At a loss- Where do I even start if I want to read?

[acorngalaxy]

I'm reaching the halfway mark in my Greek course and I am starting to get familiar with the structure of Modern Greek and I would like to start reading on the side to exponentially increase my vocabulary. However, when I open news sites like CNN Greece, I literally don't understand anything.0%. It's different from Romance languages where I can at least rely on similarities to get, at worst, 60% understanding. Here, I can barely finish reading a paragraph and accumulate 30 words and I'm burned out for the day.

I don't think there's stuff like easy news as well- Greek is an unpopular and small language. Besides, I really want to read native-level content right from the get go. So yes, I refuse to use anything that has "dumbed-down" language. I want something a la harsh reality.

Where do I even start? Am I supposed to brute force this crap or something? 100-150 words/day from each article? How am I even supposed to start reading in a language that is quite distant from any other language that I know?

(Pardon my French.)

[iguanamon]

...Where do I even start? Am I supposed to brute force this crap or something? 100-150 words/day from each article? How am I even supposed to start reading in a language that is quite distant from any other language that I know?

Start small, and work your way up. Try short texts. Use bilingual texts at first and consult the human-made translation when needed. If you end up doing this too much, try simpler texts. I am unfamiliar with Modern Greek resources, but you should be able to find something to get you started.

Generally, don't start off with a full blown CNN article- unless you already are familiar with the topic in your native language or one in which you are fully competent. Your profile says "EL" is your native language- I do not know what this is.

In Haitian Creole, I started out with short tweets from VOA Kreyol. Are there graded readers available for Greek? Folktales/fairytales? Aesop's fables? News with human made translations? Books with paralell texts? I see only one available for download (free and legal) at Farkas translations Voltaire's Candide. This is a book I read in English translation in high school.

When reading with a parallel text, you have options. If you print it to pdf, you can put it on your tablet or phone (landscape). You can then expand the L2 text to the full screen and scroll over for the parallel text to either confirm guesses or figure out unknown words. In the beginning of learning to read, I like to also look up the word in a dictionary to reinforce learning it. With pdf reader, it is possible to highlight words/phrases and take notes. I like to write the definitions and then review them after a session and before the next session. Take it slow. It may take a long time to get through a paragraph, let alone a page. It may take quite a long time to get through a book, but by the time you do, it will be easier.

Save "brute force" for short texts, like a sentence or two, a tweet, a song lyric a stanza of a poem. Learning to read, especially in another script, takes a lot of time and a lot of books. Have faith that it gets easier over time

[lichtrausch]

A Greek short story reader?

For articles, it will help a lot if you have some tolerance for ambiguity. Read headlines. Try to decipher some articles, but don't look up every word. Make liberal use of Google Translate and Wiktionary. Look up words that repeat and ones that strike you somehow as interesting. Pay special attention to building up your knowledge of Greek morphemes. I used this sort of strategy to get comfortable reading CJK languages.

[luke]

There is the free Cortina Greek course online with audio:

The Yojik Website - Cortina Conversational Greek

Read all about it in the amazing Cortina Languages Institute (1882 – 2017) thread.

Professor Arguelles has good things to say about the Greek course in his review:



I know you said reading, but maybe the dialogues, etc in the Cortina Method may be a helpful next step.

[Deinonysus]

Yeah, for an English speaker, studying Romance languages (and Germanic languages too, to a lesser extent) gives you a misleading idea of how quickly you can jump into reading intermediate to advanced native materials. For other languages, you're in for a slog.

The native materials I use as a beginner are:

• News headlines (not the full article)
• Children's books
• Comic books

In these cases, it's important not to get frustrated if you don't understand 100% or even 50% of what you're reading. At the beginner level, I think the best goal is to pick out as many words and phrases as you can, without worrying about full understanding.

For video, I think the news is really great to watch. Again, at the beginner level, the goal should be about picking out as many words as you can. It's easy to get frustrated if your goal is full understanding. And you can do the same thing with music, picking out as many words as you can.

[reineke]

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/we ... ern%29&c=x

[acorngalaxy]

Yeah, for an English speaker, studying Romance languages (and Germanic languages too, to a lesser extent) gives you a misleading idea of how quickly you can jump into reading intermediate to advanced native materials. For other languages, you're in for a slog.

The native materials I use as a beginner are:

• News headlines (not the full article)
• Children's books
• Comic books

In these cases, it's important not to get frustrated if you don't understand 100% or even 50% of what you're reading. At the beginner level, I think the best goal is to pick out as many words and phrases as you can, without worrying about full understanding.

For video, I think the news is really great to watch. Again, at the beginner level, the goal should be about picking out as many words as you can. It's easy to get frustrated if your goal is full understanding. And you can do the same thing with music, picking out as many words as you can.

I like your suggestion of using news headlines- How many would you recommend for a day's worth of content?

[Deinonysus]

Yeah, for an English speaker, studying Romance languages (and Germanic languages too, to a lesser extent) gives you a misleading idea of how quickly you can jump into reading intermediate to advanced native materials. For other languages, you're in for a slog.

The native materials I use as a beginner are:

• News headlines (not the full article)
• Children's books
• Comic books

In these cases, it's important not to get frustrated if you don't understand 100% or even 50% of what you're reading. At the beginner level, I think the best goal is to pick out as many words and phrases as you can, without worrying about full understanding.

For video, I think the news is really great to watch. Again, at the beginner level, the goal should be about picking out as many words as you can. It's easy to get frustrated if your goal is full understanding. And you can do the same thing with music, picking out as many words as you can.

I like your suggestion of using news headlines- How many would you recommend for a day's worth of content?

What I do for Arabic is that I'll just pull up the Al-Jazeera app on my phone and just quickly scan the top several headlines for known words. This doesn't take very long so it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes a day.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that I use Reddit and I subscribe to subreddits that have content in any target language that I may be interested in, so whenever those come up in my feed I will do the same thing, just quickly scanning thread titles for known words.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Where do I even start? Am I supposed to brute force this crap or something? 100-150 words/day from each article? How am I even supposed to start reading in a language that is quite distant from any other language that I know?

I feel your pain. I have asked myself the same question many times. Sometimes the only way to progress is to avoid giving up. Also consider picking the right material for your level.

I came to think of a topic from the old HTLAL site - Russian - advancing to reading literature.
On the first page, Arguelles mentions four steps: bilingual texts, readers, easy literature (e.g. books for children), and original text + translation.

[einzelne]

Besides, I really want to read native-level content right from the get go. So yes, I refuse to use anything that has "dumbed-down" language. I want something a la harsh reality.

With distant and synthetic languages, I would still encourage you to read some adapted books first. It's one thing when you just started to "get familiar with the structure" and completely another when all basic grammar structures are deeply ingrained into your brain. Again, in case of synthetic languages it takes more time to absorb and internalize these structures.

As for native-level content, try to find a self-help book originally written in English and translated into Greek. I think, it would be the easiest way to start reading unadapted Greek. Some self-help books are structured as a series of dialogues — this would be your best option.