GK101 Introduction to Biblical Greek John D. Schwandt
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I did this early in the week but hoping someone at FL might give some guidance. I was looking at the Zondervan videos but would wait for this.
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Look for the pre-pub sometime this summer. I’m very excited to see this course debut. We are spending some extra time prior to the pre-pub in order to align a number of additional advantages for choosing this biblical Greek course and curriculum. It will be worth the wait. I don't think it will sit very long on pre-pub. (Thanks for your patience and enthusiasm about it.)
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Thanks John, I will look forward to it.
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Sound great, thanks for all of your hard work.
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John Schwandt said:
Look for the pre-pub sometime this summer.
Is it possible to tell us what resources would be useful to have along with this course that is soon to come out?
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Is this supposed to be equivalent to one year of Greek?
Keith Pang, PhD Check out my blog @ https://keithkpang.wixsite.com/magnifyingjesus
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Yes. It will have all of the content that is common to a traditional first year Greek curriculum in seminary.
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Mark said:
Is it possible to tell us what resources would be useful to have along with this course that is soon to come out?
It will be bundled with a textbook which will be announced this summer. We don't have a list of the additional references yet since developing those links is part of the production process. The additional recourses will not be required to complete the course but will provide excellent pathways to books within your existing library and solid recommendations for building your library in that direction.
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Good Afternoon,
Where can I lean more about this course?
Thank you, and God Bless!!
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John,
Will this be an immersion method like your old Athenaze course? I really enjoyed taking it and found it superior to any other Greek course I had taken.
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Hi all,
It is a little too early to get into specific details for this course. All of the details will be presented once all we have all of the “production ducks” in a row. I’m expecting this to happen in late summer. It will be an in depth traditional style Greek course, but leverage every advantage the Logos platform can offer.
I’m a big fan of older grammars that included plenty of composition exercises (like Machen and Nunn). To Keith’s question – it will not be an immersion course that focusses on conversational skills. It will be a grammar/translation driven course that provides plenty of helps and exercises to help three types of learners:
1) Those who just want to learn Greek grammar. (One can just work through grammar segments.)
2) Those who just want to learn grammar and learn how to translate. (One can just work through grammar segments, vocabularies, and translation exercises.)
3) Those who want to develop an initiative understanding of grammar and reading skills. (One can work through everything including composition exercises to gain an ability to consider linguistic and literary alternatives authors had, which could inform choices they did make.) This is the old-school approach that I love. It is one step shy of teaching complete fluency. However, it can be used as a stepping stone in that direction. A dedicated fluency course typically isn’t helpful for those with #1 and #2 learning objectives. To be sure, I haven’t lost my passion for fluency but this course was designed for a larger audience to help the maximum number of people grow in their understanding and interest in biblical Greek. I hope it will prove to be a huge stepping stone for future fluency efforts (from me or anyone else.)
I hope that I haven’t raised more questions than I answered. [;)]
Thanks for the encouragement, Keith!
It won’t be long until we have full pre-pub documentation. Because we want to maximally leverage the Logos platform and it has so much to offer in the area of biblical languages, there is more involved in this project than the typical pre-pub. I’ll have to ask everyone for patience. I can say that it will be worth the wait. [:)]
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Very cool! I'm excited to see it come out!
Keith Pang, PhD Check out my blog @ https://keithkpang.wixsite.com/magnifyingjesus
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Thanks John for the update, I look toward to the final product.
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Hi John
As August 1 comes around, I am wondering if there is an update on this product? I certainly would like to have it available to use by September 1
Mark
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There are going to be a number of parts to this program (textbook, Mobile Ed course with exercises and vocabulary, flashcards and an amazing alphabet course that is highly interactive to lay a solid foundation for learning the language.) The Interactive Greek Alphabet Course will ship first. Watch for it sometime this month. All of the parts will be available for "pre-order" (with a substantial discount) through a pay up front SKU. Those who purchase in this way will get the parts as they are released. I'm pushing to see all of the parts shipped by the end of the year. I'm sorry that all of the parts are not shipping for use this month. We are working as fast as we can.
