#Greek lessons for English-speakers

[bugwolfsstuff]

Someone asked who Hera was in english class (we were doing Paula Meehan's Hearth lessons poem) and someone else responded with

'oh yeah she's the war goddess'

and someone corrected them by saying 'no ye idiot that's Aphrodite' (technically not wrong but only in Sparta)

This class makes me want to kill m—....commit something that was illegal in England and Wales until 1961

[faeriefully]

C. S. Lewis is credited for popularizing the three Ls explanation for the logic of Christ’s divinity.

Taking the gospels and Christ’s own words, there are only three options. Christ is either a Liar, a Lunatic, or He is Lord of all (God incarnate).

Why is this the only logical conclusion?

Christ Himself claims to be God.

In the book of John we find many “I Am” statements made by Christ.

“He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.””

‭‭John‬ ‭8‬:‭23‬-‭24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

*note that the “he” is an addition for English translation. The Greek does not contain it. It is Ego Eimi: I Am that I Am.

—

“So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.”

‭‭John‬ ‭8‬:‭57‬-‭59‬ ‭ESV‬‬

—

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭35‬ ‭ESV‬‬

—

These two, along with others “I Am” statements in the book of John, are constructed in the Greek as Ego Eimi.

“The Greek construction lying behind this phrase is very important. To emphasize the “I” in an “I am” statement, writers and speakers would use the construction ego eimi meaning “I, I myself, am.” This is done very rarely in the Bible but ego eimi is the construction we find behind every “I AM” statement in the gospel of John. Significantly, the ego eimi construction is also found in the Greek translation of Exodus 3:14 when God declares of Himself: “I AM WHO I AM.” Over and over again when Jesus utters these “I AM” statements, He is making reference to His own deity. No first century Jew who was trained in the Scriptures would have missed this.”

— R. C. Sproul

—

Why does this matter?

Because, if Jesus is claiming the name of God, claiming to be divine, to be able to forgive sins, then there is a lot of weight on the validity of his statements.

Jesus is claiming to be God.

This means:

He is either a liar— a blasphemer in which is was correct for the Jews to attempt to kill Him. It would also mean that He is not a “moral” teacher whose lessons should be obeyed. Nothing He says is of trustworthiness. He is an enemy of God. And we should not believe, obey, nor follow His teachings. He is incapable of forgiving sin. He is a sinner. He cannot provide righteousness on our behalf. He cannot atone for sin nor bear the wrath of God without perishing. He is temporal. He is dead. He offers no salvation.

Or

He is a lunatic. A madman who believed Himself to be God and a blasphemer. Nothing He says is of trustworthiness. In which, again, it is correct for the Jews to attempt to kill him. He is an enemy of God. And we should not believe, obey, nor follow His teachings. Again, he is a sinner, incapable of providing substitution or forgiveness. He is dead. He is temporal, unable to atone for anyone, not even himself. He offers no salvation for anyone.

OR

He is Lord.

He is telling the truth. He is the Bread of Life. He is the Light of the World. He is the great I Am. He is the good shepherd. He is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world— capable of forgiving sin, able to intercede for us. He is our comforter. He is our caretaker. He is perfect, incapable of sin, deceit, lies, or failure. He is infinite and eternal, capable to bear the wrath of God without perishing for all His people’s sins, present, past, and future.

He provides righteousness and salvation for all who place their trust in Him.

He is God, our savior.

—

If Jesus is not God, there is no salvation.

Listen to our Lord who calls you,

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.””

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭11‬:‭27‬-‭30‬ ‭ESV‬‬

-

Come. Repent. Cast your burdens and your sin upon Jesus, our God who can remove your iniquity and comfort your grief.

[spanishskulduggery]

I have a few questions about pronunciation. What is your take on 'V' (and 'B')? I know there are regional variations, like there are with English pronunciation around the world, but how do you pronounce 'V', and why? Personally, I've settled on a strong 'B' sound at the beginnings of words and the soft half-V/half-B for V's in the middle. At least, that's what I strive for. But in my online lessons I hear everything from B to a straight up American V. Does it actually matter?

Me personally? I grew up with English as my first language so my B and V are more distinct. In Spanish, there's gray area. I can't say it matters as in Spanish speakers won't understand you, it just comes across as an accent you have

I think this video does probably the best at explaining it

-

The sound really depends on the speaker

That's why you hear a lot of people say B de burro [B as in burro "donkey"] or V de vaca [V as in vaca "cow"] with the alphabet because the two letters can sound similar... you also hear it like B grande or V chica or something like that when spelling it out

Though, it really depends on the word.

Take beber for example; there are two options:

The first one that looks like be'ber means it could be two strong B sounds. The second one that looks like be'β̞er means that the second B can be a soft sound and could sound like V.

