Learning Greek and the main difficulties for beginners. Free Greek courses online Start learning Greek from scratch

Modern Greek language - the language spoken in modern Greece. On the whole, Greek language belongs to Indo-European family languages, with the longest history and 34 centuries of writing, undeniably being a huge heritage of modern civilization. Today (new) Greek is the official language of the Hellenic Republic and Cyprus. It is also spoken by the Greek diaspora around the world.

Therefore, acquaintance and study of foreign languages cannot be imagined without learning Greek. The self-instruction manual presented on the site online is intended for everyone who wants to learn how to speak correctly in spoken (new) Greek as much as possible. The course is designed for beginners and is presented free of charge. The compiler of the lessons Anna Borisova () combined two Greek textbooks into lessons (more). The structure of the lessons is as follows: at the beginning of each lesson, grammatical explanations are given, then dialogues and texts are offered for study, which are supplied with small dictionaries, then various expressions on the topic are presented, and at the end of the lesson it is possible, after doing exercises, to check how you learned the lesson. Under the exercises you will find the keys to them: . Each lesson is voiced.

Go to → list of lessons ← (Click)

Learning to speak the language takes practice. In addition, at self-study there will be no one to check you in the Greek language, so you will not have one hundred percent confidence in the correctness of your constructions. Therefore, if it is not possible to communicate with native speakers, we can advise you to try to repeat the dialogues and texts proposed in this tutorial as close to the text as possible, almost by heart. All of them are created by native speakers and contain many commonly used expressions. Therefore, do not be afraid that you will learn to speak an artificial language. If all these expressions enter your consciousness as ready-made formulas, then, once in the language environment, you will be able to put them into practice. All this, however, does not eliminate the boring need to learn words. Unfortunately, without this, it is impossible to learn a foreign language.

Many Greek words were actively borrowed by other languages, as well as in scientific fields of knowledge, such as mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, etc. Elements of Greek word formation, together with words of Latin origin, are the basis of modern scientific and technical vocabulary. Note that modern Greek and ancient Greek are not interchangeable. However, if you know Greek, Ancient Greek will be much easier to learn.

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Learning Greek

PRONUNCIATION

Elementary phonetics course according to Rytova's textbook http://www.topcyprus.net/greek/phonetics/phonetics-of-the-greek-language.html
Description of phonetics http://www.omniglot.com/writing/greek.htm
Details and features of Greek pronunciation with detailed tables and examples that can be listened to online (page on English language): http://www.foundalis.com/lan/grphdetl.htm

GRAMMAR

6. View all forms of any word, find the initial form of the verb: http://www.neurolingo.gr/el/online_tools/lexiscope.htm

7. Portal Lexigram: dictionary of declension and conjugation of words http://www.lexigram.gr/lex/newg/#Hist0

8. Verbs and their forms, translation into English. language http://moderngreekverbs.com/contents.html

9. Conjugator - verb conjugator (all forms, 579 verbs) http://www.logosconjugator.org/list-of-verb/EL/

TEXTBOOKS

9. Textbooks and others study guides in Pdf format, registration is required on the site, then you can download books for free (100 points are allocated, one book costs about 20-30 points, points can be replenished in the future): http://www.twirpx.com/search/

For beginners (level A1 and A2): Ελληνικά τώρα 1+1. It has audio.

Level A1 and A2 - Επικοινωνήστε ελληνικά 1 - Communicate in Greek, audio and workbook with grammar exercises separately. This is a fun textbook with funny cartoons and great tasks for developing conversational speech. He has part 2 - for levels B1-B2
For levels C1-C2 - Καλεϊδοσκόπιο Γ1, Γ2 (here you can only download samples http://www.hcc.edu.gr/el/news/1-latest-news/291-kalei..

For levels A1-B2 (released before the advent of classification by levels): Ελληνική γλώσσα Γ. Μπαμπινιώτη and Νέα Ελληνικά γα ξένους, it has all the audio
Self-taught in Russian: A.B.Borisova Greek without a tutor (levels A1-B2)
Textbook Ελληνική γλώσσα Γ. Μπαμπινιώτη - there are the best tables for grammar and syntax (although it is completely in Greek).