I'm very happy to see that first Greek Alphabet course will ship this month. I hope this helps with your planning. I'm thrilled that you are dedicating time and energy to learning Greek and will be excited to hear how it blesses your studies in the New Testament.0 -
Thank you John. Two of my teenage sons are learning Greek for homeschooling and this is why I am hoping that parts will be released by September. I would like enough of a course to be done that they can go through it
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John Schwandt said:
There are going to be a number of parts to this program (textbook, Mobile Ed course with exercises and vocabulary, flashcards and an amazing alphabet course that is highly interactive to lay a solid foundation for learning the language.) The Interactive Greek Alphabet Course will ship first. Watch for it sometime this month. All of the parts will be available for "pre-order" (with a substantial discount) through a pay up front SKU. Those who purchase in this way will get the parts as they are released. I'm pushing to see all of the parts shipped by the end of the year. I'm sorry that all of the parts are not shipping for use this month. We are working as fast as we can.
I'm very happy to see that first Greek Alphabet course will ship this month. I hope this helps with your planning. I'm thrilled that you are dedicating time and energy to learning Greek and will be excited to hear how it blesses your studies in the New Testament.It's here. https://www.logos.com/product/145022/biblical-greek-foundational-certificate-program
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Thanks for letting us know. Now to figure out what is finished and what is not
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Can FL give us an update on when the book as well as the actual GK 101 course is expected to be ready or what the tentative plan is for releasing the rest of the material? So far, it appears that the GK091 and GK 092 which are the pronunciation part of the course is all that is ready.
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So, was this never on pre-pub? It just went straight on sale?
Is this another one of those "deals" where FL gets my money and is able to use it while I have to wait six months before I get a product (if they get it done by the end of the year)?
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The intention is to please two types of customers. There are those who want a pre-order discount and would like to get started using the products that are available right away. They should be happy with the bundles. (The Biblical Language Certificate Program bundle even has the effect of putting the Hebrew course and text on sale during this time as well.) Then there are those want the pre-order discount but don’t want to be charged until all of the products are live. We will have plenty of last chance messaging when the last resource is about to ship and the special discount will finish. I will also post to this thread so you will be sure to get a notice. So those customers don’t have to feel compelled to make the transaction earlier than they typically would. I expect the remaining two resources (digital version of the Lexham text and GK101) to be available before the year ends.
It is true that this course shipped without the typical pre-order offer, but the same discount is currently available until the all of the resources ship.
Thanks everyone for the interest in the courses and the programs. I’m very pleased with the alphabet course. It is the most interactive course that we have ever produced.
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Thanks John. The alphabet course does look good. My boys will start using it in September. Having the rest of the course finished before year's end may work fine for us.
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John Schwandt said:
The Interactive Greek Alphabet Course will ship first. Watch for it sometime this month.
Thanks John! A great course, very well done!
(It seems that one part, the Listen & Learn Greek Interactive has not yet shipped, but that doesn't diminish the value of the course.)
As a self-studying learner of Greek I watched several introductions to the alphabet, the diphtongs and the square of stops on the web and read some in textbooks and I think your course really does a great job laying that groundwork.
I liked the vocabulary drill with 48 words, 2 per alphabet character - in fact I liked it so much I built a Word List for the 48 and shared it with the Faithlife group of the course so people are able to use the Logos application or the mobile Flashcard app. The pictograms in the video are a cool visual way to help learning those words. I think I found one small error in it, though (textbook to the left, video resource to the right):
Since the wrong gloss is not referred to in the video, maybe FL can update this quickly.... (does this entitle me to a free copy of the full product? [;)] )
Have joy in the Lord!
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Thanks John, I did not mean to sound disgruntled, just a little disappointed. However, you did a kind job of explaining things.
A point of clarification, though. Are you saying that the current discounts, including the Back-to-School discount will remain valid until the whole package has shipped?
For instance, The Biblical Languages: Foundational Certificate Program is dynamically priced, with the Back-to-School discount, at $234.10. The Back-to-School part of that discounted price is $156.06 of the total discounted price. If I wait a couple of months to purchase, then I will not lose that discount?
Thanks for the clarification.
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No worries. [:)]
You are correct. The current 40% discount (or more through dynamic pricing if you own the Alphabet Tutor interactive through base package ownership) will continue on the two certificate bundles until all of the elements ship. That is actually the reason you currently see a larger discount than 20% on those products even with only one product in your cart during the back to school promotion.
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thanks!
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Mark said:
John helps us pronounce 2 words each beginning with every alphabet character in the next to last video, segment 7 - the textbook puts that into an appendix after the segment. The Word List is here for followers of the group.
Have joy in the Lord!
