C. S. Lewis once said something that perfectly illustrates the problem with how most people learn biblical Greek and Hebrew. Describing his own breakthrough in Greek, he wrote:
“I was beginning to think in Greek. That is the great Rubicon to cross in learning any language.”
C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Readers who hunt for each word in the lexicon and swap in the English equivalent, Lewis went on, are not really reading the Greek at all; they are only solving a puzzle. Even the formula “naus means a ship” is wrong: naus and ship both mean a thing, not each other. Behind naus the reader should picture the ship itself, with no English word intruding.
This brings us to the first trap many people fall into when learning the biblical languages (or any language, really).
01 Mistake
They only learn how to translate, not read fluently
Translating word by word is just reading English through Greek. The point of learning the biblical languages is to understand the original text directly, which means training yourself to think in the language itself.
If you are learning Greek and Hebrew in order to be able to translate each individual word, you might as well just read a translation. Indeed, Lewis says that reading Greek in this way is actually not reading the Greek at all. It is just reading English through Greek.
This is not why anyone learns the biblical languages. The great benefit of learning Greek and Hebrew is to access the original meaning of the text in a deeper way than what is available in a translation. As Lewis says, the way to accomplish this is to train yourself to think in the language itself.
Go deeper
- Sense and reference (Intro to Biblical Language Linguistics)
- How to read deeply in Greek in the Koine Greek Wiki
02 Mistake
They learn about the language rather than the language itself
Knowing grammar is not the same as knowing a language. Grammar can help, but if your goal is to read Greek and Hebrew, spend most of your time using the language rather than studying explanations of it.
My four-year-old son can read Hebrew. He knows zero Hebrew grammar, but he clearly understands some Hebrew.
Learning a language is different from learning about a language. A big mistake I see people make is thinking that learning a language means learning the grammar. Don’t get me wrong: it might still be helpful to learn about a language, and you may want to learn Greek and Hebrew grammar. However, that is not the same thing as learning Greek and Hebrew.
If your goal is to read Greek and Hebrew, you need to focus most of your attention on using the language rather than learning about it. Practice makes… better.
Go deeper
- Using Paul Nation’s Four Strands to learn Greek efficiently in the Koine Greek Wiki
03 Mistake
They don’t focus on fluency
Fluency means using a language automatically, without consciously thinking about it. You build it two ways: practice easy material, and go fast.
“Are you fluent?” I get asked this question a lot when I say that I know Greek and Hebrew. Fluency is sort of the Holy Grail of language learning. It’s when you know a language so well that you don’t have to consciously think about using it.
The problem is that many people don’t know how to practice in order to develop fluency. There are two key elements to getting fluent:
- Practice easy material.
- Go fast.
Practicing easy material is essential because it allows you to internalize what you already know. When someone is fluent in a language, they can speak, read, write, or listen to it automatically and easily. This involves revisiting old material and mastering it, so that you don’t just know it, but it has become a part of you.
Being able to use the language easily is not all we want; we also need to be able to use it fast. When you go back to practicing easy material, put some pressure on yourself to go fast in order to develop fluency. Speeding up your reading will help you comprehend the text better, because you will be able to hold more of it in your mind as you read.
Go deeper
- The fluency strand in Paul Nation’s Four Strands (Koine Greek Wiki)
04 Mistake
They don’t immerse themselves in the culture
Words connect speakers to their world. To understand biblical Greek and Hebrew, connect the original words to the original world of the Bible, not to our modern one.
Returning to C. S. Lewis, learning Greek and Hebrew is not just about learning the closest English equivalent to each word. It is also about learning the culture the language was set in.
It is true that the Greek word ναῦς (naus) is best translated “boat,” and what ancient Greek speakers would have called a naus, we today would call a boat. However, no ancient Greek speaker would have thought of the Titanic when they said naus, because such boats did not exist. If languages connect speakers to the world in which they live, learning the world of a language is an essential part of learning the language itself.
Greek and Hebrew scholars are starting to recognize this more and more, and there are now various resources that try to immerse you not only in the languages of the Bible but also in its cultures. We do this in Biblingo by including thousands of images and videos of reconstructed scenes set in biblical Israel, actually filmed in the land of Israel itself. However you do it, make sure you are connecting the original words of the Bible to the original world, rather than our world, as much as possible.
Go deeper
- Sense and reference: how words point to things in the world (Intro to Biblical Language Linguistics)
05 Mistake
They don’t try to produce the language
Research in second language acquisition shows that practicing harder skills, like speaking and writing, speeds up gains in easier ones, like listening and reading. Even if your goal is reading, produce the language too.
Our goal in learning to read the Bible in the original languages is not merely to learn to read Greek or Hebrew; it is to learn to read as efficiently as possible. In order to read, you need to read, and you need to read a lot. But practicing other language skills will also help you reach the goal of fluent reading, and may get you there faster.
Research in the field of second language acquisition has shown that practicing a harder language skill like speaking results in faster gains in the easier skill of listening. So what is the takeaway? The most efficient way to learn to read is to practice the harder language skills too, especially speaking and writing.
Even though we focus on fluent reading in Biblingo, we include drills where you speak and write for this very reason: it is the most efficient way to acquire Greek and Hebrew.
Go deeper
- Using Paul Nation’s Four Strands to learn Greek efficiently in the Koine Greek Wiki
Simplify and accelerate your learning
I hope this list of common language-learning pitfalls is helpful to you on your journey to reading the Bible in its original languages.
If you want to simplify and accelerate your learning, check out Biblingo. We’ve poured thousands of hours and the best second-language acquisition scholarship into the app so you can spend your time learning in the most efficient and effective way possible. If you spend 15–30 minutes a day with Biblingo, you should be fluent enough to start reading the Bible in Greek or Hebrew in just one year.
No credit card required. Start learning in 5 minutes.