Learning Greek... not geek

Echo toxin

Echo toxin

Echo toxin

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Well I am off on me hols next June to Cyprus for my sister's wedding. I would like to learn some Greek before I go. Anyone got ideas on how to go about it? I know there is a new proggie the Beeb have done so I will check that out. Any recommendations for good websites or good books to learn from?
 
Trouble is, you have a different alphabet. You can try and learn that with books, but you'll struggle with the pronounciations of the letters, let alone the words.

Similar situation to Russian. When I went to Russia I was totally lost because I didnt know cyrillic. I went away and took a course so now when I go I can read words and try and learn from there.

I guess you could try and read the words as spelled in English, but this is REALLY difficult in terms of getting the pronounciation right, I wouldnt recommend it.

EDIT: I dont know any Greek though, maybe its much easier. Doesnt look it though.
 
Try something like The Rosetta Stone. Greek isn't too hard in that you say things as they are written, you can learn the alphabet and then read most things and people will understand. There are 18 ways to say 'the' which is a little confusing.
 
D4VE said:
Trouble is, you have a different alphabet. You can try and learn that with books, but you'll struggle with the pronounciations of the letters, let alone the words.
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From the quick look I had on the net, the alphabet seems very straight forward. Remember back to school days using mathematics and science - the Greek alphabet is commonplace. Most people know a clutch of letters like alpha, beta, gamma, delta, omega, sigma.
 
I dont know any Greek though, maybe its much easier. Doesnt look it though.
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Not quite sure about that. I mean I reckon both are equally hard to learn but Russian got the advantage of being more spoken and actually having common words with other eastern European languages while Greek is pretty much on its own, as a language.
 
Echo toxin said:
From the quick look I had on the net, the alphabet seems very straight forward. Remember back to school days using mathematics and science - the Greek alphabet is commonplace. Most people know a clutch of letters like alpha, beta, gamma, delta, omega, sigma.
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Sure, we know the names of the letters, but what about the pronounciation?

In my Russian class we would spend 10 mins a lession pronouncing and re-pronouncing the letters.
But maybe Greek letters are easier.
 
D4VE said:
Sure, we know the names of the letters, but what about the pronounciation?

In my Russian class we would spend 10 mins a lession pronouncing and re-pronouncing the letters.
But maybe Greek letters are easier.
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Ah, I see what you mean. Hmm. I thought it would be much the same as English. So the first character of each Greek letter is said as that letter. Alpha = 'a', Beta = 'b', Gamma = 'g', Delta = 'd', Epsilon = 'e' and so on...
 
Greek is not too bad. But bear in mind the Cypriots speak a bit of a bastardised version of Greek. Best thing to do is to have some lessons. Some people find picking up languages very easy (me for one) - but it's not for everyone. Fortunately I was exposed to Greek at a very young age (I'm part Cypriot... as well as part french, english and irish :p) so my ear was in tune to it fairly young and my pronounciation is very good. But I lack grammar and vocab - it's all about practice. You have to keep practicing it all the time or else you'll forget.

Maybe get yourself one of those Rosetta Stone language courses, or Linguaphone. If you can nail the alphabet and the grammar the rest is easy. I can read greek quite easily - though I don't always understand what I say! :o

Good luck to you :)
 
First, learn the alphabet.

Then, learn how to count.

Then, learn how to read words.

Then, learn some basic phrases, this one might be useful - then katalavehnoh ;)

That should set you up to learn some greek on hols, plus you'll be able to read shop signs and written greek, and a lot of greek words can be decyphered if you can read them.
 
The alphabet really isn't too difficult to pick up, it helps that all road signs are written in both Greek and English, so you can pick the pronunciations up fairly quickly.

When I moved out here my biggest guide was a little book with basic phrases. The biggest obstacle to learning out here is that nearly everyone is fluent in English, and if you try and speak to them in Greek they will answer in English. You really don't have to know Greek to get by, but it's always polite to learn the lingo when you go to a country, but even after about 6 months out here, my Greek is only basic conversational stuff, along with counting etc.
 
Moredhel said:
The biggest obstacle to learning out here is that nearly everyone is fluent in English, and if you try and speak to them in Greek they will answer in English.
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The buggers! Why can't they talk in their native tongue and make Johnny Foreigner look like an idiot when he tries to understand their reply! ;)

Anyway, 'tis Paphos that I will be going to, coincidentally. What's typical food in Cyprus? Something unique that I must try. And don't say a sheep's head or something daft like that.
 
Echo toxin said:
Well I'm confused already. Why has the word for 'a' got so many variations. I've already come across three- μια, ενα, ενας.
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I havn't read this thread in detail, so I don't know when you are going to Greece, but September is approaching so you could check out your local college and see if you can enrol into a course.
 
Echo toxin said:
Well I'm confused already. Why has the word for 'a' got so many variations. I've already come across three- μια, ενα, ενας.
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Ok, firstly, when the sigma is the last letter of a word, it is always a latin s, not a greek one.

Now, as for the different 'a''s:

εναs: One/a male person
Example: Εναs αντραs

ενα: One/a thing
Example: Ενα πραγμα

μια: One/a girl
Example: Μια κοπελλα

Does this make sense? The English examples are the translated Greek ones. If you have studied other Roman languages (esp. German), then you're back to the idea of a "gender" for words, and thus with the gender, the article also changes.

Btw, as others have mentioned, Cypriot Greek in its spoken form is very different than the Greek spoken in Greece (with the exception of Crete). But let this not be a bother to you, because Cypriots understand and speak "proper" ( ;) ) Greek :)
 
Lord_Kokain said:
Not quite sure about that. I mean I reckon both are equally hard to learn but Russian got the advantage of being more spoken and actually having common words with other eastern European languages while Greek is pretty much on its own, as a language.
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Excuse me? Look into a biology/chemistry/physics book and think for a mere second where half the words come from.

Russian is restricted to the Slavic area whilst Greek lives on in literally every other language in the world.
 
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