Rating: 
Summary: Greek for the Ears
Review: As an intermediate Greek student who struggles with remembering vocabulary, I am very grateful to Jonathan Pennington and Zondervan for producing this tool. There are two CD's in this set, which cover all the words in the New Testament that occur 10 times or more. The accompanying booklet lists those words and their definitions in the order in which they are spoken. The purpose of this tool is to help the Greek student learn the vocabulary of the New Testament. The benefits of having Greek vocabulary in audio format are generally obvious. First, it is portable and the student is able to take it wherever he goes. In fact the Greek student should never be without his vocabulary and this tool helps greatly to that end. Secondly, it involves more of the senses, which helps in the learning process. For those who learn well through audible learning methods this will be invaluable. Thirdly, the booklet makes this all the more useful for the beginner to read along with the pronunciation. As well it further engages another sense as the vocabulary is listened to. There are a few disadvantages to this tool, which hopefully would be remedied, in a latter edition. First, the glosses, or definitions, are the bare bones. You only receive about one or two options for a definition. One understands the need to do so with this medium, but it leads to the impression that there is not too much flexibility with the definitions when in actuality there are. It may be helpful to beef up the definitions at least a little bit. Secondly, it would have been more helpful if the definitions followed exactly those given in either Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek or Trenchard's Complete Vocabulary Guide. There is some inconsistency here which if fixed would make this set all the more useful. Lastly, the individual tracks should have been further broken down into approximately 15-20 words instead of 30-40 words. Shorter tracks would allow for quicker repetition and therefore easier memorization. Overall this is an extremely helpful tool that every beginning and intermediate Greek student should utilize. I only wish I discovered it earlier.
Rating:
Summary: Greek for the Ears
Review: As an intermediate Greek student who struggles with remembering vocabulary, I am very grateful to Jonathan Pennington and Zondervan for producing this tool. There are two CD's in this set, which cover all the words in the New Testament that occur 10 times or more. The accompanying booklet lists those words and their definitions in the order in which they are spoken. The purpose of this tool is to help the Greek student learn the vocabulary of the New Testament. The benefits of having Greek vocabulary in audio format are generally obvious. First, it is portable and the student is able to take it wherever he goes. In fact the Greek student should never be without his vocabulary and this tool helps greatly to that end. Secondly, it involves more of the senses, which helps in the learning process. For those who learn well through audible learning methods this will be invaluable. Thirdly, the booklet makes this all the more useful for the beginner to read along with the pronunciation. As well it further engages another sense as the vocabulary is listened to. There are a few disadvantages to this tool, which hopefully would be remedied, in a latter edition. First, the glosses, or definitions, are the bare bones. You only receive about one or two options for a definition. One understands the need to do so with this medium, but it leads to the impression that there is not too much flexibility with the definitions when in actuality there are. It may be helpful to beef up the definitions at least a little bit. Secondly, it would have been more helpful if the definitions followed exactly those given in either Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek or Trenchard's Complete Vocabulary Guide. There is some inconsistency here which if fixed would make this set all the more useful. Lastly, the individual tracks should have been further broken down into approximately 15-20 words instead of 30-40 words. Shorter tracks would allow for quicker repetition and therefore easier memorization. Overall this is an extremely helpful tool that every beginning and intermediate Greek student should utilize. I only wish I discovered it earlier.
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful vocabulary acquisition tool
Review: First of all, this is NOT an "abridged" edition, with a 24-page booklet. Zondervan confirmed for me that they make only one edition of this CD set, it's not abridged, and it has a 48-page booklet. This is a useful tool for learning vocabulary. The pronunciation is clear, though the recording volume could be a bit higher/louder, I think. It's the best, if not the only, of its kind of thing out there. I would have liked to have had him give aorist and/or future forms of verbs where the stem differs from the indicative - e.g.: "ERCOMAI - I come, I go; future: ELEUSOMAI; aorist: HLQON". This is the reason I do not give it four or five stars. My suggestion for a follow-up CD set would include alphabetically reciting verbs with all their principal parts as found in the New Testament, and if he's really adventuresome, reciting the complete verb conjugation paradigms (regular, liquid, contract, MI verbs, etc.) and noun declension paradigms, and maybe even lists of words related by roots. Still, despite my personal quibbles with this set, I would recommend that any first-year or second-year NT Greek student get it. Having finished my second year a few years ago, I already had most of these words memorized.
