Basics of Biblical Greek by William D. Mounce

Learning Koine Greek has been on my mind for a certain time. I wanted to take a course at seminary but was not able to make it fit in my schedule. Then I decided to buy this book and self learn. I did some research before buying the book and it was on many people's suggestion list. They suggested that for the beginner who wants a solid and clear introduction on Koine Greek, this book is a must. I now believe them.

The 4th edition of Basics of Biblical Greek is a fantastic tool to learn all the essentials of biblical Greek. The book starts with the alphabet and goes through the nouns, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns and verbs. Learning Koine Greek might seem like a daunting task, but the author arranges the material to help the learner as much as possible. You really have the impression that he thought of all the tips to help you learn the language progressively. At the end of each chapter there's a vocabulary section where there's new words to learn. By the end of the 8th chapter you already know 50% of all the New Testament words, and you don't feel it was that hard! By the end of the book you know 83% of all the words in the NT. The appendix (which is almost 100 pages) list charts, tables, rules, word forms, most common words as well as an index in Greek and English. All the important stuff that you learned throughout the chapters is compacted there. This section is extremely useful for long-term study.

But you have to be realistic, learning Koine Greek is hard. I found that the more I advanced in the chapters, the harder it was. Being comfortable reading Koine Greek takes time and a lot of discipline. I also suggest that you be regular in your reading of the book. If you wait weeks (or even days) to get to another chapter, you'll definitely forget some of the notions that you learned. So try to be regular.

Most of the readers of this book will go through it in a seminary class and I do think it's the best way to learn Greek. You have more resources, a teacher in front of you, people with who you can practice and encourage one another. But for the self learner like me, I can tell you that it is possible to learn the language, and William Mounce had made every effort to help you do it. So I enthusiastically recommend the book. I also bought the Workbook and it has helped a lot. Learning the language requires practice and a workbook is an excellent way to do it.