Day 7 | Numbers

Lets start with the good news.  The lovely people at Greektionary kindly put my blog on their site with a little blurb; this has surely made the road less lonely.  This is a really good site for language resources and well worth a visit.  The bad news: I'm off to Berlin tonight which means I'll be both feet out of the virtual realm for several days.  Anyway, administration aside lets get on with the word-play.


Today I'm focusing on the numbers.  I found this took several hours to really get these to stick in sequence so I strongly advise concentrating on the first 10 digits in one session if you really want this to remain memorable.  Lets have a crack at least.  

 

1	ένα	ehnah
2	δύο	theeoh
3	τρία	treeah
4	τέσσερα	tehsserah
5	πέντε	pendeh
6	έζι	ehxee
7	επτά	eptah
8	οκτώ	oktoh
9	εννέα	enneeah
10	δέκα	thehkah

Short and sweet but nevertheless can be tricky to make it remain in the membrane (advise you to go over this time and time again; like I did for the past 2 hours!).  Couple of points.  Whilst 4 looks like it should be spoken as tehsserah it actually sounds like it begins with a d.  More strangely though is 7 which seems to divide opinion around whether this is articulated as eptah (as the spelling suggests) or eftah.  I'm still none the wiser which way to go on this one, please advise.

Looking at the larger numbers it seems on paper that these are much more simple to memorise than the English equivalent.  3, 13, 23 and 33 for example are τρία, δεκατρια, εικοσι τρια, τριαντα τρια (see the pattern emerging?).  You're just adding the the three to the end of the ten, twenty and thirty.  None of that teen number nonsense we have in English.  Anyway, for my penny's worth, just concentrate on the 1-10 and we can deal with the bigger numbers in a later post!  


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Day 6 | Gender & Family

As is always the case, work has a tendency of getting in the way of things you think are more important and hence a few days have passed since the last posting (one day I might get round to uploading a personal profile with this Blog to explain what I do & why I'm learning Greek!).  So today I'm looking at the use of Gender by using the simple example of family to tease out its special nuances.

It has already been mentioned that in the Greek language they use the dreaded gender system which means multiplying the learning process by 2 (or as you will find out, 3!).  If you are not familiar with this (Old English or Anglo-Saxon used to have this but now modern English has done away with it), it is simply that words have embedded within them a specific male or female type and based on this all of the other words that surround it (adjectives and articles etc) are changed as a consequence.  This can be show when calling out members of your own family.

Father is known as Πατέρας (pahtehras) and no prizes for what gender this belongs to.  Mother is known as Μιτέρα (Meetehrah) and is of the female persuasion.  What gender would you apply to the word "child" (or Παιδι, Peethee - remember "αι" make "ee") though since there is an equal chance of it being either a boy or girl.  That is where the third gender comes in which is called the "neuter".  So we have three words with three different genders, but what does that mean for those other words that surround it.  We can tease this out using the definite and indefinite articles (the former being "the" and the latter "a"):

Father (m)	Mother (f)	Child (n)
A father, ένας πατέρας     "enas patehras"	A mother, μία μητέρα   "meeah meetehra"	A child, ένα παιδί "ehna peethee"
The father, Ο πατέρας "oh patehras"	The mother, η μητέρα "ee meetehra"	The child, το παιδί "toh peethee"

So the bad news is that we're having to learn genders as well as words.  The good news is that there are clues in which we can get just from looking at the way the word is spelt.  Masculine words for example normally end with ς.  Female nouns end in η and α.  Whilst the neuter words close off using ι or ο.  As I said these are clues and not hard and fast rules to abide by but they should nevertheless give you a hint.  

So in summary there is no one word for "the" or "a" but changes depending on the gender of the noun it is applied to.  To make sure this sinks in, I'm going to put down the following words in English & Greek and want to see whether people can pick up whether they are Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.

Sister αδελφή (adelfee)

Baby μωρό (moroh)

Boy αγόρι (aghoree)

This αυτός (avtos)

This αυτή (avtee)

One of these is a "trick" question (as in what I expected it to be isn't what it is in reality!).  Please leave your attempts in the comments, I'd be interested if other people get the same responses as I did.