That soft B sound looks like Greek "beta", so if you look at dictionaries and see it, it means the B/V interchangeable sound

...But as you can see, both pronunciations are acceptable. If you look at something like Wiktionary, you can often see the IPA for different words.

The only hard rule I know of is that when it's a proper name like Barcelona or Valencia, you tend to have a stronger sound than a regular word like beber or valer.

This is why some people treat haber as a ver in some informal writing. It's more important that you actually spell it correctly as the pronunciation can often go either way

[kelseythelinguist]

Any recommendations for a person trying to learn Greek?

Yes, definitely! I also wrote a post on learning Modern Greek online.

I am not sure what your native language is or if you know any other languages. I studied German before Greek, and so I found Greek grammar very easy in comparison.

To start with, it's slightly more complex than Spanish for English native speakers since it uses a case system (changing noun, adjective, and article endings). But I found the patterns fairly regular and easy to remember! So it is not stressful at all. And since many words are similar between English and Greek, you will find it easy to pick up vocabulary.

For learning, this was what I did:

A1/A2

Timeframe: 9-12 Months, Depending on how fast you go

Tools:

Duolingo: 5-6 lessons/1 crown a day, or 30 minutes

Rosetta Stone: 3 lessons a day, or 30 minutes

Language Transfer Greek: 1-2 lessons a day, 10-20 minutes

LingQ: Free reading, when chilling out

When you finish Duolingo and Rosetta Stone materials, watch Eisai To Tairi Mou on Youtube. The wonderful George has subbed the whole series in English.

For textbooks, I used Take Off In Greek. I did 1 lesson a week after completing Duolingo/Rosetta/etc. This takes about 3 months. There is an audio CD, which you may need to buy separately. I'm not sure.

I also started tutoring while working on the textbook. I meet with Georgia on Italki, who is amazing.

B1/B2

I'm still working on this. 😉

Colloquial Greek is a good textbook here. It's very fast, though. Lots of vocabulary. Routledge also has a Modern Greek Reader, which is advanced but quite good.

But if you want in-depth resources, look at "publications" from Omilo.

Lydia is a good review of A1/A2, all dialogues. They also have workbooks on verbs, Greek music, podcasts, etc. Their B1/B2 book is Fiyame, and it's all in Greek.

At this point, I would work through either Colloquial or Fiyame while working with a tutor 1-2x a month or more.

There is also a Greek Mastodon server - https://kafeneio.social/explore

I am not on this server, but I follow and interact with many people on it. I also use Greek as my default language. 😊

University of Athens

I want to point out that there is an affordable learning course from the University of Athens. It is an online course. They have multiple language courses, but they have a good deal.

Their basic level course is 150 EURO, but you can get it for less. If you buy one of their culture courses, many of which are 100/120 EURO, you can get the Greek course free. The culture courses are taught in English.

I hope this is all helpful! I find Modern Greek rather fun and easy to digest. So far, the grammar is not very difficult. And many of the A1/A2 resources are free or low-cost. Rosetta Stone can be bought for $167, I think, and be used for multiple languages.

[scorpion-flower]

I've come to dislike how non Greeks (most likely native English speakers because I've seen this happening mostly by them, but of course they're not the only ones) who have taken like 1 or 2 years of Greek or Ancient Greek at university, carry themselves as they've now become very educated on the language and the culture as well, and they're treated as such by everyone!

Like, I believe Tom Hiddleston claims to speak Ancient Greek, or maybe others have claimed that for him but, my dude, the Erasmian pronunciation is wrong.

And just last night, I finished Stephen Fry's book called Mythos and in the end, there is a guide on how to pronounce the names which can be limited to "Just do it the way it's easier for you, Greeks do it their way, Brits and Americans do it their way, there is no correct answer." No. I've been taking English lessons since I was 3, but still mispronounce and mispell a lot of stuff. You don't see me coming and making comments on the correct way to speak English, so maybe don't comment on the correct way to speak Greek, since you're not a native speaker.

And last but not least, dishonorable mention to the author Monica Gutierrez, who in one of her books, through a character that, if I'm not mistaken, is an archaeologist, says that the Parthenon Marbles that were stolen from us and are currently in the British museum don't have to return to Greece, because 'they belong to the whole world'. They belong to the whole world, but they were made here, and I, a Greek person, have to buy a ticket to England in order to see them, because a British smuggler got the permission to take them away, by the people who had us enslaved for 4 centuries. And to this day, the British keep on using stupid excuses because they don't want to give them back!

And yet, those are the people whose voices and work will get picked over the work of actual native people. For example, there is a Greek youtuber that is an archaeologist and makes videos about mythology (sometimes he does videos on Scandinavian and Egyptian mythologies too, I hope those are accurate) and ancient art and he has just released a book. I highly doubt his book will get picked by publishers, to get translated in other languages and be released outside of Greece, even though I encourage you to check him out.

