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Starvard University · New Testament Greek
Learn the Greek alphabet, the core verb and noun patterns, and the past tenses step by step, until you can read the opening of the Gospel of John in the original words.
Hello, my name is Finn, and I'm going to help you understand this course.
Here it is, explained like you are 10:
Greek sounds hard, but the New Testament was written in the everyday Greek that ordinary people spoke in markets and harbors, called Koine, which means common. That is good news for you. The alphabet has only 24 letters, and many of them look or sound like English letters you already know. In this course you learn the letters first, then one friendly verb, then nouns with their little word for the, then the past tenses and participles. Every step uses real words from the New Testament itself. By the last lesson you will read the famous first line of John's Gospel in Greek, slowly and proudly, understanding each word as you go.
Start with the alphabet, and do not rush it. Say each letter out loud, write it a few times, and connect it to a Greek word you care about, like λόγος for word. Short daily practice beats one long weekend session every time. Ten honest minutes a day will carry the letters into your long term memory within a week or two.
When grammar shows up, keep it tied to real sentences. A verb ending is much easier to remember when you have just seen it working inside John 1:1. Read slowly, translate in pencil, and reread the same short passage several days in a row. Repetition is not cheating here. It is exactly how the language settles in.
The whole course in brief
What you will be able to do after this course
The eight lessons
Lesson 1
The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, and Machen puts it first for a good reason: once you can read the letters, every later lesson opens up. The letters are Α α alpha, Β β beta, Γ γ gamma, Δ δ delta, Ε ε epsilon, Ζ ζ zeta, Η η eta, Θ θ theta, Ι ι iota, Κ κ kappa, Λ λ lambda, Μ μ mu, Ν ν nu, Ξ ξ xi, Ο ο omicron, Π π pi, Ρ ρ rho, Σ σ/ς sigma, Τ τ tau, Υ υ upsilon, Φ φ phi, Χ χ chi, Ψ ψ psi, and Ω ω omega. Many will feel familiar at once. Alpha, beta, and omicron look like cousins of English letters, and our word alphabet is simply alpha plus beta.
A few letters need special care. Sigma has two small forms: σ in the middle of a word and ς at the end. Eta and omega are long vowels, while epsilon and omicron are short ones, a difference that matters for accents later. Work through the alphabet in small groups of six, saying each name and sound aloud while you write the capital and the small letter side by side. Then read simple words letter by letter, even before you know what they mean. Reading aloud, slowly and clearly, is the skill this whole course rests on, so build it from day one.
Lesson 2
Greek words carry small marks that guide your voice. A breathing mark sits over an initial vowel, or over the second vowel of a diphthong. The rough breathing tells you to add a soft h sound at the start, as in ὁ, pronounced ho. The smooth breathing tells you there is no h sound. Every word that begins with a vowel has one breathing or the other, so the marks are not decoration. They are part of correct reading, and Machen expects you to write them in your exercises from the start.
Accents are the second set of marks. Greek uses three: the acute, which raises the voice, the grave, which lowers it, and the circumflex, which does a little of both over a long vowel or diphthong. When a breathing and an accent stand over the same vowel, the breathing comes first and the accent sits above it or after it, as in οἶκος. For this course, one habit matters most: stress the syllable that carries the accent, keep your vowels clean and steady, and read at a calm pace. Pronunciation in Koine Greek study is a reconstructed classroom pronunciation, clear and consistent, so learners in any country can read the same text together.
Lesson 3
The present active indicative is the first verb form Machen teaches, and the model verb is λύω, I loose. Its forms are λύω, I loose; λύεις, you loose; λύει, he, she, or it looses; λύομεν, we loose; λύετε, you loose, speaking to more than one person; and λύουσι(ν), they loose. The final nu in parentheses is a movable letter that appears before a vowel or at the end of a sentence. Notice the pattern: the stem λυ stays the same, and the endings change to show who is doing the action. Greek packs the subject into the ending, so a separate word for I or we is often left out.
The present indicative usually describes action happening now or action that happens regularly, and in storytelling it can carry an ongoing feel. Learn this one paradigm well and you own the key to hundreds of verbs, because most regular verbs follow λύω closely. Say the six forms aloud in order, then cover the Greek and produce each form from the English. Then reverse it: hear a form and name the person and number. That quick two way drill, repeated over several days, turns a chart into a reflex.