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Day 5 | To Be

Today's entry might look short but that's intentional.  From my reckoning I view the "to be" verb as the most important component of a language as it drives sentences.  Once you get this nailed the task of conversing will be that much easier.  On that note, see below the various ways to be:

I am	εγώ είμαι	egho eemeh
You are	εσύ είσαι	esee eese
He is	αυτός είναι	aftos eene
She is	αυτή ειναι	aftee eene
We are	εμεις εί μαστε	emees eemaste
You are	εσείς είσαστε	esees eessaste
They are	αυτοί είναι	aftee eene

After devoting the first couple of posts looking at "combinations" you'll notice another one pop up out of the blue.  It looks like "αυ" in the they are statement at the bottom of the table somehow turns into "af" instead of "ahee" which is how you would expect to read it. 

That aside, with these sentance starters it will be possible to say where you're from, passing compliments and conveying you're emotions.  For me for example, I would say such things as:

εγώ ειμαι αγγλικά	εσύ είσαι Ομορφος	εμεις εί μαοτε κουρασμένοι
I am English	You are beautiful	We are tired!

A running theme you'll notice is that it can never be this simple.  For the "You are..." translation as shown above we are only stating a fact.  This would be different if you are describing someone as doing something.  For instance, "You are sleeping" is εσύ κοιμασαι (esee keemasee), which is very different from εσύ εισαι xxx (esee eese xxx).  

Short but nevertheless a little bugger to get right.  Next post I'll try and string some more substantial sentances together to exemplify the above points.  Thanks for the genuinely helpful comments of which I'm redrawing my own notes! 


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Day 4 | Greeting

After the headache of consonants and vowels we can start sticking letters together into words to make beautiful conversations with the locals.  Here is my first attempt at coping with bumping into someone that I would already know in a Greek street (and swiftly moving on after a quick Αντιό!).

Andreas P	Hello Mrs K	Γεια σου Κυρια Κ	Yiasoo Keereea Κ
Despina K	Hello Mr P	Γεια σου Κύριος Π	Yiasoo Keereos Π
Andreas P	How are you?	Τι Κάνετε;	Tee Kahnehteh
Despina K	I'm fine	Μιά Χαρά	Meeah Harah
Andreas P	Me too	Και ερώ Επίσις	Keh-eroh Epeesees
Despina K	Good seeing you	Xάρηκα που σε ειδα	Hahreeka poo see eetha
Andreas P	Thank you	Ευχαριστώ	Efhareestoh
Despina K	Goodbye	Αντίο	Adeeo
Andreas P	Goodbye	Αντίο	Adeeo

 the tics in 3rd column are emphasised in bold in the far-right column

Some interesting points from this.  The question mark in English "?" is used in Greek with a semi-colon ";" (what they use for a semi-colon is a mystery).  Also, Γεια σου (Yiasoo) I understand is used interchangeably for Hello and Goodbye in Cyprus whilst in Greece they use the αντίο (Adeeo) for the Goodbye (so one less word to remember).  Also, don't be fooled by the "I'm fine" sentance and assume "I am" equals Μιά because it doesn't.  "I am hungry" for example translates to Είμαι νυσταλέος (Eemeh neestalehos) which uses the true translation for "I am" whilst the one shown in the table above translates to "one" (I know, it still doesn't make sense to me either - comments please!).    


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Day 3 | Consonants

As hinted in the last post, today will be devoted to the other portion of the Alphabet: the consonants.  These represent the sounds which are of "complete or partial closure of the vocal tract" (thanks Wikipedia) opposed to the vowels which are open.  In Greek there are 17 of these "closed noises" but like the vowels these get extended when we add combinations to the letter soup.  All of these are shown below:

β     veeta     "v"     βιβλιο (vivlio = book)

γ     ghama     "y"     γατα (yata = cat)    

δ     dhelta     "th"     δρόμος (thromos = road)

θ     theeta     "th"     θαρρος (tharos = courage)

ζ     zeeta     "z"     ουζο (oozo = yum!)