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Thanks
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John, how would you compare the comprehensiveness of your course the Mounce's BBG and the video lectures by Zondervan on Logos? What material do you cover that he doesn't, vise versa, and why? What are you trying to accomplish? Do you attempt to cover as much or less than Mounce? Why?
I have read the product page in depth but would also like your take on these things. Thanks for your input.
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Mounce's appears to be more in depth
Keith Pang, PhD Check out my blog @ https://keithkpang.wixsite.com/magnifyingjesus
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Thanks for the question about how this program (Mobile Ed course and textbook) compares with Zondervan’s video lectures and books for Greek. It is difficult for me to compare them too deeply since there isn’t much information on the Zondervan course description pages and a number of elements in the Mobile Ed course and text are still in development. However, I do own a copy of Mounce’s text and can use that in this initial comparison.
Various points for comparison:
Package-
- The Mobile Ed Certificate Program has everything included
- It is difficult to tell if you have to purchase both the text book and the workbook separately in the Zondervan program. I would love for someone to verify this for me. If it is included how is it included? Is it an e-book, or a hardcopy? Does the student own it or rent it?
Access-
- You can own Mobile Ed courses and have them always available for reference and refreshers.
- The Zondervan courses are only available on subscription (currently 12 months).
Content (amount of grammar covered)-
- Both grammars and courses cover the standard amount of material expected in a typical seminary or university Greek course.
- There may be slight differences in terms of emphasis or treatment of some parts of the the grammar. Typically, the parts of grammar that are introduced early in a textbook get more explanation than those at the end of a text since the later content can build upon the earlier teaching.
- The Mobile Ed Program and textbook provides a more comprehensive treatment of third declension forms. This is the tradition of older school approaches like Machen and Nunn.
- Mounce probably has a longer treatment on perfect stem forms. From a couple decades of use, he also added supplemental content such as exegetical insights from contributors.
Approach-
- Both grammars use a diachronic approach with the aim to reduce rote memorization. This is one of the many reasons Bill and I get along. J
- Mounce limits the aim for his text to teach only how to translate into English (one directional understanding.) His text doesn’t have regular composition exercises.
- The Mobile Ed course and text aims to teach both how to translate into English and how to compose in Greek (bidirectional understanding.) Students or teachers can choose to ignore the composition exercises and memorizing vocabulary in both directions, but the course and text provide this type of instruction for students who want to take their understanding to that depth.
- Mounce’s book is structured more on a reference grammar model and the Mobile Ed course follows Nunn’s classroom primer model. The difference is that reference grammar models tend to provide everything they are going to say about an area of grammar and then move on to the next related area of grammar. That is why Mounce doesn’t introduce verbs until nearly halfway through his program. Another marker of this reference book approach is the topic numbering of paragraphs.
- The classroom primer approach works in waves through a varied amount of grammatical topics. So the Mobile Ed course presents a basic treatment of verbs in the third lesson and then moves onto some noun forms. Then goes back and adds more detail and depth as new topics are covered. This allows students to start using the language faster and is similar to an approach for learning modern languages.
Length-
- The Mobile Ed course has a total of 15 hours of video but far more individual video segments (well over 100) than the Zondervan course. So the video content is concise and focused on the content of nearly every lesson in the textbook. The textbook isn’t published yet so I can’t compare its length to Mounce’s. Another aspect that can’t be compared yet is the amount of content in links to other books in the Logos library system. This is really what makes Mobile Ed different than all other programs. The course isn’t tied to just one book or author’s opinion. It is connected to library. Mounce’s text hardly has any footnotes or references to classic works form other authors. Also I’m looking forward to the Faihtlife Group integration with this course where I can interact with conversations within the transcript using community notes. Those conversations will accessible to anyone working through the course and will grow with future students. So the length of the content of this course will be somewhat dynamic.
- The Zondervan course is two separate 16 hour programs where Mounce covers material from groups of lessons in each one-hour unit. I haven’t purchased it so I can’t comment on how concise and focused the lectures are.
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Thanks John, that answers a lot for me. I look forward to having it by the end of the year. [;)]
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Thanks John for the explanation. Just need a little help with what you wrote here:
John Schwandt said:The Zondervan courses are only available on subscription (currently 12 months).
According to this link, there is no hint that the course is available only by subscription. it seems it is available for purchase. Is there a mistake?
