NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)

Quickstart: your first filtered deck

Study exactly the words you need — the vocabulary of the chapter you are about to read, or the most common words first — by pasting one name and one search into Anki. It takes about two minutes.

1. Get the deck

Download NT Greek (By Freq or Chap) from AnkiWeb and open the file in Anki, or use File → Import.

2. Pick a row

The Filtered decks tab has a Name and a Search for every chapter and every frequency tier. Choose one:

• To read a chapter: find it in the By chapter table. Type something like John 3 in the filter box.
• To build vocabulary: start with the most common words in the By frequency table (Instances 50+) and work down.

Or try one of these to begin with:

3. Create the filtered deck in Anki

1. In Anki’s main window choose Tools → Create Filtered Deck…
2. Paste the Name into the name box and the Search into the search box.
3. Review the Limit and change as desired. The default of 100 cards would cut the deck short.
4. Click Build.

4. Study

Click the new filtered deck in Anki’s deck list and study as usual.

5. Empty it and move on

When you finish, open the filtered deck and click Empty. The cards return to their home deck. Then build the next one.

Where next

• Filtered decks: the full list of names and searches.
• Tag guide: how the tags work and how to write your own searches.

Filtered deck names and searches

Every chapter of the New Testament and every frequency tier, ready to paste into Anki’s filtered deck dialog. Use the Copy button in a cell, or select the text yourself. New here? Start with the Quickstart.

1. In Anki’s main window choose Tools → Create Filtered Deck…
2. Paste the Name into the name box.
3. Paste the Search into the search box.
4. Raise the Limit (the default is 100 cards) so the deck takes every matching card, for example 9999.
5. Click Build.

By frequency

By chapter

1. Overview

Each card in this deck is one Greek lemma (dictionary form). Every note uses the Greek NT Vocab note type and carries tags in a single hierarchy that begins with GNT:: (Greek New Testament). Two tag families are the heart of the deck:

• Frequency tags (GNT::freq::…) — how many times the lemma occurs in the New Testament. One per note.
• Chapter tags (GNT::Book::…) — every New Testament chapter in which the lemma appears. One or many per note.

A third family, part-of-speech tags (GNT::POS::…), is also included.

What a tagged note looks like

The proper noun Γάϊος, -ου, ὁ (Gaius) occurs five times in the New Testament, so it carries the frequency tag for “5”. Those five occurrences are spread across five chapters, so it carries five chapter tags:

GNT::freq::G:5
GNT::Book::12:Rom::16
GNT::Book::17:1Co::01
GNT::Book::26:Ac::19
GNT::Book::26:Ac::20
GNT::Book::03:3J::01
GNT::POS::ProperNoun

A word that occurs only once (a hapax legomenon) has exactly one chapter tag. A very common word such as the article has a great many.

Note fields

2. Frequency tags

Frequency tags group lemmas into eleven tiers by number of occurrences in the New Testament. Every note has one.

Anatomy of a frequency tag: GNT::freq::A:50+ — the root, the tag family, then a letter and the occurrence range.

Because the tiers use ranges, you can pick a cut-off that suits your level. For example, tiers A–D together are “every word that occurs 10 or more times”.

3. Chapter tags

Chapter tags record where a lemma occurs. Every New Testament chapter has its own tag — 260 in all — and a note is tagged with every chapter in which its lemma appears at least once.

Anatomy of a chapter tag: GNT::Book::04:Jn::03 — the tag family, then a book code, then a two-digit chapter number. This one is John 3.

Book codes

Search a whole book by using the book tag without a chapter (e.g. GNT::Book::04:Jn). Search a single chapter by adding :: and the two-digit chapter (e.g. GNT::Book::04:Jn::03).

4. Part-of-speech tags

Most notes also have one part-of-speech tag, which is handy for narrowing a search (for example, only the verbs in a chapter). A few notes have no part-of-speech tag; the partofspeech field on the note still shows it.

5. Searching with tags

Clicking in the browser sidebar

Open Browse in Anki. In the sidebar, expand Tags → GNT. You will see freq, Book, and POS. Expand a family and click any tag to show its cards. Clicking a book shows every word in that book; expanding it lets you click a single chapter.

