What I'm doing, Greek-wise

I’m still on Greek.

I finished the gospel according to John, and began reading Acts, reading a few verses each day. Usually I write out each sentence, identify the problematic words, and then clear up the problems. I focus mainly on verb forms in my grammatical self-instruction. I have in book form a Greek New Testament, an English Bible, and NT lexicon, which lists and parses every single word form in the Greek NT. And there is plenty of help online. Besides this, I have my heavily marked Mastronarde and Morwood’s grammar.

Usually I write out an English translation to compare with the English Bible; now and then when the sentence is easy, I just write out the hard words, with grammatical notes. Rarely, a sentence is so easy that I just write the reference in my notebook and add “sight-read”.

Although I’m familiar with much of the NT, I have never read these books as continuous texts. Hence, I find it interesting to experience them as literature and as historical objects, rather than as quotations for religious instruction. As I am now, the Greek is challenging, but not daunting. I intend to keep reading the NT until I feel ready to try more difficult texts. Now and then I read about the differences between koine and Attic Greek, but so far the NT just seems like Greek.

I read this forum, but these days I’m not asking many questions, mainly because I have handy references to this material. This is a good reason, in my opinion, for using the Bible. I think if I had to start Latin over again, I’d spend a couple of years reading the Vulgate, before trying Cicero or Virgil.

Since, in my own “late antiquity” as it were, I started in on Latin and ancient Greek, I’ve received much help in this forum, for which relief much thanks!

It sound like you have a system that works for you, so keep up the good work. One suggestion, though perhaps you are already doing so, and that’s to rapidly read through a section once you’ve completed your other work on it, without consciously translating and trying simply to comprehend. This helps what you’ve done be fixed better in your brain and also helps develop the actual reading skill.

As for being just Greek, well Koine is a development of mostly Attic Greek, so that’s not a surprise.

I need to follow this advice more consistently. Thanks.