Greece and the Greeks

Ok, ok, I am Russian, I have one of the hardest languages in the world, it is so simple to learn a new one.

Yes, I can, Yes, I can!

No, I can’t… Can I?

Learning Greek

Step one – Greek Alphabet

Forget everything that you were taught at school at Math’s or Physics lessons right now. The pronunciation of the Greek letters written in these science manuals have nothing in common with the reality. Share this knowledge only in your country.

Step two - Pronunciation

·      So you think that you are so brilliant and you already know how to pronounce a Θ and Δ sound, ok try to say ΒΔ like βδομάδα.

·      You don’t know how to pronounce Γ, try to pronounce it with the back of your throat. Be careful not to swallow your tongue.

If you think that you know how to pronounce L and S at least then you are totally wrong. It’s not a big deal everybody will understand you, but anyway you are certainly wrong.

Step three - Orthography

I think that even Greeks are not sure how to write more than 50% of their words, 4 variants of writing the sound  [i], two [o], two [æ]. I am not telling about the peculiarities of other sounds that will be unrecognizable for other nationalities and will lead to thousands of other mistakes. This letter ν is not a v, it’s sounds like “n”. Y is not an English y as well as υ is not u.

Step four - Lexicology

The nicest thing here is that at least you know some of the scientific words that are used on a regular basis. The worst thing is that you have no choice to guess what other words mean or to translate a word from your language without knowing it. Things like “I will try to pronounce a word that exists in any other language with the Greek ending” don’t work here. Be patient, open your vocabulary and start learning.

Step five - Grammar

It seems that Greek has a lot of things in common with the other languages. Thanks God! But I suppose it combined the most difficult parts. The funniest thing is when you open the book with a certain rule and think: “Oh, well, there is only one page, I can do it. That’s so easy!” And then in 50 pages it turns out that it was only the first part of the rule, the authors of the book didn’t want to scare you.

Step six - Punctuation 

Greeks question marks kills me. This is a question mark ;

I can’t still get used to it. Just tell me why??? Or maybe Why;;;

I wish everyone who learns Greek courage, patience and wisdom!