Studying Greek requires patience and perseverance. Looking at the Greek “hieroglyphs” for the first time, it is difficult to imagine how rhythmic and melodic this language can be. I remember my first impression when I opened the textbook: neither Cyrillic nor Latin - it's not clear what. And when I started to learn and broke my language on unusual accents... It was these thoughts that prompted the idea to write a post about the first difficulties people face when learning Greek.
I will not sin and I will say frankly, this post was not written alone. Everyone has their own difficulties, and I asked Anya - - to talk about the most systemic errors. So basically, I'm retelling.
So, the difficulties of beginners in learning the Greek language can be “put on several whales”: writing and reading rules, personal pronouns and the linking verb “to be”, as well as cases. And now about all this a little more.
In Greek writing and reading rules, the main difficulty lies in their difference from the Cyrillic alphabet close to us or the commonly studied English. Due to the fact that the brain at the first contact with the new tries to refer to previously studied material, students often confuse the Greek ν (nu) and ρ (rho) with the visually identical English v and p.
Spelling also causes certain difficulties: for example, in Greek there are 6 !!! various letters and letter combinations to denote the sound "and", a similar situation is also with the sounds "e" and "o".
But, as a rule, difficulties in reading are quickly overcome, and already in the third lesson, the average student reads freely. With spelling, for the above reasons, things are a little more complicated, since the spelling of many words just needs to be memorized.
The second common difficulty is personal pronouns and the linking verb "to be". Although students often get stuck at this stage, with practice it is also successfully overcome. I emphasize that the corresponding rules are simple - they just differ from Russian and English due to the fact that Greek belongs to a different language group. And the point here is not in complexity, but in elementary practice.
The third main "stupor" - cases. By studying Greek cases, you begin to understand how difficult it is for an English speaker to learn Russian. But still, Greek cases are simpler than Russian ones - not counting the vocative, there are only three of them.
The main point in cases is the change of endings and stress. And if students cope with the first one quite easily and quickly, then the second comes a little later with systematic practice. The largest number complaints related to genitive case, since both the change of the ending and the overrun of the stress occur in it. However, as practice shows, a few days of perseverance, and this "Gordian knot" can also be eliminated.
The verb itself is not difficult, but when studying it, it is important to feel the rhythm. This is especially important when changing the tense of verbs, when, as in the previous case, the stress is overrun.
If we add here the nuances of the passive voice, it becomes clear that it will not be easy to master this topic without perseverance. But there is a good way out: the verb can be taught in all forms at once (by time and by person). This not only helps to better focus on the future and grasp the sense of rhythm, but also contributes to faster vocabulary replenishment.
Thus, the study of Greek has its own nuances. However, they do not stem from the complexity of the language or the presence of some special constructions, but from its difference from the usual Russian and English.
The advice of the teacher is not to despair at the first difficulties and not to retreat. In many ways, Greek is much simpler than it seems at first glance. You just need to be patient, develop your own approach and everything will work out.
LESSON-1: After the first lesson, you will learn how to say hello in Greek (say "Hello!" Good morning!", "Good afternoon good evening!"); learn to speak Greek "coffee" and "tea"; be able to say "Please"; learn to ask for something in Greek. After the first Greek lesson for beginners, you will know 8 new words.
LESSON-2: In this lesson you will learn to speak Greek "Menu", "Account", "and"; learn how to ask the waiter to bring you something; learn to say "Goodbye"; You can say "Thank you" in Greek.
After two lessons lexicon will be 14 words.
LESSON-3: In this lesson you will learn how to ask someone "Would you like?", learn how to say Greek "We would like", learn new words "Lemon", "Sugar", "Milk", how to say “Tea with lemon”, “Coffee without milk”, etc., learn the conjunction “or”. Your vocabulary is 21 words.
LESSON-4: After the 4th lesson you will learn how to say in Greek “I am going to …”, “I am flying to …”; learn to speak Greek "Moscow", "Athens", "Crete"; learn how to say "Reis" in Greek; you can ask the interlocutor “Where are you going?”, “Where are you flying?”. By the end of the lesson you will know 29 new words.
LESSON-5: In this lesson you will learn how to say "Place" in Greek (on a plane, train, etc.); learn to say "Window seat", "Aisle seat"; learn how to apologize in Greek. After five Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 33 new words.
