Hi all, I recently ordered Philemon Zachariou’s work on Koine pronunciation and was hoping there may be some folks here who have read it and care to share any thoughts. I have basically adopted the pronunciation scheme used by this website, although with some inconsistency around my pronunciation of gamma. It will be interesting to compare what this new book says and what Dr Buth and Kantor use https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Pronouncing-Biblical-Greek-Pronunciation/dp/1725254484/ref=sr_1_1?crid=YFVALW607D15&dchild=1&keywords=zachariou+greek&qid=1596035964&sprefix=Zachariou%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-1

I mentioned in a previous post that I had started to record my own version of 1 Peter. I have been playing with how best to do this, and have had some learning to do on the way. Anyway, I spoke to Benjamin and suggested that it may not be a terrible idea if some of us amateurs band together to try to get the rest of the NT recorded in the restored pronunciation. He is not opposed to the idea and it would serve as a stop-gap until something perhaps more professionally done comes along, and is a great project anyway for those with the time. This is a link to a file on my Dropbox that is recorded from the SBLGNT of 1 Peter. I re-recorded it today after no sleep last night, but thought I would get the ball rolling and update this some other time. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wg5zexq9vgkzwz2/1%20Peter%201%20%28SBLGNT%29.m4a?dl=0 hopefully it only gives you read/write access, and only to that file, but please let me know if it gives you more. I will need to rethink if that happens! The previous recording had no real intonation but a fast pace. I sacrificed the pace here to try to get some intonation and now sound stilted so definitely not perfect (lack of sleep can’t have helped). Doing this does force a careful thinking of how to highlight the text to guide hanged in intonation and emphasis which is a curious side effect. Thoughts of people on whether they think getting stuck into something like this would be appreciated. Certainly makes you appreciate the stuff that Buth and Benjamin have put out there so much more when you give it a bash yourself!

Not strictly the purpose of this blog but on topic for the website. Benjamin, any plans to release more New Testament books imminently in audio form? I am just preparing to record my own of some texts for personal use, if you are about to release some books though then I will avoid doing those

I have started to work through books and articles on second language acquisition, currently focussing on construction grammar approaches. I am hoping that this will improve my ability to teach Greek to my group and have already found some things very useful. Does anyone have any recommendations re resources that it would be worth looking at that are either explicitly applied to Koine or more generally. I am guessing that the former would be rarer than a unicorn, but I live in hope. I may eventually try to get myself on some sort of course for modern foreign language teaching methods but want to read around first

I have been pondering the best way to try to combine the use of Mounce’s grammar and workbook along with teaching communicatively as a bit of a hybrid approach My last session suffered from two issues: 1. I hadn’t done a proper lesson plan and my brain wasn’t functioning due to the early onset of a mini bout of depression so I wasn’t communicating well. Lesson learned from this is that I personally need to have everything mapped out to a lot more detail well ahead of time to help when I start struggling 2. Some of the group are more familiar with language study than others so there was a disparity in how much explanation each member needed and how quickly they picked up the use of the concepts we were discussing 3. Trying to look at the grammar book with them really just a hurried squeezed in session of highlighting key areas / flagging disagreements or clarifications with little time to properly discuss I think I have stumbled across a better way of running this group For context, we are using the latest version of Mounce’s text book and workbook with fortnightly meetings. At the moment 1. I have the group turn up, we run through pictures / sequences of pictures to get them verbally working with the grammar as I illustrate / write out the forms on the screen as we go. 2. At the end I squeeze in a review of Mounce’s chapter on the subject at hand and highlight key areas of slight disagreement or just areas that they should take especial note of. 3. Following the session they work through the grammar chapter in their own time and learn the vocab from the chapter and the thematic vocab I give them on top 4. Photos of completed workbook sections sent in via email so I can work through, give feedback and tailor next session with any clarifications needed Rather than this 1. Before the next session have the group go through the chapter of the grammar book that will be discussed at that session, and learn the vocab (chapter and thematic) 2. I have the group turn up, we run through pictures / sequences of pictures and eventually basic stories to get them using the concepts they have partially learned 3. Following the session they work through the workbook for that previous session’s chapter and send in the following week 4. Read the next chapter of the grammar / learn the vocab required for the next session 5. At the end I would only need to squeeze in areas of clarification / disagreement with Mounce and could cover off the more nuanced stuff I am at risk of losing at the moment during the interactive portion I am still very new at this all so would appreciate feedback

They seem to work... the more silly the better I have often heard, don’t say I didn’t warn you Square of stops (with zeta added) πoodles βery φrequently are ψychotic κats γo χrazy on ξylophones τurtles δon’t θink ζebras are σtriped First declension rule for when an alpha stays throughout the singular The ειρish like alphas The effect of placing sigma after certain letters The sigma is a snake, swallowing νaughty dentists (dentals) When to pronounce an upsilon as an f αυ or ευ followed by a πoodle, a χrazy κat on a ξylophone, or a θinking τurtle is pronounced with an f

I am just kicking off racking a small group koine. The text I will be using is Mounce’s latest edition but using a heavily communicative class approach. Within this book he requires 319 words to be learned, whilst noting that many modern language courses would require 2,000 in the first year. I want to do a conpromise with the vocab from the gospel of Mark (approx 1,300) After finishing first year Greek I found having to look up most words when reading to be frustrating, I had anticipated moving onto reading quite easily. To get the vocab better I focussed on translating smaller books and learning all the vocab in them. In this way I knew I could read a given text knowing the vocab when I next came back to it (I have the cards in envelopes marked per book). I want to do this for my group, so that after first year Greek they can focus on grammar in Mark as well as getting the joy of progressively unlocking that book this year. Two questions: 1) do you think 1,300ish words is too many? I am tempted to do 1,000 minimum if a compromise if required 2) after getting a basic introduction to construction grammar, I now recognise the importance of teaching idiom and other constructions as part of the vocab Do you know any good lists of these for Mark?