PODCASTS

10. Excellent audio podcasts with Pdf transcript and download option. The language level gradually becomes more difficult: http://www.hau.gr/?i=learning.en.podcasts-in-greek

RADIO ONLINE

AUDIOBOOKS

DICTIONARIES AND PHRASEBOOKS

16. Explanatory dictionaries online http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/modern_greek/tools/lexica/index.html

17. Russian-Greek dictionary http://new_greek_russian.academic.ru

18. Greek-English dictionary online with voice acting http://www.dictionarist.com/greek

VIDEO LESSONS

19. Greek on the BBC - video lessons http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/greek/guide/

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

20. Video lessons Greek from scratch. You need to listen and repeat ready-made phrases in Greek. Subject: everyday communication, cafe Restaurant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irvJ-ZWp5YA

21. Greek from the project Speak Asap- Greek in 7 lessons. Vocabulary, grammar at level A1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm65v4IPsl8

22. Greek-for-you video project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5WtE8WrpLY

23. Easy Greek channel - from level A2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtmBaIKw5P4

24. Audiobooks in Greek: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvev7gYFGSavD8P6xqa4Ip2HiUh3P7r5K

25. Channel with Greek learning videos for Greek elementary school students https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnUUoWRBIEcCkST59d4JPmg

FILMS

BOOKS

30. The Open Library includes copyright-free classical literature as well as contemporary works hosted by the authors themselves. All books on the Open Literature List are distributed freely and legally. http://www.openbook.gr/2011/10/anoikth-bibliothhkh.html

31. E-books for free http://www.ebooks4greeks.gr/δωρεανελληνικα-ηλεκτρονικαβιβλια-free-ebooks

32. Interactive textbooks for Greek secondary school in grades and subjects - suitable for learners of Greek as a foreign language at levels B1-B2.

EXAMS AND TESTS

37. Portal of the Greek Language Center, which conducts, inter alia, examinations for the CERTIFICATION OF GREEK LANGUAGE. Here you can:

Determine your level of Greek language proficiency
- Find centers for exams for the Certificate of Proficiency in Greek (required for studying and working in Greece)
- Download materials to prepare for exams for the Certificate

DIFFERENT SITES

38. A site with a variety of information about the Greek language, many links to resources:

Learning Greek requires patience and perseverance. Looking at the Greek “hieroglyphs” for the first time, it is difficult to imagine how rhythmic and melodic this language can be. I remember my first impression when I opened the textbook: neither Cyrillic nor Latin - it's not clear what. And when I started to learn and broke my language on unusual accents... It was these thoughts that prompted the idea to write a post about the first difficulties people face when learning Greek.

I will not sin and I will say frankly, this post was not written alone. Everyone has their own difficulties, and I asked Anya - - to tell about the most system errors. So basically, I'm retelling.

So, the difficulties of beginners in learning the Greek language can be “put on several whales”: writing and reading rules, personal pronouns and the linking verb “to be”, as well as cases. And now about all this a little more.

In Greek writing and reading rules, the main difficulty lies in their difference from the Cyrillic alphabet close to us or the commonly studied English. Due to the fact that the brain, upon first contact with the new, tries to refer to previously studied material, students often confuse the Greek ν (nu) and ρ (rho) with the visually identical English v and p.

Spelling also causes certain difficulties: for example, in Greek there are 6 !!! various letters and letter combinations to denote the sound "and", a similar situation is also with the sounds "e" and "o".

But, as a rule, difficulties in reading are quickly overcome, and already in the third lesson, the average student reads freely. With spelling, for the above reasons, things are a little more complicated, since the spelling of many words just needs to be memorized.

