χαίρετε! Thanks for putting together this site, Benjamin. It'll be interesting to see the community growing here over the next few years. I learned Koine at university 10 years ago (with modified Erasmian pronunciation) but have only recently explored the boom in living Koine resources. Does anyone know of any peer-to-peer Koine practice groups outside of the courses at Polis and BLC? This has always been an essential part of my learning process in other languages so would be something I would be very keen to take part in (or organise if there was demand).
You're not in this alone! Language is a team sport.
It is not easy to develop fluency in Koine Greek as a student or a teacher, but it is fun! One thing you can do, however, to make it easier, is to connect with other students and teachers doing the same. Feel free to make connections and discuss all matters of Koine Greek as a living language here!
I was participating in a Facebook group that would read portions from the Septuagint and then meet up to read a bit and ask/answer questions in Koiné regarding the passage. I can't seem to find it on Facebook now, but I'm sure you could get such a group together. I've never been good at using Greek communicatively/, since I also studied the old grammar-focused way. I'm constantly thinking of rules, and the Monitor (per Krashen) blocks my production.
Hi Jason, that's interesting - do you mean you were meeting up in person or via Skype? I'm based in Scotland and as far as I know there isn't a thriving living koine group here at the moment (happy to be corrected), so I'd have to take part in something like a Slack meetup or Skype group call. I'd be interested to know if you thought the septuagint Q&A in Greek was a good way to go about it?
Jason, if you end up setting anything up I would be interested in trying it out
I'm currently re-running a study of Hansen and Quinn with a friend with in-person sessions. We aren't doing anything communicative, though... just trying to run through the whole the grammar intensively (as per the title of the book). After that, I just want to read, read, read. I think I'm going to start with something from Plato (perhaps the Symposium) and move on to other things.
I run the ancient language Meetup in the Seattle area. While we primarily attract Latin learners, there has been some interest in the past for Greek. Unfortunately both of the other people that I started meeting with left, so we are back to Latin only at the moment. I am just learning myself (unlike with Latin which I've studied, read and spoke for a few decades), so I really need a stronger speaker to help guide. I suspect there are others in my area, but they have not yet found the Meetup or cannot attend for whatever reason.
I can't use @ to reply to you. I don't think it recognizes Greek characters after the @ sign!
Haven't gotten to put anything together recently. I've been really busy with Hebrew stuff.
Hey πετρος. Nothing organised yet as far as I am aware but I would be up for that. I live in the UK so timings may be interesting to deal with but it sounds worth doing! Perhaps send me a private message if you are still up for organising something and we can work things out and how to include others if they are up for it?