Rating: 
Summary: A Monumental Work in Greek Grammar:
Review: I recently started studying Koine Greek (about 7 months ago). My first grammar was a grammar I bought for my PC. I enjoyed it and learned much from it in little time. Later on though, it got quite "fuzzy," if you would, and some of the grammar (declensions, etc.) sorta slowed me down majorly. I have had a class in french, one year of German, and two years of Spanish so I knew a little about foreign languages, but still, learning Greek became quite difficult to me for a while. THEN I went and bought Mounce's book, Basics of Biblical Greek, and I am currently reading it.
Mounce has a very unique way of teaching Koine Greek that I have never seen in any other Grammars of any kind. Also, as far as I have seen, he is quite conservative, which I was happy to see (though he may not be as conservative as I am regarding the Bible versions). Though some things in his book are hard to get through (the key is to memorize, apply, use, etc. so you don't forget), still he is about the easiest one to learn from. 2 Cor. 4:1-6
Rating:
Summary: A Monumental Work in Greek Grammar:
Review: I recently started studying Koine Greek (about 7 months ago). My first grammar was a grammar I bought for my PC. I enjoyed it and learned much from it in little time. Later on though, it got quite "fuzzy," if you would, and some of the grammar (declensions, etc.) sorta slowed me down majorly. I have had a class in french, one year of German, and two years of Spanish so I knew a little about foreign languages, but still, learning Greek became quite difficult to me for a while. THEN I went and bought Mounce's book, Basics of Biblical Greek, and I am currently reading it.
Mounce has a very unique way of teaching Koine Greek that I have never seen in any other Grammars of any kind. Also, as far as I have seen, he is quite conservative, which I was happy to see (though he may not be as conservative as I am regarding the Bible versions). Though some things in his book are hard to get through (the key is to memorize, apply, use, etc. so you don't forget), still he is about the easiest one to learn from. 2 Cor. 4:1-6
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: I started out with Wenham's "Elements of New Testament Greek", but Mounce's book is much better. Easier to learn, better written. It explains things that were unsaid by Wenham and has helpful diagrams. The software is excellent too and is a good learning aid.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Grammar for the Koine Handicapped
Review: I used a diffrent text for the first year of college koine greek to prepare for our seminary entrance qualifier. I was totally lost and dropped my Greek class thinking Koine Greek was far beyond my capabilities. In an act of desperation I picked up BBG and taught myself the fundamentals within a year. I rejoind my Greek class and am now an A student. I ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT have done it without Mounces grammar. Thanks for a wonderful grammar. It has unlock the language of the New Testament Scriptures for me.
Rating:
Summary: The best book on Biblical Greek
Review: I was disappointed when I had to switch teachers following my first semester of Greek. However, it was well worth it--because I switched to a class using Mr. Mounce's book: "Basics of Biblical Greek." It is excellent! Mr. Mounce is a genius at teaching Greek. It is simple that he should re-title the book to "Greek for Dummies" (lets face it--when it comes to Greek, we're all dummies). The text book completely divides the nouns and verbs into two semesters. As a student who spent a semester trying to do both verbs and nouns at the same time with no system like the one Mounce uses...let me tell you: this book is very helpful. Along the way Mr. Mounce explains concepts first in how they are used in English grammar. He then teaches the Greek grammar. This was most useful to me because my English grammar is a little sub-par. Another quality of this book that I really enjoyed were the exegetical insights at the beginning of each chapter-it is always nice to know why what you are learning is of importance. All in all, the "Basics of Biblical Greek" is a great book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you want to learn Biblical Greek, this book is the first book you will want to get a hold of.
Rating:
Summary: The best book on Biblical Greek
Review: I was disappointed when I had to switch teachers following my first semester of Greek. However, it was well worth it--because I switched to a class using Mr. Mounce's book: "Basics of Biblical Greek." It is excellent! Mr. Mounce is a genius at teaching Greek. It is simple that he should re-title the book to "Greek for Dummies" (lets face it--when it comes to Greek, we're all dummies). The text book completely divides the nouns and verbs into two semesters. As a student who spent a semester trying to do both verbs and nouns at the same time with no system like the one Mounce uses...let me tell you: this book is very helpful. Along the way Mr. Mounce explains concepts first in how they are used in English grammar. He then teaches the Greek grammar. This was most useful to me because my English grammar is a little sub-par. Another quality of this book that I really enjoyed were the exegetical insights at the beginning of each chapter-it is always nice to know why what you are learning is of importance. All in all, the "Basics of Biblical Greek" is a great book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you want to learn Biblical Greek, this book is the first book you will want to get a hold of.
