joy. I finish the supermarket job on Christmas Eve and all I can think about is diving straight back in to where I left off with my Tyndale GNT 6 months ago.

This wouldn't be possible without the hard hours that Darryl put in to create this system which works, even during the busiests periods of life.


Thanks Darryl and Happy Christmas!

[ReasonableFaithSA]

Very helpful. One of the problems I have is that Flashcards helps you memorise the lexical form. However, most of the words that you encounter when reading the text are not in their lexical form and often bare little resemblance to the lexical form making them barely recognizable. It seems desirable to learn the forms of the word at the same time as the lexical for to aid word recognition.

[stormchaser]

In my opinion this may be the best video on the channel.

[jimmorris]

Thank you for the video and its encouragement. Our method for learning Greek New Testament vocabulary long ago was to learn the words in our Greek Grammars and then learn more words by their usage as you mentioned. However, I can see the wisdom in your approach. I am excited to try it in 2023! Well done! Thanks!

[bobgriffin]

I normally read a Reader's Greek New Testament and look up the words I don't know at the bottom of the page. I think I will now read through all the words at the bottom of the page that occur rarely and try to memorise them and then read the chapter afterwards.

[someperson]

I like your approach. It is better than reading a random list of Bible verses.

[Bobby__K]

This is great stuff! I'd be interested in seeing a similar approach to the Hebrew Bible. Thank you for the insight!

[charliebreal]

I'm super thankful for the system and structure you've developed. I'm near finishing the book of Ephesians in the order you recommend. Instead of using a flashcards app, I've just been using the Tyndale Greek New Testament Reader's Edition. I review the vocabulary words at the bottom of the page before reading, marking the harder to learn words with one or two dots (depending on difficulty), so I only review words which I still need to learn. I also review previously learned biblical books and read through an EGGNT to keep up with syntactical learning. Your videos are an encouragement to keep pressing on in this endeavor that I may know Christ and be conformed to His image. Soldier on, brother!

[jacobsowles]

Would love to see a video like this breaking down the best way to tackle the books of the Hebrew Old Testament

[Occhiodiargento]

Hey, this is a great way to learn vocabulary. Beucause of my languange (Spanish) and how the economy is in my country (Argentina) I had to be creative. I use Quizlet for bulding flashcards. I put the words by frequency using a PDF I found in Academia where it list all the words of the NT with the frequency, the PDF is in Spanish thankfully making the creation of the flashcard way easy. Then I just order the intervals as I see it more fit and I work throuth it. Is a leanthy process but is the most effective form I found.

[discoveringthegardenofeden]

The best approach is to use a frequency list and start learning the rarest words first. Yes. I said the "least frequent words first". The logic is simple: your brain works by recognition. Words which pass by frequently are easy to remember. Hence, you only need to learn the hardest ones.

Another tip, from an international expat, is the following: find something you are very interested in via hobby or profession and use that topic as an inroad into the foreign language you want to study. The vocabulary will be easy for you (as it maps to vocabulary you repeat often: your passion-hobby) and grammar will be less of a challenge as you can read between the lines more easily. Start from there.

[crbgo]

this concept feels very appealing to do during my beginning Greek studies if I run across a paradigm I've yet to learn I should move on maybe but chapter by chapter seems appealing to do to just improve and feel comfortable during my begginer studies

[StephenHarrisJr]

Dr. Burling, have you considered publishing an edition of the Greek New Testament ordered in this way, punctuated throughout with vocabulary lists for each upcoming chapter? It would be a wonderful way to make all of the work that you have done accessible on a much larger scale so that all of the already learned words will already be filtered out as one gets further and further into the book. If there were other bits of information you wanted to include before each new reading for things to be on the look out for with regards to grammar, syntax, or anything else, you could also do that. I think if you put together something like this, you would find an eager public ready to purchase it for independent study or even for seminary courses at the intermediate level.

[franciscosantosaraujojunio]

Teacher, I'm from Brazil. Please, turn on the subtitles in English, só that I can study you videos. Thank you.

[raysalmon]

there is no fast way to learn Greek you just have to carve out some major time to study it

[alexandersmith]

Just purchased your vocabulary system and reading 1 John.