The Open Secret to Mastering Greek and Hebrew Vocabulary (It’s Not Flashcards)

how to memorize greek and hebrew vocabulary

You could tell I was one of them. The hole-punched cards hanging from a steel ring on my belt loop gave me away.

I was an ancient language student.

The cards were my flashcards, and I didn’t go anywhere without them: to class, to the student dining room, to the dorm, to the movies, even to weddings. I would flip through them whenever I had a spare moment.

I had to, because learning a new language requires discipline and perseverance. Even after you’ve conquered the grammatical and syntactical intricacies of the language, you still need to add more (and more) words to your vocabulary storehouse—and somehow maintain what you’ve already learned.

While flashcards were helpful, I found they weren’t enough. I needed a better way to learn new words and reinforce the words I already knew.

So I started reading my Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament.

Reader’s editions to the rescue

When I first started seriously reading in the original languages, my lack of vocabulary was still holding me back. I would read two words, be forced to look up a word in my lexicon, read three words, then have to look up another. The process was deflating, and I know many students of Greek and Hebrew who have given up hope of ever learning the biblical languages for this very reason.

Reader’s editions were my answer. A reader’s edition of the Greek New Testament or Hebrew Old Testament has multiple footnotes on each page displaying the glosses for unfamiliar words. A reader’s edition reduces the friction caused by a student’s insufficient knowledge of vocabulary. No more flipping through a lexicon to find the word you don’t know. Instead, simply drop your eyes to the bottom of the page, grab the contextual gloss, and continue reading the text.

It’s like a parent (or older sibling) who feeds words into the struggling sentences of a toddler who is just learning to talk.

The problem with printed reader’s editions

But by the time that child is five, the constant interjections are no longer a help; they are interruptions. In the case of the younger language learner, they may even stunt growth. Ideally, there would be multiple levels of reader’s editions, each tailored for the vocabulary knowledge of different readers—so that the helps didn’t actually become hindrances.

Enter Logos Bible Software’s new Reader’s Edition feature, available in Logos Now. With the Reader’s Edition, I can transform any of my interlinear texts in Logos—the Hebrew Old Testament, Greek New Testament, Septuagint, and Apostolic Fathers—into an original language reader.

But here’s the best part: Logos has created a dynamic reader’s edition which I can modify to meet my needs, to match my level. I can create word lists that contain all the words I know so that only those are hidden. Or I can hide words based on their frequency of use in the corpus of literature I’m studying. And I can continually adjust the parameters as I learn more words.

Take a look at this video to see how.

This feature is available with a subscription to Logos Now. Get your first month free!

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Written by
Jacob Cerone
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29 comments
  • Does this work on the iPad?
    I am most likely to read the Bible as I wait in a Doctor’s office or for a bus, rather than sitting in front of my computer.

    • Jorge,

      Currently it’s not available for the mobile app. I’ll make sure to pass along the suggestion!

  • Hi,

    I am a Logos Now subscriber. When will this feature be released? I just opened my interlinear and didn’t see it. Is only for the LEB or ESV as well? Thanks.

    • Steven,

      This feature is already available for Logos Now. The feature works with texts that have interlinears. These would include:

      1. The Lexham Greek-English Interlinear New Testament
      2. The Lexham Greek-English Interlinear New Testament: SBL Edition
      3. The Lexham Greek-English Interlinear Septuagint
      4. The Lexham Greek-English Interlinear Septuagint, Alternative Texts
      5. The Apostolic Fathers Greek-English Interliear
      6. The Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible
  • I have to agree with Jorge. I was about ready to subscribe in order to have the Reader’s Edition until I saw it’s not available on mobile devices. Please let us know when it’s ready for mobile use.

    • I use my mobile devices more than anything else, even in church, I can open my iPad to read the Scripture from it. Unfortunately, features that would be helpful do NOT work without an internet connection, no matter if I have all the books downloaded. That is very frustrating.
      I think someone needs to be in charge of development that actually uses the app in real life. Theory does not take us far enough, as you can see.

    • Logos Now is $9.99/month or $89.99/yr. It includes a number of other features—not just the Reader’s Edition. You can find out more about the features in Logos Now here.

      • I went with the year. You basically get two months free that way. I can say it’s DEFINITELY worth it 🙂

  • It would be nice to control morphology separately. In other words, sometimes the morphology would be helpful for known vocabulary.

    • Even if a word is hidden, you always have the ability to hover over any of the words and the tooltip will pop up at the bottom of the page with your morphological information. Does that help?

      • I know this is slightly off topic, but is there a way to make the tool tip text bigger? It’s awful tiny, especially on big screens.

        • Ditto. Excellent suggestion.
          Using Lexicons is also a pain as the letters at the bottom of the screen are ridiculously small. Same thing on the iPad.

  • Interesting feature. I’ll use it, I’m sure. (Please correct the spelling of “occurring” in the drop down menu where the user enables the Reader’s Edition!)

  • Hum.

    That sounds good. Now if only FL brought out versions for students learning modern languages so they could read the Bible in the language they are learning and drop their eyes the bottom for English. Or their own language if they were learning English and reading an English Bible. You might be onto a winner there …

    • This is a very interesting suggestion—and one I would personally benefit form. I know that we are continuing to expand our support of other languages such as German-Greek and German-Hebrew interlinears. I’m not sure, though, if we would ever do a German-English interlinear.

      • If you do, I’ll buy it. I have to learn theological German for my degree, and I’ll need as much practice as possible.

  • This seems like a VERY worthwhile feature. In my case, I am not interested in a subscription, but rather, would prefer to purchase specific features I found interesting to me. Or, will some of these things become part of Logos 7?

    • Gregorio,

      Some of these features will indeed be a part of Logos 7, though we don’t know what that will look like yet.

  • I can open the interlinear, but when I click on Reader Edition, I either get all the words, or none. it does not seem to matter what number I enter into the box for occurring more than X times. The word list I have seems to ones I made in the mobil app when I was trying to use flash cards.
    I have paid for a NOW subscription, but do not seem to have the features. How do I know I am getting access to it?

Written by Jacob Cerone
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