The second common difficulty is personal pronouns and the linking verb "to be". Although students often get stuck at this stage, with practice it is also successfully overcome. I emphasize that the corresponding rules are simple - they just differ from Russian and English due to the fact that Greek belongs to another language group. And the point here is not in complexity, but in elementary practice.

The third main "stupor" - cases. By studying Greek cases, you begin to understand how difficult it is for an English speaker to learn Russian. But still, Greek cases are simpler than Russian ones - not counting the vocative, there are only three of them.

The main point in cases is the change of endings and stress. And if students cope with the first one quite easily and quickly, then the second comes a little later with systematic practice. The largest number censure is associated with the genitive case, since both a change in the ending and an overrun of the stress occur in it. However, as practice shows, a few days of perseverance, and this "Gordian knot" can also be eliminated.

The verb itself is not difficult, but when studying it, it is important to feel the rhythm. This is especially important when changing the tense of verbs, when, as in the previous case, the stress is overrun.

If we add here the nuances of the passive voice, it becomes clear that it will not be easy to master this topic without perseverance. But there is a good way out: the verb can be taught in all forms at once (by time and by person). This not only helps to better focus on the future and grasp the sense of rhythm, but also contributes to faster vocabulary replenishment.

Thus, the study of Greek has its own nuances. However, they do not stem from the complexity of the language or the presence of some special constructions, but from its difference from the usual Russian and English.

The advice of the teacher is not to despair at the first difficulties and not to retreat. In many ways, Greek is much simpler than it seems at first glance. You just need to be patient, develop your own approach and everything will work out.

LESSON-1: After the first lesson, you will learn how to say hello in Greek (say "Hello!", "Good morning!", "Good afternoon!", "Good evening!"); learn to speak Greek "coffee" and "tea"; be able to say "Please"; learn to ask for something in Greek. After the first Greek lesson for beginners, you will know 8 new words.

LESSON-2: In this lesson you will learn to speak Greek "Menu", "Account", "and"; learn how to ask the waiter to bring you something; learn to say "Goodbye"; You can say "Thank you" in Greek.
After two lessons, your vocabulary will be 14 words.

LESSON-3: In this lesson you will learn how to ask someone "Would you like?", learn how to say Greek "We would like", learn new words "Lemon", "Sugar", "Milk", how to say “Tea with lemon”, “Coffee without milk”, etc., learn the conjunction “or”. Your vocabulary is 21 words.

LESSON-4: After the 4th lesson you will learn how to say in Greek “I am going to …”, “I am flying to …”; learn to speak Greek "Moscow", "Athens", "Crete"; learn how to say "Reis" in Greek; you can ask the interlocutor “Where are you going?”, “Where are you flying?”. By the end of the lesson you will know 29 new words.

LESSON-5: In this lesson you will learn how to say "Place" in Greek (on a plane, train, etc.); learn to say "Window seat", "Aisle seat"; learn how to apologize in Greek. After five Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 33 new words.

LESSON-6: In this lesson we will study the phrases "This (this, this) is" and "This (this, this) is not"; then you will learn how in Greek it will be “Two”; learn how to say "Beer" and "Bottle" in Greek. After this lesson, you will already know 42 new words.

LESSON-7: In this lesson you will learn how to say “Ticket” in Greek; be able to say "I want to buy" and "We want to buy"; learn how to ask in Greek "How much is it?". After seven Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 46 new words.

LESSON-8: In this lesson you will learn how to say “Water”, “Wine”, “Glass”, “Juice” in Greek; be able to say "You want to buy"; learn how to say “Yes” and “No” in Greek; you can ask a question with the word "Which". Your vocabulary after this lesson is 54 words.

LESSON-9: After the 9th lesson you will learn how to say "My", "Your" in Greek. Learn to ask a question with the word "Where". Learn phrases with the words "Baggage", "Here", "I can get it." After nine Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 60 words.

LESSON-10: In this lesson you will learn how to say “Taxi stand”, “Bus stop” in Greek. You can ask for a one-way or round-trip ticket. After the lesson, you will already know 65 new words.