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful well-written beginning grammar for me
Review: I was in Dr. Mounce's first summer intensive Greek class at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (1 year of Greek in 2 months!) and am now currently teaching this course from this text to a lay church audience. I find this book to be great for reference and look back to it to review a lot of grammar. For myself, being a detail-oriented person and a natural at languages (Meyers-Briggs type: ESTJ/ISTJ) I found this fairly intuitive to pick up following the system that Dr. Mounce prescribes. Dr. Mounce and I have also discussed this grammarian compared to others (like J. Grescham Machen's), and I think he's right in that he puts third declension nouns in the beginning (Chapter 10) instead of at the end; some of Greek does build upon this material (e.g., square of stops). The book is laid out into the first half being mostly article/adjective/noun/pronouns (including declensions, cases, prepositions) and the second half mostly related to verbs and participles (Tenses covered: Present, Future, 1st/2nd Aorist, Imperfect, Perfect, Voices: Active, Middle, Passive, Moods: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, all types of participles, -mi verbs). The best things include the exegetical insights and the vocabulary helps (some of these are from Dr. Bruce M. Metzger). Dr. Mounce also has two other tools that are useful for learning Greek, his Analytical Lexicon and the Workbook that accompanies this textbook. Dr. Mounce also held extra-curricular sessions where he and students offered their suggestions for mnemonics to memorize the vocabulary and also the grammar. One thing that this textbook does not emphasize is that there often is no subtle/cool/nice way of learning grammar and vocabulary; sometimes you just need to "by-brute-force" rote-memorize-this-darn-paradigm. (Repetition is key.) In teaching this book, I have found that most people have found this book to be good, but there are still some publishing errors and some difficult sections. Dr. Mounce would occasionally run off his computer re-worked sections (chapters) of his book, and ask for commentary, so I assume this is still in progress. Again, repetition is key, and the better you know Greek, the more you can get out of the Greek New Testament. Some people who are more inductive/intuitive learners (and also those who like to see the big picture/forest before they get into details/trees) will find this book rather frustrating; keep in mind that Mounce tries to teach the rules (rather than the exceptions, which he footnotes -- and these footnotes are mostly for the student who wants to understand the exceptions, trivia, and other information), and tries to find a system to organize the grammar. I've had at least one or two inductive/intuitive learners comment about this book, and if you are such, you may need to learn by grammar blocks (e.g., chapters 6-10, first second and third declensions, chapters 11-14 pronouns, chapters 16-24 verbs, etc.) Intuitive/inductive/big picture learners will have a hard time since Mounce teaches you block-by-block and you don't see how it all interrelates until later. Dr. Mounce does leave out of his book some hints which he did cover in class; for instance, he says you should learn both the stem and the verb paradigm for the Present Active Indicative, or that you should memorize the various stems for the various verbs that have multiple stems (i.e., in the aorist or perfect or future). As well, Dr. Mounce leaves out a lot of worksheets and extra exercises (e.g., blank master verb charts, blank master noun charts) and exams that made learning Greek better. As well, I have found that making chapter summaries very helpful. The text book which follows this is Daniel B. Wallaces "Greek Grammar Beyond The basics," which explains many grammatical details better (e.g., the middle being the "voice of self-interest").
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Greek Grammar
Review: I was one of Dr. Mounce's students. I studied Greek with him in the 98-99 school year and I still have retained almost all of what I learned through this book and Dr. Mounce. The book is informative and easy to use and study. The CD ROM is excellent as well, and is a good tool for review. If you want to learn Biblical Greek, but don't want to memorize the many, many paradigms that the traditional method requires, you should get this book.
Rating:
Summary: Best NT Greek Course that I have Found
Review: I was trying to find a good book for self study when I bought Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. I couldn't have been happier. I also purchased the workbook and although I'm moving pretty slow, I really am learning enough to slowly be able to decipher my Nestle-Aland. Mounce really seems to understand what it is like to learn Greek and when he gives advice throughout the book, he is always right on target.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding learning tool
Review: If you've read "Greek for the Rest of Us" by William Mounce and decided that you really wanted to learn the basics of Biblical Greek including vocabulary then this is the book that you will want. William Mounce has a gift for taking the Greek language and making it approachable even to those who have tried before but not succeeded in learning Biblical Greek. While there are many, many grammar details to learn such as whether something is dative, nominative, accusative, genitive, active, passive, dependent, independent, etc. Mr. Mounce actually makes it interesting and finds ways to keep the student interested and feeling positive about their progress. All those grammar rules are very important in correctly interpreting the Greek texts and in understanding English translation. Sometimes there is no English equivalent for a Greek word, sometimes we can only approach a correct translation by approximating a similar word in English, but then our personal prejudices and beliefs affect the word that we choose. Understanding Greek is important to a serious level of study of New Testament writings. This book gives you the basic ability to look through a Greek text or Interlinear Translation of the Bible and understand not only what is said, but also what is actually meant but the text. This is a very highly recommended text for anyone desiring to learn Biblical Greek and one of the best books on the subject that I have ever read.
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