Mike Atnip from Ohio

[Mike Atnip]

I'd recommend Jason's (free!) YouTube course using Kutz/Josberger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRU8qbx ... LVLBhmaVMv

Okay. You sold me on Kutz/Josberger. For better or for worse I am ordering a copy today.

The workbook is essential. Don’t forget the workbook!

Ditto. Now it looks like the list is growing again with the recommendation of Waltke and O'Connor. Is that something that will be of use fairly quickly, or will it be way above my head for a few months?

[Jason Hare]

Okay. You sold me on Kutz/Josberger. For better or for worse I am ordering a copy today.

The workbook is essential. Don’t forget the workbook!

Ditto. Now it looks like the list is growing again with the recommendation of Waltke and O'Connor. Is that something that will be of use fairly quickly, or will it be way above my head for a few months?

First go through a grammar that covers the first-year material (the basics). Waltke-O'Connor will be for second-year material.

[Mike Atnip]

I'd recommend Jason's (free!) YouTube course using Kutz/Josberger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRU8qbx ... LVLBhmaVMv

The workbook is essential. Don’t forget the workbook!

Jason, I am on Chapter 2 and have watched the first two of your youTube videos. They provided me a very good boost. Thanks! A question I have is what kind of pace is normally expected for the Kutz/Josberger book. A chapter a week? Or is that pushing expectations? My learning weakness is memorization of names. I could probably tell you, for example, the sounds of most of the vowel pointings, but their names are difficult for me to remember.

[Jason Hare]

Jason, I am on Chapter 2 and have watched the first two of your youTube videos. They provided me a very good boost. Thanks! A question I have is what kind of pace is normally expected for the Kutz/Josberger book. A chapter a week? Or is that pushing expectations? My learning weakness is memorization of names. I could probably tell you, for example, the sounds of most of the vowel pointings, but their names are difficult for me to remember.

Hi, Mike.

I don’t see why a chapter a week isn’t manageable. If you get to the point where the readings take you longer than a week to get through them, I’d take my time. Right now, I’m leading a group through Balme, Lawall, and Morwood’s Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek (3rd Ed.: Oxford UP, 2016). We’re basically using the American version for its vocabulary glosses, grammatical notes, and exercises, and we’re using the Italian version for its readings (because it has extra readings). I do the exercises myself as we go through it, and when we meet together we just go through the readings. We’re at the point where the readings take longer than one 1.25-hour session, so we end up spending three weeks on a single chapter — whereas we used to just go through a chapter a week.

The moral? Pick a pace. If it works, keep at it. If it doesn’t, feel free to adjust it. Don’t forget that man was not created for the textbook, but the textbook for man. Also, if you have questions at any point, don’t hesitate to fire them out here.

Jason

[Max S-R]

To get started I am considering between Kutz/Josberger and Pratico/Pelt.

I recently got Pratico-Pelt from the library, and it is really quite good. It's broken into (many) small chapters that are contained & digestible in the span of one sitting. Each chapter ends with either some kind of lexical abstract and/or a bit of "advanced" (I don't know why they call it that) morphosyntax, which is how I learned the extremely interesting word קְדֵשָׁה.

My learning weakness is memorization of names. I could probably tell you, for example, the sounds of most of the vowel pointings, but their names are difficult for me to remember.

My advice to you, as someone who is rather familiar with this business, is not to get bogged down by foreign nomenclature: learn only so much as allows you to navigate reference works quickly, because it is not at all likely that you will have to (or even want to) produce Biblical Hebrew.
Consider the fact that no editor in his right mind would subject you to the inscrutable cantillation marks when you haven't even learned the "alphabet", and the reason is simply that you have no use for them at this time. Or the fact that many students of Ancient (and of Koine/Biblical) Greek go months or even years without learning the 'native' name for what they refer to (after the Roman usage) as a 'circumflex' (the Greek is perispōmenon); that is, they simply say the word 'that works'. As long as you have in your head a clear conception of 'this sign means such-and-such a vowel', you need go no further.

- Max S-R