Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar by William D. Mounce
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Book Reviews of Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar
Book Review: Great Book
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want to learn Greek, this is the book you need.
Easy to understand!!!!!
Book Review: Well done
Summary: 5 Stars
Those two words describe this work. It is put together well, and easy to follow.Book Review: Other Resources You Need
Summary: 4 Stars
This grammer is a well accepted first-year NT Grammer, ranked No.1 by many. While this may be ture, one should be alert that this is only a basic grammer and doesn't cover some essential areas. So for serious students who want a really master of NT Greek, I recommend auxiliary books to help the study:
(1) Accent: reading aloud is important for learning a languange, and accent is important for reading aloud.
<A New Short Guide To The Accentuation of Ancient Greek> Philomen Probert
<Greek Accents -- A Student's Manual> D.A. Carson
(2) Morphology: BBG doesn't cover all the essential morphology patterns, say, the aorist infinitive and aorist participal of liquid verbs. further more, MBG, referenced frequently by BBG, tells you 'why' in Greek. indispensable for a really mater of NT Greek.
<Morphology of Biblical Greek> William D. Mounce
<A Morphology of the New Testament Greek> J.A. Brooks , C.L. Winbery
(3) Syntax: I recommend Dana-Mantey for study at this stage, which fills the gap between BBG and <Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics> by Daniel B. Wallace, and this latter one fills the gap between intermediate grammer and standard reference works such as BDF and Robertson.
<A Manual Grammer of The Greek New Testament> H.E. Dana and J.R. Mantey
Another notice is about the Workbook. don't put it aside after finishing the transation. READ IT, RECITE IT! I translated it three times and recite it three times, every time I can learn something new. Read aloud and recite it, it really help me in learning this languange, maybe any languange.
The final point is about pronunciation. This grammer adopts Erasmus system, an artificial one, though adopted by most seminary. I recommend modern greek pronunciation system. So before diving into this grammer, spend three months on modern greek, say <teach yourself modern greek>.
May God bless us in learning his words.
Book Review: gives Machen a run for his money
Summary: 4 Stars
This is different, not better or worse, than Machen's classic "New Testament Greek for Beginners." Whereas Machen is simple, systematic, and small, Mounce is wordy, complicated, and bulky (you need a separate work book for the exercises.) To learn Greek, you need both Machen AND Mounce.
Mounce gives lots of basic, helpful tips (e.g., datives always have iota, only second person singular verbs end with sigmas, the third declension dative plural ending is the inverse of the corresponding second declension ending, almost all third declension nouns end in alpha, etc, etc.) He gives much fuller explanations than any other grammar I have seen. His font is clear and large and his paradigms at the end of the book are worth the price of the book. His comments throughout help you get motivated to learn NT Greek.
I question his wisdom in waiting so long to introduce verbs and I'm not convinced it is worth memorizing the endings separate from the paradigms, but then again, I have not written my own Greek text book as Mounce has! He had the courage to write a new-style grammar aimed at evangelicals but which really does give Machen a run for his money. Mounce is not perfect, but his is the best grammar of its kind. Even if you think you already know Greek very well, I would recommend this book, and if you are learning it yourself nothing compares to this in fullness of treatment.
I'm not a big fan of his exercises in the work book, but you can't have everything. I would recommend supplementing Mounce with Machen who does a better job drilling the vocab and paradigms, but Mounce does have you read a lots of real Greek.
Mounce's analysis of principal parts is by far the best treatment I have every seen.
I give this four instead of five stars only because no grammar is perfect. None is better than this. It is well worth the extra money and the c.d. rom is also cool.
Book Review: Solid if not earthshattering...
Summary: 4 Stars
I am not a Greek scholar. I am not a Greek grammar enthusiast. I am merely a seminary student plowing my way through beginning Greek grammar, and this was the textbook assigned to my first two classes. I have used no other Greek grammar resources, so I have no point of comparison.
My impressions of this textbook are mostly positive. Mounce seems to do his best to make the complexities of Greek grammar accessible to the beginning student, and he effectively uses non-technical language to that end. I was periodically irritated by his sometimes rather lame attempts at humor, but even those reflected his heart to connect with his readers. His passion for the Greek language and its potential for application in the lives of beginning Greek students is apparent.
The book is generally well organized and rather systematic, which is helpful for those of us who like process and order and repetition. One minor complaint is the amount of "optional" advanced information that is included in footnotes and appendices. Though some of this information was not essential, we regularly stumbled upon stuff in the footnotes that was seemingly vital to really understanding some of the material. It was difficult to determine which of the additional information was "skippable" and which was essential.
Overall, I think that this textbook did a commendable job of introducing me to the basics of Greek grammar. This process was not especially fun for me, but that is my own personal disconnect with language acquisition. In any case, I am happy to recommend Mounce's text as a good tool for beginning Greek students to use to begin to learn the language. If you do use this text, make sure to use the acccompanying workbook and vocabulary cards.