Rating: 
Summary: I wish I had these when I was learning Greek
Review: Flash cards was the only means of mastering Greek vocabulary just a few years ago. With today's CD players, and comupters a Greek student can hear, listen, and see (if you use the helplful booklet that comes with the CD) the vocabulary. The more senses used the quicker the mastery of the meanings. In all my language expereince (I have taken Latin, Greek Hebrew, and Spanish) vocabulary was always the secert to success. The difficulty of grammar lessons is greatly increased or decreased by your with your confidence level with the vocabulary. Being able to hear the Greek pronounced correctly is very benefical. Your confidence level will grow quickly. If you are a new Greek student or one who is seeking to do some review you will find this CD very helpful. Don't pass this by. This CD will play on any regular CD player or computer - including Macs.
Rating:
Summary: An indispensable tool!
Review: For all of you fellow auditory learners, I cannot recommend more highly "New Testament Greek Vocabulary" by Jonathan T. Pennington. It includes 2 audio CDs and a 48 page booklet of all words occuring 10 times or more in the NT. Pennington pronounces the lexical form, pauses, and then gives a short English gloss. The audio quality is outstanding. I listened to the CDs in my car during commutes to and from the office and had all the words and definitions completely memorized in less than two months. Thank you, Jonathan and Zondervan! I recently received word that Pennington finished recording a biblical Hebrew vocabulary set in April for Zondervan, production is almost finished, and the CDs should be available soon. I can hardly wait!
Rating:
Summary: An indispensable tool!
Review: For all of you fellow auditory learners, I cannot recommend more highly "New Testament Greek Vocabulary" by Jonathan T. Pennington. It includes 2 audio CDs and a 48 page booklet of all words occuring 10 times or more in the NT. Pennington pronounces the lexical form, pauses, and then gives a short English gloss. The audio quality is outstanding. I listened to the CDs in my car during commutes to and from the office and had all the words and definitions completely memorized in less than two months. Thank you, Jonathan and Zondervan! I recently received word that Pennington finished recording a biblical Hebrew vocabulary set in April for Zondervan, production is almost finished, and the CDs should be available soon. I can hardly wait!
Rating:
Summary: An indispensable tool!
Review: For all of you fellow auditory learners, I cannot recommend more highly "New Testament Greek Vocabulary" by Jonathan T. Pennington. It includes 2 audio CDs and a 48 page booklet of all words occuring 10 times or more in the NT. Pennington pronounces the lexical form, pauses, and then gives a short English gloss. The audio quality is outstanding. I listened to the CDs in my car during commutes to and from the office and had all the words and definitions completely memorized in less than two months. Thank you, Jonathan and Zondervan! I recently received word that Pennington finished recording a biblical Hebrew vocabulary set in April for Zondervan, production is almost finished, and the CDs should be available soon. I can hardly wait!
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful, small quibble on pronunciation
Review: I find the CDs very helpful, especially when driving. The pauses between words are just long enough to give me time to think of the meaning, but no so long that I feel like I am waiting for the next one.
I am hardly the person to criticize his pronunciation, but I have a lot of trouble distinguishing a from o the way he pronounces them. They both sound like "a" in father most of the time. It would be easier to distinguish of "o" was closer to "off" (like aww instead of ahh) Because of this, I have trouble visualizing the spelling while I am driving.
Rating:
Summary: worth much more than the cost!!!
Review: Pennington pronounces every greek word in the NT that occurs 10 times or more. He also gives definitions of each word. You can follow along in the pamplet and sound out each word while looking at the spelling, as you hear Pennington give the pronounciation. If you're learning NT greek on your own, this is a MUST! Thanks to Pennington I can now accurately pronounce over 90% of the words as I read the UBS4. Eric
Rating:
Summary: worth much more than the cost!!!
Review: Pennington pronounces every greek word in the NT that occurs 10 times or more. He also gives definitions of each word. You can follow along in the pamplet and sound out each word while looking at the spelling, as you hear Pennington give the pronounciation. If you're learning NT greek on your own, this is a MUST! Thanks to Pennington I can now accurately pronounce over 90% of the words as I read the UBS4. Eric
| 
