You may begin class http://www.kennethbillings.org/greek.html or here.

Learning the alphabet is the way to begin learning New Testament Greek.

Work at your own pace, but I would suggest you set aside at least forty-five minutes per night.

1. Memorize the Greek small letters from the letter table just like you learned your abc's.

2. Be able to say them and write them.

Learn to write the letters on a line.

3. Also know how they sound.

4. Know how to transliterate them, even if it is in a crude sense:

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Part of the beta b goes underneath the line. So does the gamma g, the zeta z (zayta), eta h(ay-ta), mu m, xi x, rho r, phi f, chi c, psi y, and the sigma V at the end of a word. Now get some practise: http://www.kennethbillings.org/alphabetpractise.html

Vowels:

a, i and u can be either long or short depending on how they are used. e and o are always short. h and w are always long.

Diphthongs:

A diphthong is a sound made by two joining vowels.

Breathings:

There is a rough breathing. It is transliterated as an "h" sound in English. The other type of breathing mark is smooth . Notice how it looks like the English apostrophe (it is above the first letter in the third word in Luke 1:1).

We learn by doing things over and over. That is how we learned to speak English. We can learn Greek by using our eyes--reading, and hearing and speaking. Languages have changed over a period of time (centuries). New Testament Greek is not generally spoken today, but it is read. People who speak Greek today speak modern Greek. In comparison, English that was spoken in early times is not spoken today. We speak modern English. Nevertheless, we can still read some very important things that were written many centuries before we were born.

Accents:

The Greek accents help you distinguish and remember a word (an acute accent is above the sixth letter in the third word in Luke 1:1). See your book for the other two.

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