κ     kappa     "k"     καλοσ (kalos = good)    

λ     lamdha     "l"     λεμονι (lemonee = lemon, obviously)

μ     mee     "m"     μιλι (mili = mile)

ξ     ksee     "ks"     ξυδι (kseedhi = vinegar)

π     pee     "p"     πολυ (poly = many)

ρ     pee     "ro"     ρολοι (roloi = watch)

σ     sigma     "s"     συγνώμη (signomi = sorry)

τ     taf     "t"     τι (ti = what)

φ     fee     "f"     φιδι (fidi = snake - my word of the week!)

χ     khee     "ch"     χερι (kheeri = hand)

ψ     psee     "ps"     ψυχολογία (psychologia = psychology)

There are some sounds you'll notice that occur in English but not in the list above, hence the need for them blasted extensions again:

μπ     "b"     μπάλα (bala = ball)

ντ     "d"     ντόμινο (domino = domino)

τζ     "j"     τζατζίκι (tzatziki, more like a bee "zzz" than j!)

γκ     "g"     γκρί (gri = grey)

γγ     (very rare other than the name Evangelia, forget it)

So 17 turns into 21ish.  OK, just to round off, lets look at the other complication with the use of the "two dots" ¨ (diaresis...ya) and the "tic" ´ (pitch accent) which you can see on some words.  These two features have an impact on the last post on vowels, where two letters can be put together to make new sounds.  

For example, where we put the letters α and ι in to αι to make the "eh" sound instead of its component letters "ah" and "ee" (read Day 2 if this makes no sense), it can be seperated again if it looks like this with a tic: άι.  Because of this it not longer reads "eh" by combination but seperated as "ah ee".  Lets see this in action.  Picture a fairy and give it its greek name νεράιδα.  To say this out loud you would say Neraeetha (to my ears at least).  If we spelt it as νεραιδα (without the tic) however it would sound like Neretha.

Then comes the two dotted diaresis ¨, which would have the same effect.  Whilst the tic is used for tone and pitch the dotted line seems to have only one purpose, which is to split up the combination.  Again, to tease this out, say we have the Greek word απλοϊκος we would pronounce this as aploeekos (there is no combination effect on the οι that would normally sound as "ee").  Should that be spelt (incorrectly) as απλοικος then it would read as apleekos.  Fittingly, this απλοϊκος means in English simple (irony never ceases).  

Hope this was interesting for the reader.  Again, let me know how you feel this coming is across and leave your comments below to let me know I'm not the only one going through this adventure/torture!  Next post I'll be making some words (hell yeah!)


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Day 2 | Vowels

Back from work; it's Friday night and here I pick up where I left off for Day 2 of this Greek endeavour.  As promised today will be devoted to breaking down the 24 letters to more manageable chunks.  The natural subset exists in the Greek alphabet as it does in the English between consonants and vowels and it is the latter which will be explored today.  As mentioned in the last post there are multiple letters that are used for the same sounds, making the sequence more complicated than necessary.  Nevertheless, the 5 vowels we use here in merry lil' England are in close parallel with whats in Greece: the A, E, I , O and U which deviates with an "oo" rather than "u".  To my ears the sounds of the vowels are as follows:

α (alpha) sounds like apple             

ε (epsilon) αι (alpha-iota) sounds like exit

η (eta) ι (iota) υ (upsilon) ει (epsilon-iota) οι (omicron-iota) sounds like integer

ο (omicron) ω (omega) sounds like open

ου (omicron-upsilon) sounds like hook

Looks simple, right?  Well, not quite.  We can't just stick these vowel babies into any old word in any old place.  They come with their own rules and stipulations which need conforming to if you don't want to come across all novice-like.  So here is my limited understanding of these such policies:

the "A" is simply alpha α (just the one, good start) so there is no confusion what to use.  For example the word for love is agapi αγαπι (aww!).  

the "E" gets a little more complicated.  There is a single epsilon ε and a combined set alpha-iota αι which both sound as "e".  They use ε in all words except for the mysterious 'reflexive verbs' (things you do to yourself, such as "I eat" or "I wakeup") in which case you use αι.  For example, "I sleep" will be keemame κοιμαμαι with the ai at the end.

the "I" is the most confusing out of the 5 and is more than likely to be learnt from intuition than from reading textbooks, but nevertheless, lets have a crack.  

