Cyprus-Forum.com

[DANGAMAN]

In my opinion the best way to learn any language is to keep practising, by making mistakes is the only way to learn.

I appreciate foreign people who try to learn my language even through they may make mistakes.

You should see the trouble I get into when I go on holiday, trying to speak a foreign language.

The locals love it too.

[Hazza]

Jeez, this girl is dangerous

I talk in Greek to you, you talk back in English, so I carry on in English. Thats the best method to stop the pain in my brain from trying to translate

[LENA]

Jeez, this girl is dangerous

I talk in Greek to you, you talk back in English, so I carry on in English. Thats the best method to stop the pain in my brain from trying to translate

Yes because i am trying to stop the headache from translating what you say to Greek!



































Just kidding. Your Greek are very good and I love your Charlie's pronunciation!

[Bill]

Greek is my first language with a little Arabic thrown in just to add to the confusion but that was many many years ago.

I'm now finding it difficult to re learn the Greek language and as so many speak good English in Cyprus I'm finding it much easier to to communicate in English rather than Greek.

I've just come back after visiting friends in Italy ~ during that two weeks I spent a lot of time driving around the southern part ( south of Naples ) all the way to Sicily ~ I only found 3 people out of all those we met that could speak English ~ it really stretched my very limited knowledge of the Italian language to the limit ~ but it was good fun even though I kept throwing in a few Greek words in every so often to confuse everybody .

English is so widely spoken in Cyprus that there is sadly no real incentive to speak Greek although I do try hard.

Bill

[devil]

English is so widely spoken in Cyprus that there is sadly no real incentive to speak Greek although I do try hard.

May be true in the towns, but not in the villages.

[Nikitas]

A personal observation, which is to say it is not a scientific truth, so dont jump on me if it is wrong- the best Greek speakers I have come cross, in terms of grammar use, colloquial expression usage and pronunciation have been italians, plus one Dutch lady and a German archaeologist who learned Greek by listening to his diggers in two months! But he is a genius so he does not count. But Italians are tops so far, and maybe it has something to do with their musical ear and grammar which comes from Lating and is similar to Greek?

By the way, the worst Greek speakers are Anglos, from any country and background, again due to the simple grammar of English? (No gender endings, no evident cases etc?)

[Nikitas]

Learning languages is more than simply learning words from a dictionary and using them in literal translation, as the following incident proves-

X married a Greek man and she learns Greek words from her dictionary forgetting details about idiom etc. At Sunday lunch her mother law asks : "X which part of the chicken do you want?"

X replies "ta vyzia" and her mother in law drops the carving knife!

Dictionary entry "breast" can be "stithos" (chest or breast), as well as "vyzia" (tits).

[LENA]

Learning languages is more than simply learning words from a dictionary and using them in literal translation, as the following incident proves-

X married a Greek man and she learns Greek words from her dictionary forgetting details about idiom etc. At Sunday lunch her mother law asks : "X which part of the chicken do you want?"

X replies "ta vyzia" and her mother in law drops the carving knife!

Dictionary entry "breast" can be "stithos" (chest or breast), as well as "vyzia" (tits).

I wish I was there

[RichardB]

Nikitas wrote

By the way, the worst Greek speakers are Anglos, from any country and background, again due to the simple grammar of English? (No gender endings, no evident cases etc?)

I would agree with what Nikitas wrote although I also think that this has more to do with the average Anglos inability to understand their own language. Most will understand the three basic tenses ie past, present and future, but to take it on further from there I think most would struggle.

On a personal level I was 'forced' to learn Greek back in the 70s by living in Limassol amongst an entirely Greek speaking nieghbourhood and not having any English speaking persons around me. Believe me you soon learn when put in that situation (Sink or Swim)

Got to admit though I still struggle with the masculine and feminine verbs

[Get Real!]

Got to admit though I still struggle with the masculine and feminine verbs

That definitely makes the language very tough same as French, because there is no logic behind it and you have to Parrot-learn every single word...