LESSON-11: In this lesson you will learn how to say in Greek "I know", "We know", "I don't know", "We don't know". You can ask the interlocutor "Don't you know?". After the lesson, you will already know 70 new words.

LESSON-12: After completing the lesson, you can ask the interlocutor how to get / get to the city center, you can find out where the pharmacy, tavern, hotel is located. You can ask to show you where these objects are located. You will already know 78 words.

LESSON-13: The topic of this lesson is "In the tavern". In this lesson, you will learn how to name popular dishes in Greek, you can ask if a certain dish is available. After 13 Greek lessons for beginners, you will already know 87 new words.

LESSON-14: In this lesson we will learn phrases related to checking into a hotel. You will be able to book a single/double room in Greek for one or two days. After this lesson, you will already know 94 new words.

LESSON-15: In this lesson we will continue the study of phrases related to the hotel. You will learn how to say "Breakfast in the room" in Greek. You can say that the TV, telephone, Wi-Fi do not work in the room. You will know how to ask for a Wi-Fi password. You can find out at what checkout time the departure from the hotel. After the 15th Greek lesson for beginners, you will already know 102 new words.

DOWNLOAD THE VIDEO LESSONS PUBLISHED ON THIS PAGE AND REGULARLY RECEIVE NEW LESSONS ON YOUR E-MAIL

To do this, click the "Get Free Lessons" button:

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The topics of the lessons are perfect for preparing for a trip to Greece (Theme of all lessons: "Greek for tourists and travelers").

When you move to another country as a child, learning foreign language is given easily, and, until recently, someone else's speech quickly becomes native. But, if you are already 18 years old and you do not have special abilities for languages (which was exactly the case in my case), then learning a foreign language can be a difficult task, especially if you need to learn Greek ...

Today I want to tell you how I learned Greek, perhaps my experience will be useful to someone and will help in difficult times (yes, I even threw notebooks, in full confidence that Greek is practically Chinese, and I will never master it).

How it all began.

Moving to Greece was not a spontaneous decision: I knew in advance that, one way or another, I would transfer to this wonderful country. Therefore, I decided to start preparing for the move by learning the Greek language. And then a problem arose: I don’t know how it is now, but 7 years ago there were simply no tutors or Greek language courses in Belarus. I had to start learning the language on my own. Among the resources available to me were a few online language lessons and a few Greek textbooks. O best books I wrote to study Greek. Is it any wonder that by the time of the move, I had mastered only the alphabet and a few elementary grammatical structures.

"Yasu malaka".

My integration into the language environment began with the building of the Athens airport, where I heard and learned my first two words in Greek. "Native speakers" said these words so often that it was a sin not to remember. Guess which popular Greek words is it about? Of course, “yasu” is a Greek greeting/farewell and “malaka” is a (uh, how to translate it that way, so as not to be expressed) curse. The word "malaka" in Greece has a certain magical, almost sacred meaning.) The Greeks managed to give the word, originally meaning a curse, a completely ordinary meaning and use it together with friends or at work, to describe emotions or characterize things and events. And no one is offended by anyone. But I would not advise immigrants to use it, at least in the first couple.

From the ship to the ball.

Naturally, with knowledge of the alphabet and as many as 2 whole words in Greek, my path could only lie in group A (for beginners) of the Philosophical School of the University of Athens.

How exactly to learn the language: on their own or in courses, everyone chooses based on their preferences and capabilities, but I just needed a () diploma in knowledge of the Greek language, so my choice was predetermined.

In the courses, we were often repeated a phrase, the meaning and correctness of which I understood only some time later: "If you know the grammar of the Greek language, everything else will follow." At the time, I strongly disagreed with this statement. Years of studying English have affected: they taught, taught grammar at school, but what's the point? I started speaking and communicating fluently in English only when I got into the language environment, and there was no one around who could understand Russian. Here you want, do not want - you will speak. At school, I, like other guys from the class, could not clearly connect even a few phrases in English, despite the long hours spent “memorizing” the rules of grammar. Therefore, I did not believe teachers in Greece, and I studied grammar solely because of the grammar test included in the upcoming exam.

