How do I move through the “flash cards”?
Swipe toward the left to move from Greek to English. Swipe toward the left again to get the next Greek word, and so on. Swiping toward the right allows the user to move backward through the stack.
What do the blue bars on the bottom of the main screen track?
The top bar reports the current stack and has a fraction in parenthesis reporting total words in the stack (denominator) and the user’s current position in the stack (numerator). For instance, if the fraction reads (3/833) the user is viewing the third of 833 words in the stack. When they move to the next Greek word, the fraction will read (4/833). The middle bar reports the New Testament occurrence of the current Greek word. The bottom bar counts how many words have been reviewed this session. This session count resets whenever the app is closed.
How do I change stacks?
Touch the top right “blue fig” button on the home screen which brings up the “Please select a card stack and sort” screen. If you select a shuffled stack from this screen, the main screen will reappear showing the shuffled stack you selected. If you have reviewed this shuffled stack previously, the word displayed will be the last word you viewed the previous time you reviewed the stack. If not, it will start with the first word in the stack. When you choose a descending sort stack, there is the option to select a natural starting point. If you master 50+ word stack and decide move to the 15+ stack, you can start from the beginning, where you last left off (via the “Resume” button) or with words that have 49, 39, 29 or 19 occurrences, 49 occurrences being a natural place to start after mastering the 50+ stack.
Will I lose my place in the current stack if I close the app or switch to a new stack?
No, the app remembers the last word reviewed in each card stack, so you can switch between stacks or close the app and it will open to where you left off.
What happens when I reach the end of the stack?
The app loops back to the first word, allowing for continual review.
When I get to the “Please select a card stack and sort” screen, the 30+ and 15+ stack buttons do not work?
These stacks are available in Flash-It Greek Pro, available on Google Play.
I am relatively new to Biblical Greek and have now mastered the 50+ word stack, which stack should I choose next?
I would recommend the 30+ descending stack. This stack prepares students to begin using the Reader’s Greek New Testament – a great resource for reading the New Testament in Greek. It has English glosses for all words with less than 30 occurrences in the footnotes of each page. So once students have mastered the 30+ word stack, they can read Greek New Testament passages much more quickly and easily using this resource.
What is the purpose of the descending sort stacks versus the shuffled sort stacks?
Many New Testament Greek students employ a “descending occurrence” method to learning new Greek vocabulary, as it is an efficient way to begin approaching the New Testament in Greek. Under this method, students learn the most commonly appearing words first, such as “και” which means “and” and occurs in the New Testament 19,904 times. By learning this frequently occurring word, students now know 14% of all words appearing in the New Testament. The descending sort card stacks facilitate this method of learning vocabulary. The shuffled sorts are for advanced students who have mastered all the words in a particular stack and are interested in maintaining their mastery. For them, a descending sort is inefficient, as it weights review time unevenly between frequently occurring words – words they are unlikely to need to focus on (such as “and”) since they appear often in the New Testament – and less frequently occurring words.
What does the “Resume” button do (located on the descending sort “Select a starting point” screen)?
It will open the selected stack starting with the Greek word you left off with the last time you reviewed that stack. If it is the first time you have selected the stack, it will default to the beginning of the stack.
What do the “49 Occurrences”, “39 Occurrences” and related buttons do (located on the descending sort “Select a starting point” screen)?
These open the selected stack starting with the first Greek word with that number of occurrences. For example, if you select the “39 Occurrences” button, the newly selected stack will open showing the first Greek word in the stack with 39 New Testament occurrences.
Are the Greek word stacks complete and accurate?
Yes. The master word list was carefully cross checked against several sources and the English glosses were reviewed against BDAG.
Does the order of the words in the shuffled stack change every time the stack is changed?
No, the order of the shuffled stacks is fixed. However, if there are enough requests for a refresh, it will be done in a future update.