This week’s Featured Resource is Ken Berding’s Sing and Learn New Testament Greek: The Easiest Way to Learn New Testament Grammar (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).
(CD Hardcopy) (Audio Download)
Among those who have rigorously attempted to teach or study Koine Greek, many will agree that memorizing paradigms and how to parse are equally the most important and the most difficult part of learning the language. Since paradigms are the foundation for parsing and parsing is part of the foundation for translation, there is almost no getting around this difficult aspect of learning Greek. This incomparable resource will provide both the teacher and student of Koine with information that will not only make learning the language easier, but also more enjoyable.
With the help of these songs, more of your senses will become engaged so that remembering paradigms and some of the basic rules of Greek grammar (e.g. “Sigma the symbol of the Future, but not if a liquid verb”) will become solidified in ones mind and thus make parsing and translation second nature.
About the Songs
Through hours of writing and testing out these songs on various sets of students, Dr. Berding ingeniously composed 11 songs that will help students learn the Greek alphabet, articles, noun endings, endings for indicatives/subjunctives verbs, infinitives, and imperatives, all to the tunes of songs that many of us grew up singing (e.g. twinkle, twinkle little star/the alphabet song, three blind mice, and the Mexican hat dance, etc.).
Some other things you will learn in the songs include:
- How to parse verbs, participles, infinitives, and subjunctives
- Forms for the 1st and 2nd Aorist
- The conjugation of ειμι verbs
- Forms of the aorist passive
- How to parse contract verbs
- The definitions of prepositions as they appear in different cases
- And much more…
Added Benefits
If you’re not a singer, don’t worry. These songs can also be recited or simply written out over and over and function as a helpful starting place for allowing you to visually and audibly experience the paradigms. When singing or reciting these songs is coupled with writing out the paradigms and lyrics provided in the song booklet, the rules and paradigms with move into your long term memory and will be nearly impossible to forget. This is immensely helpful when it comes to learning those pesky participles, prepositions, and basic rules that we always manage to forget.
The format of this resource is available in both hardcopy as well as an audible download from Amazon. Though it may be tempting to download the audio file, there is a tremendous benefit of ordering the hardcopy. Just like any other favorite CD of yours, this CD comes with a song booklet where all the words to the songs (which usually aren’t words but endings to Greek words) and paradigms are found all in one place— making the booklet in itself a priceless and indispensable resource. The CD also comes with a PowerPoint of the same paradigm charts for classroom use.
Critique
One downside to this resource is that the paradigms that are provided in the booklet (and the order in which the paradigms are sung) do not match the order of paradigm charts provided by Mounce or Machen’s introductory grammar textbooks. For example, Mounce introduces the paradigm chart for noun endings (without the connecting vowels) in the order of masculine, feminine, then neuter only in the first declension. In Berding’s songs, the student will learn to recite the noun endings in the order of feminine, masculine, neuter, then the third declension endings all at once. Though this may cause some confusion when it comes to working through these textbooks and attempting to learn the songs simultaneously, it is not an impossible hurdle to jump over. In fact, Dr. Berding used the songs in conjunction with the reading from Mounce (we just didn’t learn the charts in Mounce) and we had no problems. I also had to go through Machen’s text at Westminster but skipped over his paradigm charts and was able to get along just fine with the information that was provided in these songs.
There is one other small critique of these songs. The voice on the soundtrack is no Grammy nominated artist, so you probably won’t be caught driving down the street listening to these songs with your windows down. But that’s ok! This was almost better for me as it forced me memorize the song faster so I didn’t have to listen to the recording. Also, we all know that the annoying songs are the ones that get stuck in our heads faster…
Conclusion
If you are teaching an introduction to Koine course, if you are about to start one, or if you are already done with Greek and are not familiar with the contents of this CD, hands down this resource should be at the top of your syllabus, the top of your iTunes Most Played playlist, and the saving grace that gets you back into Greek and keeps it there for many fruitful years of reading the New Testament in its original language. Memorizing these songs along with vocabulary and every body’s favorite: principle parts, will almost guarantee you a successful experience in the introduction to New Testament grammar.
Personal Testimony
Back in my days as a student at Biola University, many who were familiar with the Biblical Studies program and the Greek courses knew two things: (1) Dr. Berding was the most challenging Greek 1 professor and (2) the students in Dr. Berding’s class had fun. Yes, fun and Greek were included in the same sentence. I still remember hearing students comment about how Dr. Berding’s students somehow seemed to be happier than all the other Greek students. Each day Dr. Berding had us sing or say the songs in the book that we had learned up to that point (sometimes as fast as we could which provided much-needed comedic relief), take a quiz where we would write out a song or paradigm from the song booklet, and recite a quote (often attributed to Zwingli) that became near and dear to us that I will post below. All of these have contribute to my own affinity for the language and success as a Greek student.
As you may know by now, the review of this resource comes to you not as a post from a Koine-loving bystander who has stumbled upon this CD and decided to give it a shot, but from someone who has used this resource from the beginning of her own Greek days, one who has reaped (and still reaps!) its benefits one hundred fold, and thus one will whole heartedly endorse this resource to anyone who is seeking to learn the grammar of Koine Greek. I can’t endorse this resource enough and I can’t thank Dr. Berding enough.
As promised above:
“I have firmly decided to study Greek, nobody but God can stop me. It is not a matter of personal ambition but in order that I might understand the most Sacred Writings.”