What's Required to Learn NT Greek
FluentGreek is intended as a service to God and the Church, which means I genuinely care about your success. I want you to learn to read God’s word in the original. Let’s go beyond language instruction for a minute and review what it takes to learn New Testament Greek successfully.
Building Good Habits
Habit researcher BJ Fogg, in his book Tiny Habits, explains that behavior is a result of motivation, ability, and a prompt that triggers the behavior. Motivation itself, according to Dr. Piers Steels, is a function of how much you value the skill and how hopeful you are of acquiring it, or what he calls expectancy. Delays and distractions, he says, dampen motivation.
How FluentGreek Helps
FluentGreek is organized around these ideas. Most people who begin to learn Greek quit before getting very far. How hopeful would you be if the methods you use to learn don’t work for 95% of individuals? If behavior is a combination of ability and motivation, the tools you use need to be as simple as possible, but not simpler, and they need to quickly move you towards fluency so you don’t get frustrated and quit. FluentGreek puts New Testament verses before your eyes from the beginning, so that you can see growth daily.
Because delays kill motivation, FluentGreek is trimmed of all material that isn’t laser focused on maximizing the quality of your studies. The lack of bells and whistles on this site is purposeful. I want the time you spend on this site to be focused, moving you towards fluency.
Your Task
The big picture task for you is keeping your motivation high and developing good habits to study effectively. Without motivation you won’t put in the work. Without good habits you won’t be able to follow through.
- Find preachers that love God’s word and inspire you to learn it more deeply.
- Find a study partner you can go on this journey with.
- Create strong habits around Greek Study. One possibility, using Dr. Fogg’s ABC habit model (anchor, behavior, celebrate), would be to say, “after I brush my teeth in the morning (your habit anchor), I will spend five minutes reviewing Greek verses (your new behavior), and then I will have a cup of coffee (celebration).” Start by establishing small, doable blocks of study, gradually increasing the time until you reach your goal.
The Task App
An important part of the course is the task app.
Once you sign up, go to the Task App page under your name on the navigation bar. Then enter the habits you want to practice on a daily basis.
After creating wise daily tasks, your goal is to check them off every day. FluentGreek will tell you how days in a row you have completed each task.
If you create wise tasks and keep your streaks going, you will progress towards your goal of Biblical Greek fluency.