Eta η is used on feminine words (all those that did French at GCSE will remember this unhelpful nuance; learning the gender as well as the name of things!).  So for example "life" is of the female persuasion and is therefore known in Greek with an eta stuck comfortably to the end: zoe ζοη. 

Upsilon υ is - yes, you guessed it - for the big butch masculine words (although adjectives not nouns).  So for the commonly used term "many" is poly πολυ.  "very cold" would be πολυ κρυ.

Iota ι are for the neutral words.  Typical example is "child" which can obviously be male or female.  The Child "Pedhee" would use the "ee" variant Iota:  παιδι.

Epsilon-Iota ει should be used for conjugating verbs.  That is, stringing verbs (run, walk and sleep etc) with the primary actor (I, they, you or he etc) which are third person.  For instance: "he writes" would be αντοσ γραφει and "you write" would be εσυ γραφεισ.

Omicron-Iota οι is the last "ee" variant and can be an actual word in itself (the "the") when the noun is plural and not neutral (stay with me...).  So say we want to shout loudly "the ducks" (which is plural and female) we would say ee papyes οι παπιεσ.

the "O" is a lot simpler.  There is a more formal explanation in the text books but it seems to me that the de-facto rule is that if there is an "o" at the end  of a word, use an Omicron o; for example egg in Greek is avgho αuγο.  Omega (the last letter of the alphabet)  is usually kept for the verbs; the doing words: "play" for instance is pezo or παιζω.

the "U" represents the last of the vowels and isn't a U at all, but an "oo" sound.  The nicest way to exemplify this is to reach for the ooranos or ουρανοσ (if you hadn't guessed, the sky).

Well that was a challenge.  It's important to remember that all this will come with intuition and don't be disheartened if you find this a struggle to start with (well, this is what I've been told at this early stage of the journey at least).  The next post will be a gloss over the consonants, but please feel free to post a comment on the section below to help open up the floor to discussion and debate (I am expecting mistakes so please feel free to bring me up to score where needed). 

Time for some αλκοολ!


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Day 1 | Introduction, Alphabet

This blog is dedicated to my story in learning the Greek language.  Here will be notes, scribbles and anecdotes in the pursuit of becoming fluent (with a Cypriot twang!) in this Indo-European dialect (see, we're already learning).  I invite help and advice from those equipped to teach the lingo as well as questions from individuals enduring their own journey.  There is nothing more solitary than a student head-down in a text book learning something esoteric as a new language, so a more collaborative process will help me and hopefully cajole others in getting "there" quicker (with some fun on the way).  Therefore, feel free to email, post comments and share your own experiences. 

So, to get the ball rolling as well as for reference, there is no better time to bring up the Alphabet (that hieroglyphic assortment of sticks we use to make words).  Below you'll see 24 cryptic letters with the pronunciation below which the Greeks have as their consonants and vowels.  I'm reliably informed that in the modern Hellenic language the sound "e" occurs more frequently than is necessary to the extent that the powers that be (the speak police I think they're called) are discussing truncating the alphabet.  Epsilon-Iota, Omicron-Iota, Iota, Eta and Upsilon all sound like the "e" in the English language (not a good start, but at least we're tidying up). 

So there's the first tentative steps (an indecipherable string of letters that are in some cases redundant).  In the next piece I'll look at how these letters sound orally before I embark on the juicy task of making words (some of them clean).  As I go into the Alphabet in detail next time please feel free to share your tips and tricks in remembering or articulating them pesky little letters.  Enjoy!



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