LESSON-6: In this lesson we will study the phrases "This (this, this) is" and "This (this, this) is not"; then you will learn how in Greek it will be “Two”; learn how to say "Beer" and "Bottle" in Greek. After this lesson, you will already know 42 new words.
LESSON-7: In this lesson you will learn how to say “Ticket” in Greek; be able to say "I want to buy" and "We want to buy"; learn how to ask in Greek "How much is it?". After seven Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 46 new words.
LESSON-8: In this lesson you will learn how to say “Water”, “Wine”, “Glass”, “Juice” in Greek; be able to say "You want to buy"; learn how to say “Yes” and “No” in Greek; you can ask a question with the word "Which". Your vocabulary after this lesson is 54 words.
LESSON-9: After the 9th lesson you will learn how to say "My", "Your" in Greek. Learn to ask a question with the word "Where". Learn phrases with the words "Baggage", "Here", "I can get it." After nine Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 60 words.
LESSON-10: In this lesson you will learn how to say “Taxi stand”, “Bus stop” in Greek. You can ask for a one-way or round-trip ticket. After the lesson, you will already know 65 new words.
LESSON-11: In this lesson you will learn how to say in Greek "I know", "We know", "I don't know", "We don't know". You can ask the interlocutor "Don't you know?". After the lesson, you will already know 70 new words.
LESSON-12: After completing the lesson, you can ask the interlocutor how to get / get to the city center, you can find out where the pharmacy, tavern, hotel is located. You can ask to show you where these objects are located. You will already know 78 words.
LESSON-13: The topic of this lesson is "In the tavern". In this lesson, you will learn how to name popular dishes in Greek, you can ask if a certain dish is available. After 13 Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 87 new words.
LESSON-14: In this lesson we will learn phrases related to checking into a hotel. You will be able to book a single/double room in Greek for one or two days. After this lesson, you will already know 94 new words.
LESSON-15: In this lesson we will continue the study of phrases related to the hotel. You will learn how to say "Breakfast in the room" in Greek. You can say that the TV, telephone, Wi-Fi do not work in the room. You will know how to ask for a Wi-Fi password. You can find out at what checkout time the departure from the hotel. After the 15th Greek lesson for beginners, you will already know 102 new words.
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The topics of the lessons are perfect for preparing for a trip to Greece (Theme of all lessons: "Greek for tourists and travelers").
On this page I post links to everything you need (in my opinion) for learning modern Greek on your own. There are quite a lot of sites, books, programs, but they all repeat each other in some sense, or the material is presented there only partially, or without examples, or something else. I understand all the greed when you want to download as many courses, tutorials, grammar guides, etc. as possible. But chasing the number of books found is not an option in learning a language, it is better to use less literature, but better. And instead of reading three tutorials in parallel, it is better to go through at least one to the end. Therefore, below I provide links that I consider the most useful for beginners, basic, basic, although they may be useful for those who have been studying the Greek language for a long time and deeply:
Tutorials
Rytova M. L. Modern Greek language. Practical Course. Once it was the only Greek textbook in Russian. And although the topics of the lessons are Soviet, often even boring, but I like the sequence of presentation of grammar most of all in Rytova, because the rules are given comprehensively, without breaks.
Borisova A.B. Greek without a tutor. (Try to download pdf I hope the link is still valid. Also the most frequently used tutorial, compared to Rytova I like topics there more, simpler and more modern words, expressions, easier to remember. The book is often found in stores, on the Internet you can also find an archive consisting of djvu and mp3 files, I can’t give a permanent link, because the files are constantly deleted for copyright infringement. But finding it and downloading it for free is not so difficult. And VKontakte you can find audio files "Greek for beginners".
G. Feller, M. Vorobyova. Self-instruction manual of the Greek language. Modern Method learning Greek in 25 lessons. I didn’t really understand why this method is modern, for me, they still haven’t invented a different method of learning a foreign language than working: listen-read-memorize-write. But also a good tutorial, with modern light expressions.
