Proficiency in the languages

[SemperEruditio]

How do I become proficient in the languages? I definitely do not want to lose all this stuff I'm memorizing and working hard to learn but my question is how do I become proficient? As with English/Spanish it took years of speaking, reading, and writing so my assumption is the same with Hebrew/Greek, yes? However besides disciplining myself to read everyday are there any grammars on writing in the languages or recommendations in general?

My goal is to be able to pick up my Hebrew/Greek Bible and read it like I do in English or Spanish. The things I've heard from others has been discouraging. I know more men who have forgotten their languages than men who have been able to keep them. It really appears to be you are either proficient or you forgot and use software to compensate.

I'm amazed at how many people assume because I'm taking 3 semesters of Hebrew that I should be able to be fluent in Hebrew. These would be seminarians who have not taken any languages and when I explain that proficiency comes with years they question the need.

My apologies at this point I'm just rambling.

I've spoken with one of my pastors and he reads both and is also now a TA in the languages. Basically I would like to know from the men here who have taken the languages and are proficient what are you doing?

 

[Guido's Brother]

Two things that I've found helpful: I always use my Greek and Hebrew while preparing for sermons. Never take shortcuts. That week-in-week-out exposure is hard to be beat. The other thing would be to get and use the Reader's Hebrew Bible and the Reader's Greek New Testament. Those are excellent resources for maintaining proficiency in the biblical languages.

 

[greenbaggins]

I agree with Wes. There are a few other resources that are helpful. With Hebrew, for instance, you can purchase a used copy of Weingreen's Hebrew Composition. Do the English to Hebrew exercises in Weingreen's grammar, and then go through the Hebrew composition book. It will be amazing how much fluency you will pick up if you do that. For Greek, I would recommend translating the classics. Go through Homer, Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, Aristophanes, etc. After you do that, the NT will be as easy as falling off a log.

 

[SemperEruditio]

Thanks Wes! Reader's has a new Hebrew/Greek Bible coming out which I ordered.

Lane,
I wasn't aware that Biblical Greek would help with the classics... Any idea where I can pick up a copy of Weingreen's Hebrew Composition?

 

[CharlieJ]

On Greek, generally, people who know NT Greek can't read classical Greek, but people who know classical Greek can read NT Greek fairly decently. If you know NT Greek and you want to crossover, you'll probably need a curriculum such as Athenaze.

Frank, the truth is that classical language pedagogy is terrible, and many people recognize this and are attempting changes. There is a movement to teach them more like modern languages, incorporating speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The more ways you can find to do each of these, the better off you will be. I try to read an NT chapter every day, and my wife and I have begun speaking a few Greek phrases and sentences here and there. I feel pretty comfortable in Greek, though not nearly to the extant that I am in English.

With my Hebrew, I didn't do much more than go through the books, and I got nearly perfect scores in school, but I wouldn't say I have any real proficiency in it, because I didn't approach it like a real language.

 

[greenbaggins]

For used books, I generally go to bookfinders.com or abebooks.com, both of which search millions and millions of used book sources instantly.

 

[MW]

This is going to sound silly, but I found constructing my own sentences to be very helpful. If you think about it, that was a natural part of how we learned our native language.

 

[VictorBravo]

This is going to sound silly, but I found constructing my own sentences to be very helpful. If you think about it, that was a natural part of how we learned our native language.

Not silly at all. I would think it is the most natural thing to do.

My wife and I used to stumble through learning Hebrew that way. We'd grope for words we could use and often would end up saying things like "The beast that is smaller than a horse wants food." (Speaking of the cat with the empty food dish).

Even if awkward, it was entertaining and helped fix the grammar and vocabulary.

 

[MW]

Vic, that's the sort of thing I used to do. Also, in Australia car number plates mostly have three letters, so I had alot of fun using the letters as Hebrew roots. I thought it was a profitable use of time, even if others thought I was a few cents short of a dollar.

 

[SemperEruditio]

Thank you gentlemen for the ideas.

My pastor took Hebrew before Greek and the thing he did was try to remember the Hebrew word for the Greek one. So when he was studying his Greek flashcards he would also try to recall the Hebrew word/s.

I was thinking about this last night. One thing that I came up with, which I'm not sure how it would work, was instead of translating the OT from Hebrew to English I would go the other way, English to Hebrew. So I would take my ESV and take an "easy" section and begin to translate that back to the Hebrew. I could then use my Hebrew Bible and see how I did...

Worth a shot? Would you recommend this?

I definitely think that using it as an everyday language will do much to attain a level of proficiency.

 

[CharlieJ]

Frank, composition is a key to language proficiency. However, it generally requires a real conversation partner or some way to check yourself. Translating from your English Bible to your Hebrew is only so helpful, since there would be perhaps several appropriate ways to translate, only one of which will actually be in the text of the Hebrew Bible. I think it's an ok idea, as long as you understand that it's not wrong if you differ from the Hebrew text.

Making original compositions, though, is the most helpful thing. When I was working on increasing my Greek proficiency, I would start with simple sentences:
"I love my wife"
"My God is worthy of my praise."
"Jesus Christ saved me through his blood."
"I'm going to McDonald's to buy a hamburger." (Requires inventing some vocab, but I love saying this to my wife.) - πορευομαι τῳ ΜκΔοναλζῳ αγορασαι ἁμβυργερον.

 

[sdesocio]

I use accordance and read through each text when Im preparing for a sermon. I try to read without relying on the auto translate, but its a great help to promote vocabulary skills. Most weeks I can gleen a basic understanding of the text and then I look to see the differences between the english and the original.