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Mark said:
Thanks John for the explanation. Just need a little help with what you wrote here:
According to this link, there is no hint that the course is available only by subscription. it seems it is available for purchase. Is there a mistake?
https://courses.zondervanacademic.com/bibical-languages/basics-of-biblical-greek-1
Here is the link.
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But is the video course also not offered as a download to keep here:
https://www.logos.com/product/34026/zondervan-biblical-languages-video-lectures ?
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Yes, the exact same course.
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Mark said:
But is the video course also not offered as a download to keep here:
https://www.logos.com/product/34026/zondervan-biblical-languages-video-lectures ?
It is, but the comparison John was making above related to certificate programs ( Zondervan vs Logos). Logos sells the BBG and BBH sets, but not as a program of study.
Myke Harbuck
Lead Pastor, www.ByronCity.Church
Adjunct Professor, Georgia Military College0 -
I understand that now. But I did not understand that initially:
Michael McLane said:John, how would you compare the comprehensiveness of your course the Mounce's BBG and the video lectures by Zondervan on Logos?
It seems clear to me now. Thanks all. It is possible to purchase the videos in logos and if you have the books in logos, the certificate program (without the certificate most likely) is available in logos.
I appreciate John's responses. Happy with what has been delivered so far and looking forward to the rest
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John Schwandt said:
No worries.
You are correct. The current 40% discount (or more through dynamic pricing if you own the Alphabet Tutor interactive through base package ownership) will continue on the two certificate bundles until all of the elements ship. That is actually the reason you currently see a larger discount than 20% on those products even with only one product in your cart during the back to school promotion.
I'm sorry if this was asked but I wanted to double check. This course will remain 40% off until it ships? It lists a back to school discount but I know that ends soon
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Yes. The discount will remain until it ships.
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John Schwandt said:
Yes. The discount will remain until it ships.
Thank you Mr Schwandt. I am really thinking hard about buying this course but I don't know any Greek at all. Will this course be beneficial to me or is it too advanced?
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I know of no other course out there that provides so many small steps at the beginning of the course to help a student with no other background in any foreign language to learn Greek. The alphabet course (part of the bundled program) is an amazing way to build a solid foundation. Then you can start working through Greek grammar. The program teaches English grammar along the way so you don't have to be an English expert either.
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John Schwandt said:
I know of no other course out there that provides so many small steps at the beginning of the course to help a student with no other background in any foreign language to learn Greek. The alphabet course (part of the bundled program) is an amazing way to build a solid foundation. Then you can start working through Greek grammar. The program teaches English grammar along the way so you don't have to be an English expert either.
Thank you again for your time Mr Schwandt. I've always wanted to learn Greek so it seems this will be the best way to do it! I did think of one additional question though. In looking at the product page, it seems to me that the only thing that hasn't shipped yet is the GK101 videos... is that correct? The book and alphabet tutors are available and the videos will ship when done? Can I still start the course without the videos or would it be better to wait for the videos?
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GK101 (the video course, with activity resource) and the textbook are both in production. You can start with the alphabet course. I suggest allowing yourself plenty of time with that. It really helps to be very familiar with the alphabet before you really start digging into grammar.
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Hi John, will the Greek grammar course be released in sections going forward so we can start on them...or will we need to wait for it to be completed/released in full.
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I'm unable to start the koine version in the courses tool but I am able to start the erasmian version. Anyone else having this issue?
I posted photos here: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/148298.aspx
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Michael McLane said:
Thanks John, I did not mean to sound disgruntled, just a little disappointed. However, you did a kind job of explaining things.
A point of clarification, though. Are you saying that the current discounts, including the Back-to-School discount will remain valid until the whole package has shipped?
For instance, The Biblical Languages: Foundational Certificate Program is dynamically priced, with the Back-to-School discount, at $234.10. The Back-to-School part of that discounted price is $156.06 of the total discounted price. If I wait a couple of months to purchase, then I will not lose that discount?
Thanks for the clarification.
Somehow I missed this product till this morning. Michael, the discounted price for the Biblical Languages: Foundational Certificate Program bundle is about half what I'm seeing for both the Hebrew and Greek. Are you referring only to the Greek portion of this?
This looks like a good way to regain a lot of what I've lost with the languages.
Pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church, Clinton, SC
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Well--I'm in--just ordered the language bundle, though it may be a year or so before I touch the Hebrew course.
Pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church, Clinton, SC
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