Reference books
Greek Verbs is an excellent site dedicated to verbs in Modern Greek. It is very convenient to check and find out how verbs are conjugated, how they change in numbers, persons, there are all tenses, pledges, moods and participles. For convenience, conjugations are shown in colors, verbs are conveniently divided into types (similar endings / similar conjugation). And although there are about 800 verbs, there are enough of them to the ears to catch the rules of conjugation. Well, that's pretty useful stuff.
Handbook of Greek Grammar. Second part. One of my favorite reference books, I especially like the fact that there are many (dozens, not two or three, as usual) examples of the declension of nouns and adjectives in Greek.
Tresorukova I.V. Greek language. Grammar Handbook. This is the second guide that I really like, there is a lot of information there, everything is of high quality and convenient, sooo useful. You can buy a paper version in stores, but I have never seen it in my city. Therefore, links to this guide on the Internet constantly appear and are deleted, but with sufficient perseverance it can be found and downloaded for free relatively easily. I highly recommend!
Pronunciation
Internet Polyglot: Pronunciation of Greek Words. Reading and pronunciation of Greek words in initial stage causes certain problems and self-study sometimes there is no one to ask. In this case, you can refer to the Internet Polyglot website, the Russian pronunciation of some words is often strange there, but the Greek pronunciation is completely fine, the words are divided into topics, you can play a memory game with pictures. But the best way to control the correct reading of words is songs. Here on site Songs of Hellas there are enough of them - you can listen and read =)
A separate section with Greek grammar on the site "Songs of Hellas", with tables of declensions of nouns and examples of their use in songs. Perhaps I'm getting closer to the realization of my original idea - to make a website that helps to learn the Greek language through music. In the section, nouns are divided by gender and into groups depending on the type of declension, the rules by which nouns are declined are described. And the examples are taken from the songs, you can always listen and remember. It's very convenient - to memorize a phrase from a song, then it comes by itself (even when it's not necessary :)). So far, the section has been made only for masculine and feminine gender but this is just the beginning!
Additionally
Greek with Song: Texts. When learning a language, it is important to read a lot, but it is difficult to find your level when you know little. They say that for comfortable reading it is necessary that the text contains no more than 40% of new words. On this site you can find many small and large texts, simple and not very, as well as parallel translations which is also very convenient. And in general, there are a lot of things there - proverbs, aphorisms, poems, comics, etc.
Barn-Hellas - a large barn of Greek sundries by Alexei Potrosov, many references to useful resources, one way or another connected with Greece and the study of the Greek language - this is music, and radio, and television, and newspapers, and programs, and translations of Greek songs, etc. and so on.
Tests
Greek Proficiency Tests. Simple tests to test your knowledge in the field of modern Greek, there are many tests, although they are the same.
Tests on the site "Songs of Hellas" for practicing the declension of nouns on the machine.
The number of people who speak Greek today is relatively small, but modest statistics do not at all reflect the significance of the language that has shaped Western philosophy, science and literature for many centuries, which has been continuously communicated for more than four millennia.
When choosing a learning resource, it is important not to get confused by the definitions of "Greek" and "Modern Greek". They are equivalent for those whose goal is live communication and acquaintance with contemporary sources information. And for those who want to read historical works in the original language, it is better to focus on sites where a more complex version is offered for study - ancient Greek.
Free Modern Greek tutorial for beginners. A suitable solution for those who do not have the opportunity to learn from a native speaker and are afraid to master an artificial language. The dialogues and texts included in the project were created by Greek speakers, and if you repeat them often, imitating the source as much as possible, then the information will enter the mind as ready-made formulas for communication. The list contains 25 voiced lessons. The course starts with topics about the alphabet, sounds, reading rules, articles. Then there is a transition to classes in grammar and syntax, the audio files of which are relevant for diverse life situations Keywords: family, appearance, work, health, travel, holidays. After each lesson, assignments and exercises are offered.
An initial course in phonetics and reading rules. The author of the technique is M.L. Rytova, according to her textbook they study Greek in Russian-speaking universities. Information is provided in text format. To understand how to pronounce sounds, the nuances of articulation are described, the rhythm of words, the rules for reading letter combinations, stress, and intonation are explained. It tells about punctuation marks and hyphenation features. Rytova's entire textbook can be downloaded in PDF; in addition to phonetics, it includes the main course for two years of study, as well as grammar tables and a dictionary.
