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| Baby steps - looking for known words. The class already knows the first word in Mark and can guess the second word. The next four words are easy, too. |
Several in the Greek class felt a bit overwhelmed after the first session.
I said to one, "How many words does a toddler know?"
- Mom
- Dad
- No
He said - "I looked at a page of the New Testament and I could not tell what it meant."
I responded this way, "Relish that moment. When I started Greek 50 years ago, I looked at a full page of Greek text. It was all chicken-tracks to me. I resolved to learn it so I could read it like the newspaper. It takes a little time, just like when we learned to speak as little children."
The advantage of New Testament Greek is that we know many of the texts by heart. In fact, no matter what new language we want to learn, using that language version of the New Testament is a big jump in learning. We can get the basic grammar and vocabulary just by starting with John and learning by repetition.
The three rules of learning the basics are:
- Repetition
- Repetition
- Repetition
As I said in class, the typical language teacher is one whose natural talents made it easy to learn a new language IN SPITE OF the terrible ways they teach languages.
Using the Bainton-Jackson Method, anyone can learn the basics of a new language rather quickly.
The same method can be used to learn a lot of new material, even when it is not that interesting or relevant (unlike the Scriptures). When I took the 10 Chartered Life Underwriter tests, some of them were boring beyond belief. Property insurance was irrelevant and quite foreign to me. I simply read the material over and over until I could answer questions and know what they meant. I used software practice tests. Yes, I failed three CLU tests - and took them over again, passing. When I took the tenth test and passed, I received a $3,000 check. Yay.
My boss said to the whole group, "You failed three of them. I didn't know that." He liked to joke with agents. I said, "Babe Ruth led the league in strike-outs and home runs, Ed."
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| "Why would anyone study Greek when they could read Settling for More? |
