From the chapter on reading Greek quickly:
When we read Greek quickly, it helps us to get ‘the vibe’ of the language. To get the vibe of something, you need frequent exposure to it, but also some comprehension of the bigger picture.
Reading quickly will also help you to ‘internalize’ the language in a way that slow and careful reading may not. To ‘internalize’ a language means that you no longer treat it as an abstract ‘code’ to be deciphered. Rather, it becomes more like a song you know really well.
Reading quickly also feels more like you’re actually reading because you’re taking in more content, and therefore piecing together the ideas and the wider message of the text.
Read Greek quickly and dig the vibe, man.
Posted by Con Campbell
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Thanks. I want to read Greek quickly but often feel guilty because there are too many words I’m of which I’m unsure. Maybe my vocabulary is still too small.
Thanks, Scott. I understand your concern. I suggest in the chapter that in order to read quickly, don’t worry about a word here or there that you don’t know; context will help you to guess what’s going on. Reading quickly is a tool to help you overall, though it’s not meant to replace careful, slow reading. There are also other ways to help with your vocab for particular texts you’re going to read; check out my post on vocabulary.
Con
Hi Con,
Something I’ve discovered (far too late) is that the benefits of reading quickly can be multiplied tenfold if you read out loud. Reading out loud helps you to feel the language; its shape, its tones, its accents, etc. I regularly read a chapter out loud as quickly as possible, without stopping to look up vocab. My main goal is to maintain accuracy in my pronunciation and accents while getting faster and faster. This really helps the language to soak in.
Good one, Lionel.
Con,
On your second point, it might be helpful to state what you are countering: the propensity to dissect smaller pieces to death. Let the text live by reading it instead of killing it through dissection. You probably cover this but…
Steve
Yes, Steve, though I think it is also useful to ‘dissect’ the text from time to time in order to sharpen one’s precision with the details.
I make a point of reading more from my Reader’s Greek daily. For a while I was just reading a paragraph or two every day, which was good. However, I think I was agnoizing over some parts too much.
This year I am reading a chapter/day. I’ve made the Greek NT my primary devotional reading. I have found that this has helped me read faster and with greater comprehension (getting the vibe, if you will). I also find that this has helped me rely less on the footnotes as the vocabulary sinks in better with more exposure in a shorter time.
Overall, I feel like I am “really reading” much more than I was before. Now that I’ve seen how this process has worked in Greek I am inspired to put forth the same effort for Hebrew. There is simply no substitute for time in the text.
Great to hear that, Jason.
Thanks for the further advice. I really look forward to this book and enjoy access to the posts you’ve made so far. I’ll check out the vocab posts again.
Do you think reading it quickly would apply to those who are beginners (or after doing 1st year)?
I began sight-reading Greek in my first semester of study. Because I have lived abroad for years, learning languages ‘in situ’, I understand the benefit of massive exposure to a language, in spite of a lack of precision in understanding. This gave me three immediate benefits: 1) I frequently saw the vocabulary I was working so hard to learn — in context; 2) I grew to have an organic feel for the syntactical structure before being harassed with all the syntactic tags; 3) I learned to quickly spot the vocabulary “stems” and approximate a meaning in spite of not knowing how to parse every suffix.
I began with the Gospel of John, and within 8 months had read all four Gospels. This approach has the added value of seeing similar vocabulary repeated through the gospels, as well as re-reading familiar stories, usually without extremely long, convoluted sentences.
A chapter a day of sight-reading is my current goal, in addition to the advanced Greek workbooks and Grammars I am using. I find that reading it last thing at night cements my learning and allows my mind to contemplate the Greek from a relaxed state.