A block of video lessons for beginners, aimed at tourists. The working language is Russian. Lessons are 10 minutes long on average. The annotation for each lesson indicates how many new words the user will master after completing it. Having passed, the student will know more than a hundred of them. The peculiarity of the approach is in the emphasis on vocabulary, and not on grammar, and in the absence of homework.
If this method of teaching seems effective to the user, then it is possible to further receive new lessons on email. Devoting classes up to two hours a day, according to the assurances of the authors of the project, you can speak Greek in a month.
The author's project of a teacher living in Greece for over 20 years. In addition to the paid training option, the resource has a complex free lessons By modern language for newbies. At first, it does not offer complex grammar rules - it starts with teaching writing and reading skills, followed by the construction of dialogues. A more serious transition to declensions, conjugations, etc. carried out when the student has already mastered the spoken language a little. Lessons are accompanied by voice acting, there are exercises with solutions.
Free lessons with Larisa Khlebnikova. A teacher who has lived in Greece for many years offers a selection of 23 videos, each dedicated to a different topic. Plots lasting 3-7 minutes are designed to talk about the alphabet, all parts of speech, the structure of sentences. The topics “numbers” and “family” are highlighted in separate videos. The author's monologues are accompanied by the display of tables, symbols and other explanatory information.
Podcasts in audio format with PDF transcript, downloadable. The material is built in the form of lessons, with the successive passage of which the level of the language becomes more difficult. The focus of the first classes - acquaintance, family, shopping. Topics from the philosophical and global category complete the list of 81 lessons: superstitions, poor-quality food, climate change. The material is submitted in English, which should be taken into account by Russian-speaking users.
An English-language resource dedicated to modern Greek phonetics and phonology. Relevant for those who are already familiar with the Greek alphabet and the pronunciation of all letters separately. The site looks at how the letters are combined and how they are pronounced in conjunction. The perception of textual information is enhanced by the option of voicing examples. The material contains many tables and links to related articles, sections of word formation.
An offer to learn Greek in 7 lessons. Of course, no language can be learned for such a short time, but the creators of the course are convinced that after seven lessons according to their methodology, it is really possible to begin to navigate in Greek and try to establish minimal communication on it.
Modern Greek language - the language spoken in modern Greece. On the whole, Greek language belongs to Indo-European family languages, with the longest history and 34 centuries of writing, undeniably a huge legacy modern civilization. Today (new) Greek - official language Hellenic Republic and Cyprus. It is also spoken by the Greek diaspora around the world.
Therefore, acquaintance and study of foreign languages cannot be imagined without learning Greek. The self-instruction manual presented on the site online is intended for everyone who wants to learn how to speak correctly in spoken (new) Greek as much as possible. The course is designed for beginners and is presented free of charge. The compiler of the lessons Anna Borisova () combined two Greek textbooks into lessons (more). The structure of the lessons is as follows: at the beginning of each lesson, grammar explanations, then dialogues and texts are offered for study, which are supplied with small dictionaries, then various expressions on the topic are presented, and at the end of the lesson it is possible, after doing exercises, to check how you learned the lesson. Under the exercises you will find the keys to them: . Each lesson is voiced.
Go to → list of lessons ← (Click)
Learning to speak the language takes practice. In addition, when you study Greek on your own, there will be no one to check you, so you will not have one hundred percent confidence in the correctness of your constructions. Therefore, if it is not possible to communicate with native speakers, it can be advised to try to repeat the dialogues and texts proposed in this tutorial as close to the text as possible, almost by heart. All of them are created by native speakers and contain many commonly used expressions. Therefore, do not be afraid that you will learn to speak an artificial language. If all these expressions enter your consciousness as ready-made formulas, then, once in language environment you can put them into practice. All this, however, does not eliminate the boring need to learn words. Unfortunately without it foreign language impossible to learn.
Many Greek words were actively borrowed by other languages, as well as in scientific fields knowledge, such as mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, etc. Elements of Greek word formation, together with words of Latin origin, are the basis of modern scientific and technical vocabulary. Note that modern Greek and ancient Greek are not interchangeable. However, if you know Greek, ancient Greek it will be much easier to learn.
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Learning Greek