As time has shown, the teachers were right. When you are in a language environment (and not outside it, as is the case with school English), knowing the grammatical subtleties helps a lot. Within a year, I spoke Greek better than some foreigners who have lived in Greece for decades. And all because, even having a small vocabulary, but a good grammatical base, I clearly understood the “formula”: how, what and why to say.

Thorny path.

If we talk about the process of learning Greek, it was very difficult. Exam time was rapidly approaching, and knowledge and skills were accumulating very slowly.

Five days a week I attended courses, spent hours in the evenings doing huge homework, learning words. The clock was ticking, deadlines were running out, and at some point bad thoughts crept into my head: I will never learn “IT”, I don’t understand anything, and in general, I’m probably a fool, not a very capable student. If you are not “pressed” by time and there is no specific fixed period, day “X”, by which you need to know everything, everything, then learning the Greek language will be much easier and more enjoyable. If there is no time, then you will have to gather all your strength into a fist and “cram” further.

At some point, when my vocabulary expanded significantly, and in grammar I was already oriented like a fish in water, all the pieces of the puzzle came together. Everything somehow unexpectedly quickly went easily, very easily. I began to understand colloquial speech, speak Greek myself, read - all this began to be given without much effort, as something taken for granted. From this I made an important conclusion: the main thing when you are just starting to learn Greek is to overcome yourself and, despite the fact that much is still not working out, that you do not understand something, just continue. And at some point, when the "skeleton of the language" is formed in your head, all subsequent knowledge will come by itself, without much effort on your part.

What helped me.

Undoubtedly, being in a language environment, learning a language is much easier. But, even in Greece, many foreigners manage to stretch this process for decades. I want to give some recommendations that helped me and my friends learn Greek faster.

No Russian channels! Especially at the beginning of learning Greek Russian television should be strictly prohibited. I have one friend who has lived in Greece for 15 years and can hardly connect 2-3 words in Greek. And if not for her love for programs and films in Russian, everything could have turned out differently.

Watch Greek series and foreign films with Greek subtitles. For me, this item was one of the most difficult, since I don’t like TV shows at all, and even more so Greek ones. But, Greek TV shows are the key to understanding colloquial speech, so I had to watch. If TV shows help develop listening comprehension skills, then films with Greek titles will enrich your vocabulary and help you make fewer spelling mistakes when writing.

Greek songs. To be honest, I do not agree that by listening to songs, you will quickly begin to understand oral speech. I will explain why: in order to hit the notes (and indeed the melody requires it), the singer is forced to draw words somewhere, and somewhere to “eat” their parts. For a song, this is acceptable, for life - no. So it turns out that serials or radio are much more effective. This is just my point of view, many claim that they learned the Greek language thanks to the songs.

Read. Read as much as possible, try to find the kind of literature that you like: it can be Greek myths, children's fairy tales, fiction, fashion magazines and even just road signs. The more you read, the faster your vocabulary will grow.

Ask. Feel free to ask what the word you don't know means. Ask friends to point out your mistakes in speech. The fact is that when a foreigner, at the very least, has learned the Greek language and begins to speak with errors, they correct him, but exactly for the first half hour. Then the Greeks begin to understand your speech even with mistakes, get used to understanding you in this way, and stop pointing out mistakes. What happens next: making the same mistake 3-4 times, a foreigner begins to think that since they don’t correct him, it means that he speaks correctly, and the word with a mistake “crashes” into memory as the correct option. It is very difficult to relearn later.

Try not to communicate in English. I know from my own experience that sometimes it is very difficult to do this. Especially when you want to quickly convey your idea to the interlocutor, and the vocabulary in Greek is still not enough. It turns out that it is much easier and faster to say a phrase in English than to “strain” the brain and fish out a word in Greek from the bins of memory. As a result: the study of Greek will be delayed for an indefinite period.