Learn to Read New Testament Greek, Workbook: Supplemental Exercises for Greek Grammar Students

Good teaching and exercises in the book for self directed study. The workbook is also a good benefit to reinforce the teaching.

This workbook is fantastic.Though I have no clue why the publisher/authors are so stingy about the answer key it is available and essential. I acquired by emailing [email protected] was a first year student of Dr. Black's 7 years ago and love his approach to teaching. Now I'm taking my greek up again in self-study and needed to decide if I was going to stick with Dr. Black or move over to Mounce. One of my key goals is to "Understand Deeply." The huge benefit of self-study is that I can progress at my own pace. But I knew I needed lots of exercises to ensure I really understood each's chapter's concepts deeply. This workbook is perfect. Here are its strengths:1. Non-preditcability. This is huge. So often with Black's exercises I could just guess my way through the grammar if I knew most of the vocab. Not with this workbook. You must always be on your toes. This is a massive win for learning.2. Balance of translation/Grammar - Black's book only gives translation exercises, this book gives both.3. Quantity - If a student completes the textbook exercises and all of these supplemental exercises there's a very good chance he's done enough to know most of the material.4. Less Common Grammar Concepts - Like Black's exercises, the supplemental exercises (especailly the Greek to English translation) often use some of the minor grammar points of each lesson. Encountering them in translation helps cement it into your brain.

I taught a Greek class and used this workbook along with Black's textbook. Thus I came to know the workbook well, not just my perspective but that of the students in the class. The quality of the workbook is lower than Black's textbook. Here are some of the weaknesses:First, the Greek-to-English sentences are often bizarre to the point where you can hardly know if you got the translation right. For example, p. 129, exercise 12. This should be translated, "Immediately the friends received peace, but the disciples will not eat the letters of life." Huh? These kinds of weird sentences are throughout the book and distract from its utility. Often it got me very frustrated.Some of the times, sentences are introduced before the relevant material has been taught in the textbook. For example, p. 121 exercise 27 uses the imperfect middle / passive (ebaptizonto) before it was taught. These little errors make students' lives difficult.The book does have notable strengths. The matching, multiple choice, and true / false components are at the right level and help reinforce the material. The preposition table on p. 69 was similarly very helpful. I liked the Greek-to-English section quite a bit (note that the answer key does not provide accents, which is unfortunate.) Note that there are no sentences from the Bible in the workbook (unlike Mounce's workbook, for example). This means that you are actually translating, not recalling verses from memory. This is a strength of the book though I would have preferred a small section of translations from the Bible, partly to help motivate students.I would recommend to the authors of the workbook that they prepare a new edition making the sentences more sensible, carefully proof the book, and add accents to the answer key.

Layout is good, and there is ample practice sentences.**The only issue (for me, in my situation) is that there isn't an answer key in the back of the workbook. The editor explains why in the beginning of the book, and the publisher is willing to send you the answer key if you email and ask for it. I did receive it since I'm using this (and the textbook) for review purposes. But the answer key has serious problems. (1) there have been at least five to seven mistakes in the Greek-->English translation PER chapter, and I'm only ten chapters into it. They are clearly just the mistakes of someone going too fast in translation because I've only studied Greek for three months, and I can see the errors. (2) there is NO key for English to Greek sentences, which is problematic if there's no teacher... (3) Not all the exercises have a key.If you're looking a fresh way to review between semesters (intro and intermediate) without just going back through your old exercises, then I think this is a good supplement as long as you use it in conjunction with the textbook.Update: the answer key has been updated to include the english-->greek sentences. I am overseas and left my books at home. I re-ordered the workbook and re-submitted a request for the answer key at http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/academic/requestexam.asp . I received the answer key within 12 hours. I'm glad to see an update to this workbook.

This workbook has been an indispensable part of the learning process as I have been teaching myself Greek. It is an excellent companion to the text by David Alan Black and provides a lot of opportunities for translation work both from Greek to English and English to Greek. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. One caveat, the workbook does NOT come with an answer key.However, if you email [email protected] you may request an answer key if you are a teacher or a self-learner. You will have to electronically sign a pdf document saying that you will not distribute the answers and that sort of thing, but that is standard practice.If you get the text book by Black I strongly, strongly recommend purchasing this workbook as well. The extra translation work is extremely helpful and goes a long way in helping you get a stronger working grasp on the material in each chapter that builds upon each previous chapter. I recommend doing the work in pencil so you can erase your answers and go back through the sections and do them again.