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Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 12:57 am
by hagestolz
This week I finished most of Advanced CD3 of M Thomas course, which I'm enjoying a lot. I start each session with a repeat of the last track before moving on, although speed isn't of the essence! I spend quite a bit of time writing up all of the sentences from the CDs by hand and then review them at the end of the week.
Assimil I'm not loving and hate the electronic format - in future I'll be more patient and order hard copies through the post. Finished lesson 10 and I'll persevere but I'm looking forward to using a book course like TYS or Colloquial on completion of M Thomas.
Finding the Greek language fascinating, though and feel I'm getting to grips with the grammar and pronunciation. (6h05)

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 6:27 pm
by zjones
Hey guys, I have a question about Greek. One of the phrases in Assimil Le Grec is this:

Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής, αλλά και διεθνούς κουζίνας.

My poor English translation is: "It serves Greek dishes but also international cuisine" (referring to a restaurant). My question is about case. The practical application of cases is still very shaky for me, so please correct me if I'm wrong:

Σερβίρει (nom.) πιάτα (acc.) ελληνικής (gen.?)

However I wasn't able to find a good adjective case table in order to check whether the last word was actually genitive (Assimil has lots of case tables in the back, but they didn't have one for adjectives ending in -ός -ή -ά). I'm also not sure if ελληνικής is feminine or neuter. It looks feminine but it seems like it describes the plate, and τα πιάτα is neuter, I think. :?

I could be totally wrong, however. Anyone want to take a crack at it? Please and thank you. :D

Edited: Added more to the sentence to give context.

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:04 pm
by Neurotip
It's a bit silly for me to try to answer this as I know less Greek than you do, but if it helps, I share your confusion - I also cannot understand the syntax here.

Σερβίρει 'it serves' is fine, and needs an object (whatever it serves), which AFAIK ought to be in the accusative. πιάτα is fine as the accusative of 'plates', or nominative, but not genitive (which would be πιάτων). You'd expect 'Greek' to be neuter accusative plural as well, but as you say it's feminine genitive plural instead - confirmed by Lexiscope, which should satisfy your need for case tables!

It crossed my mind that ελληνικής might actually be a noun, 'plates *of the (feminine for whatever reason) Greeks*', but I don't think this works. Google hits for "ελληνικής" all appear consistent with the gen.fem.pl. adjective reading.

I'll be interested to hear the resolution of this!

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:52 pm
by rfnsoares
A tricky question indeed, but I think I got it. I'm not so sure...

Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής, αλλά και διεθνούς κουζίνασ.
Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής (adj. gen.), αλλά και διεθνούς (adj. gen.) κουζίνασ (noun gen.).

(it serves dishes of/from greek, but also of/from international cuisine).

Here is the table:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%C ... F%82#Greek

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:06 am
by zjones
rfnsoares wrote:A tricky question indeed, but I think I got it. I'm not so sure...

Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής, αλλά και διεθνούς κουζίνασ.
Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής (adj. gen.), αλλά και διεθνούς (adj. gen.) κουζίνασ (noun gen.).

(it serves dishes of/from greek, but also of/from international cuisine).

Here is the table:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%C ... F%82#Greek


Okay, I think I understand why ελληνικής is genitive, thank you. But I'm still confused about why it is feminine in gender.

Here's a thought I had: the word ελληνικής (adj. fem. gen.) might be linked to an implied κουζίνας (noun fem. gen.), instead of πιάτα (noun neut. gen.). For example, the sentence could read: Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής κουζίνας, αλλά και διεθνούς κουζίνας. Does that sound right or even possible?

Also, thank you Neurotip for helping me feel not so crazy. It seems like the sentence has a tricky construction, at least for non-Greek speakers.

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:31 am
by rfnsoares
zjones wrote:
rfnsoares wrote:A tricky question indeed, but I think I got it. I'm not so sure...

Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής, αλλά και διεθνούς κουζίνασ.
Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής (adj. gen.), αλλά και διεθνούς (adj. gen.) κουζίνασ (noun gen.).

(it serves dishes of/from greek, but also of/from international cuisine).

Here is the table:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B5%C ... F%82#Greek


Okay, I think I understand why ελληνικής is genitive, thank you. But I'm still confused about why it is feminine in gender.

Here's a thought I had: the word ελληνικής (adj. fem. gen.) might be linked to an implied κουζίνας (noun fem. gen.), instead of πιάτα (noun neut. gen.). For example, the sentence could read: Σερβίρει πιάτα ελληνικής κουζίνας, αλλά και διεθνούς κουζίνας. Does that sound right or even possible?

Also, thank you Neurotip for helping me feel not so crazy. It seems like the sentence has a tricky construction, at least for non-Greek speakers.



Yes, exactly.
Besides, in my opinion, it would be redundant the repetition of the word "cuisine", but it is possible and correct, of course: greek cuisine and international cuisine. ;)

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:05 pm
by Theodisce
My interest in Modern Greek originated from my knowledge of the ancient version and the desire to see how the language evolved up to our days. Then I discovered the modern Greek history lectures of Μαρία Ευθυμίου (many of them are available on YouTube) that I would strongly recommend. My approach has been as always "listen from the day 1" (I've been doing some reading, too, and I managed to discover some very captivating crime series). But - I guess due to the overall complexity of the language and long intervals in my study my active skills have remained less than mediocre. During my visit in Greece people in restaurants would switch to English, whereas bookstore clerks would allow me to express myself in Greek. Oh, and I did the Language Transfer Modern Greek course and started few others (mostly book-based) without really completing any of them.

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:23 pm
by Iversen
To Theodesice: If your slow progress was due to the complexity of Ancient Greeek then the simplicity of Modern Greek must come as a blessing. The only real problem is that the stress never is where you think it ought to be, and that all the words mean something you definitely wouldn't have expected.

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2019 11:01 pm
by embici
I'm glad to see other Greek learners here. Sign me up to the club!

I've been studying off and on (mainly off) for several years but want to make some significant progress before July when I hope to travel to Greece. I will try to update my log here: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=5175

Good luck everyone!

Re: Modern Greek Study Group

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:53 am
by Theodisce
Iversen wrote:To Theodesice: If your slow progress was due to the complexity of Ancient Greeek then the simplicity of Modern Greek must come as a blessing. The only real problem is that the stress never is where you think it ought to be, and that all the words mean something you definitely wouldn't have expected.


I guess my attempts at speaking Ancient Greek would have been even more embarrassing, had I ever tried to speak it. You are perfectly right that the grammar of the modern language is a blessing compared to the ancient one. It only appears more complex than the languages I actually speak. It may also be related to the fact that Modern Greek is the only Hellenic language I've been trying to speak - unlike those belonging to Romance, Slavic and Germanic families. I started speaking French after 700 hours of content exposure, the numbers for both Spanish and Italian were lower (420-450) - something I could not achieve with Modern Greek. I might have scored better if I had persevered with the at-least-one-hour-per-day routine for an entire year.