Typing a search

Type searches into the search bar at the top of the browser. Include the deck so you don’t match other decks that may share these tags:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::freq::A*

The rules that matter for this deck:

• The deck name goes in quotes (it contains spaces and parentheses). Quoting the whole term, "deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)", works.
• A parent tag matches all its children. tag:GNT::Book::04:Jn finds every chapter of John.
• * is a wildcard. tag:GNT::freq::A* is a handy shorthand for the tier tag GNT::freq::A:50+ so you don’t have to type the range.
• Spaces mean AND. tag:X tag:Y finds notes with both tags.
• OR means either, and needs parentheses when combined with other terms: (tag:X OR tag:Y).
• A leading - means NOT. -tag:GNT::freq::A* excludes tier A.

6. Search recipes

Copy any of these into the Anki browser search bar or into a filtered deck’s search box. Use the Copy button on each box.

By frequency

The most common words (50 or more occurrences):

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::freq::A*

Every word that occurs 10 or more times (tiers A–D):

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" (tag:GNT::freq::A* OR tag:GNT::freq::B* OR tag:GNT::freq::C* OR tag:GNT::freq::D*)

Words that occur only once:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::freq::K*

By chapter or book

Every word in John 3:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::Book::04:Jn::03

Every word in 1 John:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::Book::01:1J

A run of chapters (Romans 5–8) — list each chapter with OR:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" (tag:GNT::Book::12:Rom::05 OR tag:GNT::Book::12:Rom::06 OR tag:GNT::Book::12:Rom::07 OR tag:GNT::Book::12:Rom::08)

Vocabulary shared by two books (words that appear in both John and 1 John):

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::Book::04:Jn tag:GNT::Book::01:1J

Combining frequency and chapter

The rare words in a chapter — Philemon words that occur only once or twice (tiers J and K):

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::Book::05:Phlm (tag:GNT::freq::J* OR tag:GNT::freq::K*)

The words in a chapter you haven’t learned yet, excluding the most common ones — new cards from Mark 1 that occur fewer than 10 times:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::Book::10:Mk::01 is:new -tag:GNT::freq::A* -tag:GNT::freq::B* -tag:GNT::freq::C* -tag:GNT::freq::D*

Adding part of speech

Every verb in Jude:

"deck:NT Greek (By Freq or Chap)" tag:GNT::Book::24:Jud tag:GNT::POS::Verb

7. Studying with filtered decks

Searches become most useful when you turn them into a filtered deck, which temporarily gathers matching cards into a study deck.

Ready-made names and searches for every chapter and every frequency tier are on the Filtered decks tab.

1. In the main Anki window choose Tools → Create Filtered Deck….
2. Give it a name (for example “John 3 – rare words”).
3. Paste one of the search recipes above into the Search box.
4. Set a Limit (how many cards to pull in) and choose an order.
5. Click Build and study as usual. When you’re finished, empty or delete the filtered deck and the cards return to their home deck with their scheduling intact.

Three ways to use the tags

• Frequency-first. Work down the tiers: master A, then B, and so on. High-frequency words give you the most reading coverage per card learned.
• Reading-first. Before reading a passage, build a filtered deck for that chapter (adding is:new to skip words you already know). You meet the vocabulary just before you need it.
• Hybrid. Combine the two: for a chapter you’re about to read, exclude the very common words you’ve already learned, and focus on the tiers you haven’t reached yet.

8. Tips and cautions

• Don’t rename or delete the tags. Because they are hierarchical, renaming a parent in the sidebar renames all of its children, which will break the searches in this guide.
• Filtered decks skip some cards. Anki does not pull suspended or buried cards, or cards already sitting in another filtered deck, into a new filtered deck.
• Sort order in the sidebar. Books appear in study order (01–27), not in canonical Bible order. Use the book code table to find a book.
• Use a current version of Anki. The tag tree in the browser sidebar and parent-tag searching rely on Anki’s hierarchical tag support.
• Include the deck in your search. If you have other decks that use GNT:: tags, the deck filter keeps results limited to this deck.