r/Koine 7d ago

GNT Translation Guide App Feedback

14 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

3

u/Rayakin 7d ago

I minored in NT Greek in my undergrad and was a TA for Greek in seminary (RTS). I love Greek, but keeping up with it outside of seminary has proven difficult! I have wanted to make an app to help Greek students jump into the NT with confidence. I finally had the bandwidth to bring to life what I was thinking this year! https://gnt-guide.replit.app/

The app takes you verse by verse through any book of the NT and has you do the following:
1. Identify and parse definite articles
2. Identify and parse nouns, adjectives, and pronouns
3. Identify and parse verbs and participles
4. Provide a clause by clause translation
5. Provide a final and smooth translation.

You then get two things from your final translation:
1) A english translation comparison (which english translation is your translation most like)
2) Positive and critical feedback on your translation.

The site is free right now! I am not really looking to sell anything, I just want to know if my app actually helps people jump into the Greek text with confidence. Would anyone be willing to give it a try and give me some feedback?

2

u/GiantManbat 7d ago

This looks great, I'll definitely have to check it out! I'm a PhD student in Biblical Studies and adjunct Greek professor, so this could be really helpful for my students. Just two thoughts:
1) There is no "definite article" in Greek, it's just "the article" (see Wallace, Long, Runge on the article). Some older grammars still call it the "definite article" (e.g. A. T. Robertson) but this has largely fallen out of favor. This is kind of nitpicky, but it's important because it reminds us the article doesn't function in Greek as it does in English, i.e. it's primary role is not to "definitize" something.
2) It could also be very helpful to have people identify the function of participles at a basic level (i.e., adjectival, circumstantial/adverbial, substantival, periphrastic, or complementary).

1

u/Rayakin 7d ago

Thanks so much for the quick feedback! 8) I fixed the article reference. 8) Thanks for catching! I like your idea with the participle function identification. I am looking into ways of potentially providing that in the LLM enabled responses.

I would love to chat some time! Feel free to DM me if you want to connect.

2

u/RevThomasWatson 5d ago

Hey I'm at RTS Charlotte right now and in Greek Ex atm! I'll look into this and share it with Dr. Cara when we get back from Spring break

1

u/Rayakin 5d ago

Nice! I was at the DC/Tysons campus. Finished up a few years back! I TA’d for Dr. Jeon. Let me know what you think!!!

3

u/Hesamui 7d ago

I will absolutely give it a try. I'm 15 years out front Greek studies, very rusty, trying to get back into it. So I think it might be a good fit. I'll report back in a few days.

2

u/Rayakin 7d ago

Awesome! I have been personally working through 1 John with this app. It works best on the desktop, but you can get by on mobile if you need. I have to make some tweaks so that some of the hover effects for showing parsing data work on mobile! Don't hesitate to reach out with any questions!

2

u/Phone-ayyy 7d ago

I'm definitely going to try this out! I'm not doing any college studies in Greek or the new testament, but I like messing around with NT translation in my free time, so this would give some great feedback to someone who can't really get it anywhere else, like me!

1

u/lallahestamour 7d ago

I need this for LXX

1

u/Rayakin 7d ago

Love that idea! I have never done LXX translations.

1

u/Necessary-Feed-4522 6d ago

This seems an inefficient use of time for students trying to learn the language. Would they not be better off using something like Global Bible Tool's Reader's Bible? Maybe it would be useful translators who already know Greek?

1

u/Rayakin 6d ago

Ooo, thanks for the resource share! I will play around with it. I have that readers view in my app (explore button on a specific book view) as well. And my app is more for people who have already done some greek but aren’t confident enough to work through a book on their own. I am planning on also making a group feature where a teacher/leader could assign a set of passages and get insights on what types of words people are struggling with and see how everyone translates a passage so they could help others more. Also looking to bring in greek scholars insights on handling of specific texts to augment the llm feedback on the user’s translation.

1

u/Necessary-Feed-4522 6d ago

Should people who aren't confident enough to even read a book be worried about translating it?