Card deck with sets of 4: singular nouns (nom, gen, dat, acc) and plural nouns, all from the first declension. There are 8 sets of singular nouns and 5 sets of plural nouns, for a total of 52 cards.

GO FISH: ΑΛΙΕΥΕΙΝ ΔΕΙ

I believe in lots of practice when learning languages, with practice focused ONLY on the language you are learning. So, if you are learning Greek, practice Greek... not English. Don't just repeat the paradigms (BORING); play games instead! I like the matching and concentration games at Quia for playing alone, but when you have two or more people you can play ἁλιεύειν δεῖ, "go fish" (i.e., it is necessary δεῖ to fish ἁλιεύειν).

The Deck. You need a deck which contains sets of cards. In a traditional card deck there are 4 items in a set (4 aces, kings, queens, etc.), but now you will make your own deck that contains sets of things: sets of 2, sets of 3, or sets of 4 like in a traditional card deck, with around 50 or so cards total like in a traditional deck. So, for ancient Greek, I will be using decks made up of sets like this:

sing. nouns: nom, gen, dat, acc AND plural nouns: nom, gen, dat, acc
nouns: nom sing, nom pl, acc sing, acc pl (the most important forms)
singular verbs: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person (for a specific voice, tense, mood) AND plural verbs: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person
verbs: 1st, 3rd sing and 1st, 3rd plural (the most important forms)
verbs: 3rd singular for multiple voices / tenses / moods of a verb

And on and on; you get the idea. You can assign the making of decks as homework; it's like a worksheet, but way better... because then you get to play games with the decks!

I use big sturdy flashcards so that the decks can be reused. I also use colored markers to make the sets. Not every set is a different color (although if you have enough colored markers, you could do that), but every item in a set is the same color as the others so that it helps reinforce the set.

Scroll on down for the rules...

The Game. I know my family's rules, but looking around on the Internet, I saw lots of variations! You can play the game with 2 or more players. The goal is to acquire cards by completing sets (either 2 or 3 or 4 items in each set, based on your deck). The player with the most cards at the end wins.

You start by dealing out a hand to each player OR each player drawing from the pool. In my family we started with 7 cards, but I see on the Internet that some people play with a starting hand of 5 cards. You can use whatever method you like for who goes first; in my family, we played that the youngest player went first and then clockwise.

When it's your turn, you ask another player, "ἔχεις ___?"

If the other player has it, they answer: ἔχω. They then give that card to you. If that makes a complete set, you lay down those cards, and you get another turn.

If the other player does not have it, they answer: οὐκ ἐχω. ἁλιεύειν δεῖ. You then draw a card from the pool. In my family, we played that if you drew the card you asked for, you got another turn, but from looking at rules on the Internet, I see not everybody plays that way: you draw a card and that is the end of your turn.

There are also different ways of ending the game, especially if you have more than 2 players. In my family, we played that when you ran out of cards, you drew another card from the pool. If the pool was empty and you had no more cards, you drew a card from the hand of any other player, and the game was over only when all the cards had been collected. I see on the Internet, however, that some people decide that the game is over when one player has an empty hand. Another possibility: the game ends when the pool is empty. I also see that some people play that if your hand is empty and the pool is empty, you do not play any more, but the other players continue until all the cards are collected in sets.

So, given the different options, make sure you agree on the specific rules of the game you will follow. For language learning, I suggest choosing some variation that will allow the game to keep going until all the sets are collected.

You can see why this game is really good language practice! It gets you saying the forms of the words out loud, and you have to be able to name the forms not already in your hand in order to make a complete set. Plus, you need to remember what words the other player(s) have asked for so that if you draw one of those cards later, you can return to that player and get their card(s) from them.

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