Learning Greek... not geek

Lord_Kokain · 14 Aug 2006 at 23:34

Ex-RoNiN said:
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.

Thats correct but you are talking about two different things. (Ancient) Greek is also used for plenty of scientific terms everywhere. If thats making Greek more attractive to you, then go for it(might as well do Latin). For Russian, nobody is using it as a language for the scientific terms in eastern Europe. In fact, in many of the countries there dont find it sympathetic for political reasons. When I mentioned it, however, it was to do with the fact that, unlike Greek, it is fairly similar to other languages in the region in the same way as Dutch has common words with German, Spanish with Italian or Danish with Norwegian(or maybe even Swedish). Greek is one of the Euro languages in Europe which nowadays hardly resemble another, like Hungarian and Finnish(though Estonian seems to be close)

Carlos_S · 14 Aug 2006 at 23:38

Echo toxin, on BBC 2 tonight at 1.00am there is a Learn Greek programme, might come in handy.

manveruppd · 15 Aug 2006 at 00:29

While I know people who've managed to learn Greek purely by ear, they're all trained linguists who know several languages and probably have a knack for it. For most people, you'd need a proper course because you need the grammar to be able to understand the declensions - it's not like English where you can mostly tell if a word is subject or object by its position in the sentence: it's more like German, where you need to understand the grammar or you won't be able to put the words together. I don't imagine Linguaphone-type courses would be useful because they mostly teach you to speak phrases rather than grinding the grammar into you. Then, after you have a grasp of the basics, you'll need a stooge to talk Greek to regularly and outside the classroom, and preferably a fluent speaker rather than another learner (same as any other language I guess).

Lord_Kokain said:
Greek is one of the Euro languages in Europe which nowadays hardly resemble another, like Hungarian and Finnish(though Estonian seems to be close)

I think Ronin was trying to say that there are a lot of Greek words in use in every European language (including Russian), and not exclusively scientific terms either. Look at the OP's username for one!

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Yes, Russian is similar to other Slavic languages and Dutch is similar to other Germanic languages, but I fail to see how that would help someone who only speaks English to learn any of them!

Phate · 15 Aug 2006 at 00:58

Its law to speak english out there, so they will all understand you anyway

been there many times and love it there and never had a problem with other locals, all very nice people

Lord_Kokain · 15 Aug 2006 at 01:55

Yes, Russian is similar to other Slavic languages and Dutch is similar to other Germanic languages, but I fail to see how that would help someone who only speaks English to learn any of them!

It wont! Its just as bad from an English-speaker PoV(as I already mentioned above) but, if one is to go for something, it makes sense going for a more widely spoken language, doesnt it?

Ex-RoNiN · 15 Aug 2006 at 08:18

Lord_Kokain said:
Thats correct but you are talking about two different things. (Ancient) Greek is also used for plenty of scientific terms everywhere. If thats making Greek more attractive to you, then go for it(might as well do Latin). For Russian, nobody is using it as a language for the scientific terms in eastern Europe. In fact, in many of the countries there dont find it sympathetic for political reasons. When I mentioned it, however, it was to do with the fact that, unlike Greek, it is fairly similar to other languages in the region in the same way as Dutch has common words with German, Spanish with Italian or Danish with Norwegian(or maybe even Swedish). Greek is one of the Euro languages in Europe which nowadays hardly resemble another, like Hungarian and Finnish(though Estonian seems to be close)

I see what you're trying to say, but I still think you're wrong

Have a look at these two links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_words_with_English_derivatives

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon_Zolotas (scroll down to his 2 speeches. Is it English? Is it Greek?)

So your analogy to Latin is wrong - Latin is dead (or has evolved to Spanish/Italian/Romanian/etc.), whilst Greek is not only alive, it is everpresent in other languages, too.

Whilst Greek's existence in other countries is not as obvious as other languages (Spanish in Middle/South America, for example), it is nevertheless there

Sam Dufton · 15 Aug 2006 at 09:12

I havent been to greece before, my sister went at the beginning of the summer and had a wicked time. everythings very cheap. however, i went to turkey for two weeks this summer (with my sister) and its very similar.
I would have a look in your local bookstore, or even a library. Like somebody said, they may not be helpful for pronounciations but their handy to take away with you on your travels!

Echo toxin · 15 Aug 2006 at 10:07

I've been having a go with Rosetta which seems to introduce you to words written in Greek and you have to work out what they mean from the photos displayed. The words are pronounced so you get an idea of how each letter sounds to - for instance put an 'm' and a 'p' together and the resulting sound becomes 'b'. And like 'n' and 't' makes a 'd'.

It seems to be introducing basic grammar as you go along as I've had prepositions so far in lesson 1 - in, under, on. I can now say such useful expressions as "a boy under an aeroplane" and "a girl and a boy in a boat". :rolleyes:

Lord_Kokain · 15 Aug 2006 at 22:58

So your analogy to Latin is wrong - Latin is dead (or has evolved to Spanish/Italian/Romanian/etc.), whilst Greek is not only alive, it is everpresent in other languages, too.

Yes! Words with Greek roots do exist(either same or altered) in many other languages but that doesnt change the fact that Greek as a whole isnt similar to any other language. In other words, both vocab and grammar-wise, Greek would be as hard to learn for any non-Greek speaker.

As for comparing it with Latin, that would draw things into entirely different subject

Ex-RoNiN · 15 Aug 2006 at 23:03

Lord_Kokain said:
In other words, both vocab and grammar-wise, Greek would be as hard to learn for any non-Greek speaker.

You seem to be ignoring my point!

Vocab is not a problem, as a lot of words will be known already. Maybe not articles and things like that, but a great number of nouns are already known - just look at Zolotas' speeches!

As for the Grammar - if you know German and/or a Roman language, it can be mastered very very easily as Greek has influenced their grammar structures immensely.

Just look at the gender example previously in this thread. You're making it sound as if Greek is completely disconnected from European languages - not true. Your point would be correct if you were talking about a language like Basque, Swahili, or Mongolian, which are truly disconnected from anything else on this planet.

manveruppd · 16 Aug 2006 at 00:09

Lord_Kokain said:
that doesnt change the fact that Greek as a whole isnt similar to any other language.

Well it's not a Latin language (although Latin and its descendants borrowed hundreds of words from Greek), nor a Germanic language, but it's part of the Indo-European language family, which means it's much more similar to English than Finnish, Albanian, Hungarian, Turkish or Mandarin, to mention but a few in addition to the ones Ronin already mentioned.