Thread: Memorizing Greek Prepositions

I'm wondering if anyone has any pointers on memorizing Greek prepositions and their different forms. The useful memory tools I use with regular vocabulary words doesn't really seem to be helping with these words so I'm just trying to digest them my rote memorization. When I try to employ them in my exercises I end up forgetting them! I know they will come natural later through repetition but I'm just wondering what everyone else did to grasp these awkward little words!?

Flash Cards. Over and over again.

Check out this chart. It is similar to the one that we used. It helped me.

http://www.cghsnc.org/rmartin/pdf_gr...rep_sphere.pdf

Travis,

I think that the quickest way to get a handle on the different senses that they take on by case, depending on your ability to do basic translation at this point, is to find many passages that incorporate them, and to translate them within a context. Memorizing the range of meaning did very little for me, but once I began to seen them in context it was much more natural to get the sense of how case/sentence structure bears on the meaning. That is because in the context of a sentence some meanings will just cancel themselves out as being nonsensical, and you will begin to get a "feel" for how the cases function much more concretely than by having a stare down with your desktop preposition layout.

You may not have that option, however, if you are memorizing them for an exam, and do not yet have enough vocab/translation skills under your belt in order to assimilate entire sentences. If you have a bare minimum, try a bibleworks or concordance search within the Gospel and Epistles of John. His Greek is much more readable at the early levels of study, and rather enjoyable to translate.

Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian

Flash Cards. Over and over again.

Drill, drill and drill some more.

The absolute best way to understand prepositions is to do some Greek composition, but that is likely beyond your skill level now.

Thanks a lot for all the advice brothers! I've been working with flashcards everyday, several hundred times a day then writing out the prepositions from memory with their meanings. I guess I was looking for an "easy way"! You know without the hard work

Lawrence- I'm using Summers text which contains a chart similar to the one you linked, yours is a little simpler though, thanks!

Adam- I'm trying to translate one verse from John per day just for fun, and that helps. I can with the aid of a lexicon translate simple verses right now with some success. Thanks for recommending that, I'll keep it up. Seeing the prepositions in context does make a big difference at my level.

Check this out: http://mc.delendis.com/wp-content/up...eon-griego.png

Originally Posted by wookie

Check this out: http://mc.delendis.com/wp-content/up...eon-griego.png

Cute!

Originally Posted by wookie

Check this out: http://mc.delendis.com/wp-content/up...eon-griego.png

Kenneth, thanks that helped. Plus it was entertaining!

Originally Posted by LawrenceU

Check out this chart. It is similar to the one that we used. It helped me.

http://www.cghsnc.org/rmartin/pdf_gr...rep_sphere.pdf

That's a great chart, similar to Mounce's. Thanks for sharing it.

It does only so much, though. It provides an overview of the spatial relationships that the various prepositions might have with nouns and pronouns, but it doesn't help with the abstract relationships. It's one thing to say, "I am in the house" (spatial) but quite another to say, "I responded in anger" (abstract). How would the latter sentence be written in Greek? with EN?