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Thala's Russian & Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 9:46 am
by Thala
Hello!

So, time to start a log. Why am I learning Greek? I'm part Greek, and my parents occasionally play Greek music around the house. A few months ago I decided I needed a holiday so I booked a trip to Greece. I learned a few phrases so as not to be that annoying tourist that insists on speaking English. When I got there, everyone was so friendly! At the end of the week I'd learned how to put together a few sentences and was talking in Greek! Turns out immersion really is king. The parting phrase of one of my new friends was "don't stop learning Greek", so here I am!

I travel a lot, and Greece is the only place where I actually felt at home. More than Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other hot countries. Definitely more than cold England, where I currently live. I found it a lot like my home country Bulgaria, but... better lol. I've been on a Greek kick ever since I came home, and I've already booked a trip back.

I'd like to get back there with a much better level of Greek! Surprisingly I'm finding it easy. What I'm doing:

- Teach Yourself Greek book
- Clozemaster Greek
- Language Transfer Greek (amazing! a few lessons of these was all I had before going to Greece)
- Children's Greek Cartoons on YT
- Ton of Greek music, I love it
- Thinking of starting iTalki lessons, but is it even worth it at this very beginner level?

Aside from Greek, I've dabbled in:
- Russian: So similar to my native Bulgarian, I can understand maybe 70%. Occasionally do a few lessons and watch Russian TV.
- Spanish: Studied in high school, since then it's regressed to B1. Want to get back to it but HS made it so boring, I'll probably never sit down and officially study it though, it'd have to be if I moved to Spain for a bit. I feel bad I haven't perfected such an important language.
- Portuguese: I love love love the sound of Brazilian Portuguese. And Brazilians are so happy to teach you! Will probably give this a try after Greek. The natives being welcoming is the biggest factor towards me wanting to learn a language.
- Others: Italian, German, Mandarin, Swedish, Korean

This log might include some other languages in the future, but for now I want to focus on Greek :)

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:48 am
by nooj
Good luck on your language journey!

Do you already know of the youtube 'Easy Greek' channel? It is wonderful because it has subtitles in Greek. Here is the latest one.


Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:12 am
by Thala
nooj wrote:Good luck on your language journey!

Do you already know of the youtube 'Easy Greek' channel? It is wonderful because it has subtitles in Greek. Here is the latest one.



Thanks! And I know about the Easy Languages channel but it completely slipped my mind to look at it for Greek. :D

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:49 am
by lildreamsnatcher
Hello, Thala!

I'm learning Greek too, so it's very nice to see you on this forum <3. I hope your Greek journey will go well! Good luck :)

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:53 am
by Thala
lildreamsnatcher wrote:Hello, Thala!

I'm learning Greek too, so it's very nice to see you on this forum <3. I hope your Greek journey will go well! Good luck :)


Hi there! Thank you and good luck to you too :) How long have you been learning Greek?

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:42 pm
by Tristano
Dober den/Kalimera

Italian that studied a bit of Bulgarian and now a bit of Greek here (who is set to fail miserably due to the many commitments and goals in life - but c'est la vie...)

I'm curious how do you see the language considering you're a native Bulgarian. I found Bulgarian fairly easy considering I studied Dutch and German which to me look more difficult. Greek, similar to Bulgarian for what concerns the difficulty (easy verb system compared to the mess that is Bulgarian, and noun cases which don't look too difficult to me). I'm curious what do you find about word order, prepositions, predictability/regularity of the language etc.

For the rest both languages speak to my heart. Greek sounds to me a bit like an Italian that speaks difficult in purpose with a lot of newly invented words. Bulgarian like I have a stroke and I'm supposed to understand it but can't make sense of it.

You're using Clozemaster, do you find it usable at this level? I'm kickstarting with Duolingo and listening to 50 languages in the car, I'll move to clozemaster after this. I'm curious about your journey.

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 12:59 pm
by Thala
Tristano wrote:Dober den/Kalimera

Italian that studied a bit of Bulgarian and now a bit of Greek here (who is set to fail miserably due to the many commitments and goals in life - but c'est la vie...)

I'm curious how do you see the language considering you're a native Bulgarian. I found Bulgarian fairly easy considering I studied Dutch and German which to me look more difficult. Greek, similar to Bulgarian for what concerns the difficulty (easy verb system compared to the mess that is Bulgarian, and noun cases which don't look too difficult to me). I'm curious what do you find about word order, prepositions, predictability/regularity of the language etc.

For the rest both languages speak to my heart. Greek sounds to me a bit like an Italian that speaks difficult in purpose with a lot of newly invented words. Bulgarian like I have a stroke and I'm supposed to understand it but can't make sense of it.

You're using Clozemaster, do you find it usable at this level? I'm kickstarting with Duolingo and listening to 50 languages in the car, I'll move to clozemaster after this. I'm curious about your journey.

Dobar den/kalimera/buongiorno!

