A stroll through modern Greek

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tastyonions
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A stroll through modern Greek

Postby tastyonions » Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:24 pm

I've always kind of wanted to learn modern Greek ever since taking a few courses in ancient Greek in college (two decades ago, long enough to have forgotten more or less everything by now). So not long ago I started Assimil's "Le grec," studying one lesson per day. I'll be going at a leisurely pace, maybe 45 - 60 minutes per day, a little in the morning and a little at night.

I doubt I'll be doing much more in this thread at first than logging hours but maybe I'll have something more interesting to say soon.

Time spent on Greek so far: 3 hours

Today's Assimil lesson is #6, "Το πλοίο" (the boat).
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby tastyonions » Tue Feb 14, 2023 3:32 pm

STT44 wrote:Greek ain't no stroll, bud. Wait till you hit the verbs.

Well, I'm going to try and take it on at a strolling pace, in any case. We'll see how it works out!
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby tastyonions » Wed Feb 15, 2023 12:17 pm

Went over Lesson 7 today, the first review lesson. Smooth sailing up to this point but I had a peek forward at future review lessons and it looks like the grammar content ramps up pretty fast over the next few weeks. Steeling myself!

Total time spent on Greek so far: 4 hours.

Oh yeah, by browsing Wiktionary the other day I learned that the word for both the unit of time "second" and the ordinal "second" are the same in Greek just as in English (το δεύτερο / δεύτερος), which I thought was neat.
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby garyb » Wed Feb 15, 2023 7:45 pm

I attempted Assimil Greek a few years ago. Not only did the grammar ramp up fast, but so did the vocabulary. After the first few weeks there was a lot of very descriptive language about things like nature and landscapes (if I remember well), the kind of words that I'd not expect to be taught in a beginner or even intermediate resource. Assimil courses in general tend to barely cover the basics before moving onto more advanced stuff in order to justify their B2 level, but this one was particularly bad for it. Between that and the almost-exclusive focus on tourist/travel language (which I realise is important, but it's not the only thing) I was disappointed.

I'll be curious to read your thoughts though. I found it hard to find any good Greek materials in the gap between absolute beginner and advanced beginner, but if I ever go back to it I might look into more "traditional" options like Teach Yourself.
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby Iversen » Wed Feb 15, 2023 9:43 pm

STT44 wrote:Greek ain't no stroll, bud. Wait till you hit the verbs.


Actually the Greek verbs aren't too bad - just different. The syntax is different because there isn't an infinitive in modern Greek, but basically you just have to learn two roots for each verb, and normally the aorist root can be guessed.

Speaking of neat things: the accents are always indicated, but when I started to learn Greek I had a golden rule: the accent must be on one of the last three syllables in a word - and I always guessed at the wrong one.
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby hagestolz » Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:08 pm

You might also like to check out the older Assimil sans peine course, which I found much more engaging and thorough than the modern, online version. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned but the present version didn't work for me. I see French is one of your languages, so you should be fine.

A good complement might be the Language Transfer course, which was discussed here in the Greek study group a few years ago - I'm afraid my dubious IT skills don't allow me to post a link, sorry!

Good luck with your Greek.
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby tastyonions » Wed Feb 15, 2023 11:10 pm

Thanks for the tips. I'll keep the older Assimil in mind if I'm not satisfied with the newer course. I've never used or really read much about Language Transfer before.
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby tastyonions » Thu Feb 16, 2023 1:21 pm

Lesson 8 this morning, introducing the accusative case, combination of prepositions and articles (στο), and a few more verbs. Spent 30 minutes looking over it and also reviewing Lesson 1. Will go back to them again tonight.

Things I typically do with a new Assimil lesson:
(1) Listen through once without the text.
(2) Read through the text a couple times slowly while consulting the translation and notes.
(3) Listen to the recording without looking at the text, as many times as it takes to feel like my understanding is solid.
(4) Go back through the text and notes again.
(5) Listen to the recording without the text and try to transcribe it.
(6) Correct any mistakes I made in the transcription.

Time spent on Greek so far: 5 hours
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby philomath » Thu Feb 16, 2023 1:38 pm

I’m planning to learn Greek next year, also using Assimil! Looking forward to reading about your progress. :D
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Re: A stroll through modern Greek

Postby tastyonions » Fri Feb 17, 2023 12:35 pm

Assimil Lesson 9 this morning, not much new introduced, mostly previous material used slightly differently with the speaking pace picked up a bit. Also reviewed Lesson 2.

I added some words and phrases to Anki, with which I've had a love-hate relationship in the past. We'll see how it goes.

Total time spent on Greek so far: 6 hours
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