Elementary Greek Koine for Beginners: Year One

I am using this book with my teenage, homeschooled daughter. We used the previous levels as well. It contains easy to understand, easy to use, and very slowly graduated lessons. However, all three levels combined, which take three times 30 weeks to study, covers less material than a first-year college level text.

I was looking for a Koine Greek primer for a young student (fourth grade) that wasn't geared toward adult seminary students. This series ended my search. It is perfect for the young homeschooled student following a classical grammar stage curriculum, especially if begun a year after starting an elementary Latin primer such a Memoria Press' "Latina Chritiana I". (The "Latina Christiana" series does an excellent job of introducing a highly inflected language.) Learning the Latin language structure the year before eliminated the double whammy of inflection/pronoun endings *and* a different alphabet. My daughter's first comment when we started verbs in Lesson 3 was, "Hey, that's just like Latin!" The lessons are broken down into daily exercises that are truly bite-sized pieces,and the practice is repetitive enough to allow a young student to gain mastery. Aside from that it is lots of fun and is so rewarding for the student to read, write and translate Greek words and sentences. I highly recommend this series.

This book makes the learning of Greek accessible to even the youngest student. My daughter is 12, my son 14 and through this curriculum they are both able to grasp the symbology and grammar of the language. We have studied Latin for four years and that has helped with the understanding of declensions and conjugations. We are moving rather quickly through the material. Younger children who are being exposed to a foreign lanquage for the first time through this curriculum should move at a slower pace and drill, drill, drill.

This book is very approachable. I like the "little bite" approach to teaching, as opposed to the "main course" approach. There is a lot of repetition in the workbook, which is a good aid to learning. I am middle-aged and learning on my own (having had one semester of Greek in college many years ago), but I believe this book would also be very good for home schooling. Watch out, though. Be very alert for errors, which are numerous, particularly in the answer key. These could have been avoided by a careful proofreading, and I hope they will be corrected if there is a new edition. If you are teaching, please work through the workbook yourself so that you can tell if an answer is correct. Just relying on the answer key will not be sufficient. In spite of the errors, I think this is a very good book for self-teaching and home schooling, if used with care. I have finished Book One and have ordered Book Two.

if you want to learn koine greek on your own, without having to take a class, this is the perfect book for you! the workbook is VERY helpful! enjoy! and Happy Hunting BXers!