What the chapters cover
27 chapters take you from the alphabet to reading the Greek New Testament. Each comes in short parts with questions along the way, and 8 are read aloud so far. Tap any chapter to read it in full; the topics under each are its own section headings.
Open the chapters in the appChapter 1 The letters and sounds of Greek Read aloud
The alphabet, breathings, accents and punctuation
- Three rules that trip people up
- A note on pronunciation
- Accents
- Punctuation
- What to watch for
Chapter 2 The Greek verbal system Read aloud
The map before the territory
- What is aspect, and why does it come first?
- Two names for the same thing
- When does the tense tell us the time?
- What does mood tell us?
- What does voice tell us?
- How can we spot a past tense at a glance?
- What are principal parts?
- The discipline
Chapter 3 Present and future active indicative Read aloud
λύω and λύσω — your first two paradigms
- εἰμί — the verb to be
- The present is not simply "now"
- The future: add σ
- Saying no
- What to watch for
Chapter 4 Nouns of the second declension Read aloud
λόγος, ἔργον — and the article that parses them for you
- λόγος — masculine
- The same word, three jobs
- ἔργον — neuter
- A neuter plural takes a singular verb
- Why lexicons list three things
- The definite article
- What the article's absence tells you
- What to watch for
Chapter 5 Nouns of the first declension Read aloud
Mostly feminine, with a few masculines
- ἀγάπη — the basic pattern
- Alpha or eta?
- The masculines
- The genitive plural always has a circumflex
- Four prepositions worth meeting now
- Small words change shape before a vowel
- What to watch for
Chapter 6 Adjectives of the first and second declension Read aloud
Attributive versus predicate
- Attributive: inside the article-noun unit
- Predicate: outside it
- The test
- Substantival: the adjective becomes the noun
- What to watch for
Chapter 7 Imperfect and aorist active indicative Read aloud
Past time, and the aspect distinction that matters more
- The imperfect: inside the action
- The augment
- What the imperfect is for
- The aorist: the whole thing at once
- Second aorists: the same tense, a different shape
- εἰμί in the past
- What to watch for
Chapter 8 Additional prepositions Read aloud
Case changes the meaning
- Two cases, two meanings
- ἐπί and παρά: three cases each
- The picture behind the case
- The ones that take a single case
- By whom, and through whom
- Compound verbs
- Where the augment goes
- What to watch for
Chapter 9 Personal pronouns
ἐγώ, σύ, αὐτός — and the three uses of αὐτός
- First and second person
- αὐτός: the third person
- Where each part of a pronoun comes from
- His, her, their
- When the pronoun is emphatic
- αὐτός as "self" and as "same"
- What to watch for
Chapter 10 Perfect and pluperfect active indicative
Completed action, continuing results
- Completed action, continuing state
- The form: reduplication and κα
- When the reduplication is not a plain doubling
- Second perfects
- The perfect in the text
- The pluperfect
- οἶδα, and ᾔδειν
- Don't over-preach it
Chapter 11 Demonstrative pronouns
οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος — this and that
- οὗτος: the forms
- ἐκεῖνος: the forms
- With a noun: outside the article, still "this"
- Standing on its own
- Pointing back at what was just said
- Watch the breathing
- ἐκεῖνος in John
Chapter 12 Present middle and passive indicative
Where English has no equivalent
- One set of endings, two voices
- The paradigm, and the odd second singular
- What the passive says
- What the middle says
- Deponent verbs
- By whom, through whom, by what
- What to watch for
Chapter 13 Perfect middle/passive and future middle
Endings straight onto the stem
- The perfect middle and passive
- When the stem ends in a consonant
- The future middle
- ἔσομαι: the future of εἰμί
- Telling them apart
- Adverbs
- μέν … δέ
Chapter 14 Imperfect middle/passive, aorist middle, pluperfect middle/passive
The secondary middle endings
- The secondary middle and passive endings
- The imperfect middle and passive
- The aorist middle
- Second aorist middles
- The pluperfect middle and passive
- How much of this you actually meet
- What to watch for
Chapter 15 Aorist and future passive indicative
The θη that changes who does what
- The first aorist passive
- When the stem ends in a consonant
- Second aorist passives
- The future passive
- The passive at work
- Passive in form, active in sense
- What to watch for
Chapter 16 Review of the indicative mood
One verb, one chart, whole system
- The slots a Greek verb fills
- The whole indicative on one page
- How to take a verb apart
- Working one out
- Where time actually lives
Chapter 17 Nouns of the third declension
Find the stem in the genitive
- The endings that are always there
- Find the stem in the genitive
- Consonant stems: σῶμα and σάρξ
- Vowel stems: πίστις and πόλις
- The family words
- The dative plural, where the stem gets crushed
- The article carries you
Chapter 18 Adjectives, pronouns, and numerals of the first and third declensions
πᾶς, εἷς, οὐδείς — small words, large claims
- πᾶς: the forms
- How πᾶς reads
- εἷς, οὐδείς and μηδείς
- πολύς and μέγας
- Comparison
- When the comparative is doing superlative work
- Numbers worth knowing
Chapter 19 Contract and liquid verbs
Why ἀγαπάω never looks like ἀγαπάω
- What contraction does
- The three types in the present
- The ο type is rarer than it looks
- Outside the present, contraction disappears
- Liquid verbs: a future with no σ
- Liquid aorists: the σ goes, the stem stretches
- What to watch for
Chapter 20 Participles: the forms
One verb form in four, and how to spot them
- A verbal adjective
- Tense is aspect, not time
- The present participle
- The aorist participle
- The perfect participle, and the shapes to know on sight
Chapter 21 Participles: the three uses
The article decides, and the genitive absolute
- With the article, beside a noun
- With the article and no noun
- Without the article
- The genitive absolute
- What to watch for
Chapter 22 Infinitives (verbal nouns)
Verbal nouns and their many uses
- The forms
- The article makes it a noun you can use
- Purpose and result
- Time
- Cause
- The subject goes in the accusative
- What to watch for
Chapter 23 Additional pronouns
Relative, reflexive, reciprocal, interrogative
- The relative pronoun
- Where a relative gets its gender and its case
- ὅστις, the indefinite relative
- τίς and τις: one accent apart
- Reflexive pronouns
- ἀλλήλων: one another
- Possessives, and what to watch for
Chapter 24 The subjunctive mood
Purpose, probability and exhortation
- The forms are the easy part
- The aorist is the default
- ἵνα, and purpose
- Let us — the hortatory subjunctive
- Do not start — μή with the aorist subjunctive
- οὐ μή — the strongest negative in Greek
- Conditions
- What to watch for
Chapter 25 The imperative and optative moods
Commands, prohibitions, and μὴ γένοιτο
- The forms
- Aspect, not urgency
- The Lord's Prayer, both ways
- Prohibition: two ways, and the one that is overstated
- Command, entreaty, and permission
- The optative
- What to watch for
Chapter 26 The conjugation of -μι verbs
δίδωμι, τίθημι, ἵστημι, ἀφίημι
- What makes them different
- Present reduplication
- δίδωμι in the present
- The aorist is where you actually meet them
- τίθημι and ἵστημι
- ἀφίημι, and the compounds
- What to watch for
Chapter 27 Reading your Greek New Testament
Tools, habits, and the fallacies to avoid
- Read every day, in the easiest thing you can find
- Read forward, not sideways
- Observe the aspect
- Observe the voice, and the article
- Observe the order
- The word-study fallacy
- What the grammar cannot settle
- Where to go from here