Lesson 4
Greek nouns have gender, and the little word for the tells you which kind you are looking at. The article is ὁ for masculine words, ἡ for feminine words, and τό for neuter words. When you learn a new noun, learn its article with it, the way you might learn a name and a face together. The article does more than point. It can turn an adjective into a noun, mark out a specific person or thing, and help you track who is who across a long sentence.
Nouns also change their endings to show their job in the sentence. A noun doing the action looks different from a noun receiving it, and different again when it shows possession. This system of endings is called declension, and it is the second big pattern of the course after verb endings. Do not try to memorize every ending at once. Start by recognizing the article on sight and asking two questions of each noun: what gender is it, and what job is the ending giving it here? Those two questions, asked patiently, will carry you through most beginner sentences in Machen and most simple verses in the Gospels.
Lesson 5
An adjective describes a noun, and in Greek it must agree with its noun in gender, number, and case. That agreement is a gift to the reader: when several nouns stand close together, the matching endings show which describing word belongs with which noun. An adjective can stand right beside its noun with the article repeated, or it can carry the main statement of the sentence, as in the word is good. Position and the article together tell you how to take it, and a little practice makes the signals feel natural.
Prepositions are small words with big influence. Each preposition works with a particular case of the noun that follows it, and the same preposition can shift meaning with a different case. Words like ἐν, in, εἰς, into, ἐκ, out of, πρός, toward or with, and διά, through, appear again and again in the New Testament, so learning the common ones early pays off on every page. Build tiny phrases first: a noun, its article, a preposition, and an adjective that agrees. Short, correct phrases are the bricks from which real translation is built, and they give you steady wins while the bigger grammar falls into place.
Lesson 6
Greek tells past stories with more than one tense, and the difference is about how the action is viewed. The imperfect describes action that was going on, repeated, or left unfinished in the past. The imperfect of λύω begins ἔλυον, I was loosing. Notice the ἐ added at the front, called an augment, which is a signpost of past time, and the endings that follow it. When a Gospel writer uses the imperfect, picture a scene in progress, like a film still rolling.
The aorist tells the same past story differently. It presents the action as a complete whole, a single event viewed from the outside. The first aorist of λύω is ἔλυσα, I loosed, with the sigma as its clear signature between the stem and the ending. When a writer chooses the aorist, picture a snapshot rather than a film. Neither tense is better. Skilled writers mix them: background in the imperfect, main events in the aorist. As you read, ask of each past verb whether the writer shows the action unfolding or presents it complete. That one question deepens your reading right away.
Lesson 7
A participle is a verb form that behaves partly like an adjective. It carries action, but it describes a person or thing rather than standing as the main verb of the sentence. The present participle of λύω is λύων, loosing. You might meet a phrase like the man loosing the sandals, where loosing tells you more about the man. Participles agree with the words they describe, just as adjectives do, so their endings carry gender, number, and case information that helps you attach them to the right noun.
The New Testament loves participles. Whole chains of them let a writer pack background, timing, and manner into one flowing sentence, which is why a single Greek sentence can become several sentences in English. When you meet a participle, translate it first with an ing word, then ask what it adds: is it telling when something happened, why it happened, or simply describing someone? Keep the main verb of the sentence in view, and let the participles gather around it like supporting actors. With that habit, long sentences in the Gospels stop looking tangled and start looking rich.
Lesson 8
Here is your first real reading, the opening line of John's Gospel: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. Take it phrase by phrase. Ἐν ἀρχῇ means in the beginning, with the preposition ἐν doing familiar work. ἦν means was, the past tense of the verb to be. ὁ λόγος is the Word, a masculine noun with its article. Nothing here is new: it is your alphabet, your article, and your verb knowledge, all working together in a famous sentence.
Keep going word by word. καὶ means and. πρὸς τὸν θεόν means with God, or toward God, and the note of closeness in πρός is one reason translators linger over this verse. The line then turns around: καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, and God was the Word, with the word order itself adding emphasis. Read the whole verse aloud three times, slowly, letting the accents guide your stress. Then read an English translation and compare. You have just read Scripture in the language its author wrote, Koine, the common Greek of the first century world. That is the milestone this course promised.
Sources
This course is taught from classic texts that are free for anyone to read. Every method in the lessons traces back to one of these books.
Graduation
Eight short lessons ago, the Greek alphabet was a wall of strange signs. Now you can sound out any word, follow a verb from present to past, track nouns by their articles, and read the opening of John with understanding. Keep the habit small and daily: one verse, read aloud, translated in pencil. From here, the rest of the grammar is more of what you already know how to do, and every chapter of the Gospels is open to you.
Keep learning
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