That's amazing that you studied Bulgarian - what drew you to it, it's really rare to find someone studying it!

I'm finding Greek very simple and there are some similarities to Bulgarian (though they're generally completely different). For example, there's no infinitive verb form in Greek or Bulgarian. The word order is also similar and flexible like Bulgarian.

Also been finding a few similar words. The funny thing is a lot of those words are used as slang in Bulgarian. For example:

μοιάζω (miazo) - мяза (miaza)
Looks like. The Bulgarian version is slang and should not really be used hah.

κέφι (kefi) - кефи ме (kefi me)
Greek version is "fun" and Bulgarian is used as "I like it/it's cool" as slang again

Greek sounds a lot like Spanish and the conjugation is very similar, strangely... and with Bulgarian too, especially the we and you (pl) form.
I, you, he/she/it, we, you (pl), they
o, is, i, oume, ete, oun (Greek)
o, es, e, emos, eis, en (Spanish)
am, ash, a, ame, ate, at (Bulgarian)

And haha totally understand that the Bulgarian verbs are a mess. So many variants, can change a verb completely depending on the millions of prefix and suffixes :D

As for Clozemaster, I really like it. It's helping quite a lot with learning new verb forms and vocab, even for a beginner like me. I definitely recommend it!

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 1:22 pm
by Tristano
Thala wrote:Dobar den/kalimera/buongiorno!

That's amazing that you studied Bulgarian - what drew you to it, it's really rare to find someone studying it!


Well my connection with Bulgarian, starts from something very dear in the heart of an Italian, the food! When I was living in The Hague (The Netherlands) I was going almost every week at a Bulgarian restaurant, and fell in love with the food. Pretty sure it tastes better in Bulgaria! Then I started contemplating the idea of going to vacation in Bulgaria and eat Bulgarian food until my stomach explodes. Then I connected the fact that having studied some Romanian and wanting to learn a bunch of slavic languages Bulgarian is an ideal starting point to approach the slavic world. Then I started to listen to Bulgarian music and fell in love with the way the language sounds like when sung. There are a bunch of artist/bands that I keep listening to with pleasure, like Ostava, Stenli, Mastilo, P.I.F. and Oratnitza (but others too - suggestions are always welcome).

I'm finding Greek very simple and there are some similarities to Bulgarian (though they're generally completely different). For example, there's no infinitive verb form in Greek or Bulgarian. The word order is also similar and flexible like Bulgarian.

Also been finding a few similar words. The funny thing is a lot of those words are used as slang in Bulgarian. For example:

μοιάζω (miazo) - мяза (miaza)
Looks like. The Bulgarian version is slang and should not really be used hah.

κέφι (kefi) - кефи ме (kefi me)
Greek version is "fun" and Bulgarian is used as "I like it/it's cool" as slang again

Greek sounds a lot like Spanish and the conjugation is very similar, strangely... and with Bulgarian too, especially the we and you (pl) form.
I, you, he/she/it, we, you (pl), they
o, is, i, oume, ete, oun (Greek)
o, es, e, emos, eis, en (Spanish)
am, ash, a, ame, ate, at (Bulgarian)

And haha totally understand that the Bulgarian verbs are a mess. So many variants, can change a verb completely depending on the millions of prefix and suffixes :D

As for Clozemaster, I really like it. It's helping quite a lot with learning new verb forms and vocab, even for a beginner like me. I definitely recommend it!



You make me desire to learn the two languages very well (and Romanian too, indirectly). This will of course not happen but that is another story ;)
I look forward to read about your journey.

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 1:29 pm
by Thala
Tristano wrote:Well my connection with Bulgarian, starts from something very dear in the heart of an Italian, the food! When I was living in The Hague (The Netherlands) I was going almost every week at a Bulgarian restaurant, and fell in love with the food. Pretty sure it tastes better in Bulgaria! Then I started contemplating the idea of going to vacation in Bulgaria and eat Bulgarian food until my stomach explodes. Then I connected the fact that having studied some Romanian and wanting to learn a bunch of slavic languages Bulgarian is an ideal starting point to approach the slavic world. Then I started to listen to Bulgarian music and fell in love with the way the language sounds like when sung. There are a bunch of artist/bands that I keep listening to with pleasure, like Ostava, Stenli, Mastilo, P.I.F. and Oratnitza (but others too - suggestions are always welcome).

You make me desire to learn the two languages very well (and Romanian too, indirectly). This will of course not happen but that is another story ;)
I look forward to read about your journey.


Oh, that's cool! Yeah our food is awesome :lol: it's very similar to Greek actually :) You probably know more Bulgarian bands than me, I don't listen to BG music at all!

Romanian to me sounds a lot like Italian, many times I've been listening to a Romanian song I thought was Italian.

Re: Thala's Greek Log!

Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 1:35 pm
by Tristano
Well Romanian sounds like a drunk Italian dialect with random slavic words :D Beautiful language too though. I can certainly understand it much more than Greek or Bulgarian.