I don't claim that this happens only to Greek people/language/culture, but it's the only one I can comment on ☺

[bobcatmoran]

Just thinking about Mr. H, who was my 10th grade English teacher. I took 10th grade English and American Studies as a year-long "block" where you signed up for the "Enriched" versions of both courses. American Studies was split between two teachers who were very big personalities – one taught pre-20th century, the other taught the 20th century. And then there was Mr. H, quiet and nerdy, who would never dream of whacking the chalkboard with his pointer and shouting "AN UNEXAMINED LIFE IS UNWORTH LIVING" or forbidding scented lotion in their classroom and giving a giant letter "S" (for stinky) for any offenders to display on their desks for the duration of the class (recurring scenes in the two American Studies teachers' classrooms). Mr. H taught us for the full year, and was widely regarded as The Boring One among the two Block classes.

But. This quiet man, who brought his geraniums into the classroom for the winter because they couldn't survive outdoors in our climate, who got excited over Latin and Greek prefixes, was also astoundingly political. He was head of the local teacher's union, and I only put together years later how very much in character that was. Our assigned summer reading before we even started his class was "Grapes of Wrath," and although everyone made fun of the entire chapter on a turtle and the breastfeeding scene at the end, what stuck with all of us were those scenes where the Joad family was trying to make a living off of fruit picking and couldn't because were always more workers even more desperate, willing to work for wages even farther below what you could survive on, in an endless spiral of poverty.

He assigned us xeroxed copies of MLK's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" and Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," neither which were in the textbook. And when we got the rare treat of having the (Republican) Speaker of the state House coming to talk to a joint session of the Block classes, and we all spent all of it grilling him on why he wouldn't allow a vote on legalizing gay marriage (this was the late '90s, and it was still regarded as a fringe liberal issue at the time), Mr. H afterwards was like, "Maybe you should have branched out on topics, but good job speaking truth to power."

Anyways. Wherever you are now, Mr. H, however unappreciated you were back when you were my actual teacher, I still carry with me the lessons you taught, decades later.

[rigelmejo]

Tour of Old Language Learning Textbooks

So I find old books fascinating, and I've collected a fair number of old language learning textbooks (from 1800s to 1980s, along with some modern ones).

The Nature Method textbooks teach language in my absolute favorite way of studying, and I wish there were more modern textbooks still teaching in this way (Lingua Latina for Latin is one nature method style textbook still used by some). There are also textbooks in this style found on archive.org and sometimes on youtube for: English, French, Italian, German (incomplete copy found), Latin (as mentioned, multiple volumes, newer versions available for purchase), Greek, and Spanish (Poco a Poco and All Spanish Method part 1 and part 2 are both not written as in-depth in this 'nature method' lesson style, but if you either know a similar language with some cognates like English or French, or have a teacher then they can still be used like the other nature method books), and supposedly there was a Russian version (I've found similarly-made lessons on youtube) but I have not found the old textbook yet. I used the French one to learn most of my basic vocabulary and grammar, and go from reading graded readers to regular novels in French. A warning that some grammar and vocabulary is out of date, and there could be racist undertones in some of the texts, due to the time they were written. I've seen some questionable vocabulary in a couple of them, so just be aware if you use these as a resource of the possibility of those issues.

There is someone who's recently been trying to design a similar 'nature method' learning material for japanese (their first 60ish lessons are edited by a japanese speaker, the later lessons are still being worked on), and I think this person did a fairly good job using emojis for the pictures. A basic understanding of japanese hiragana and katakana is necessary beforehand, along with knowing the language is subject object verb. Unfortunately I think the person has only taught 200-500 words so far, and a material for japanese would probably want to teach 2000-5000 words to get the learner to the point they could try to read other things (which was the official Nature Method's goal - to get learners to B1-B2, at least B1 in speaking and some intermediate level high enough to pick up novels and read to acquire further language).

There's a textbook called Chinese Self-Taught by the Nature Method (NOT actually in the nature method lessons style though) and Chinese Grammar Self Taught by John Darroch, and even though they're from 1930s, the Grammar Self Taught by Darroch is one of my favorite chinese learning books. The book explains radicals and hanzi in a way I found very easy to grasp, and although the grammar and vocabulary has aged (some of it is out of date now) the explanations FOR grammar in the book are very clear and easy to grasp. I've read modern online grammar explanations and like some, understood mostly, but this book's explanations just click well. The book also teaches over 2000 hanzi (I think it might even be 3000 or more - it's in a box right now or I'd check), has a hanzi dictionary in the back (and you can practice searching by strokes), and teaches a bit more vocabulary than that. It's shining point is the grammar explanations, but the clear presentation of hanzi used in those explanations is also nice. Pronunciations for the hanzi are an old system, not the current pinyin system, so if you ever learn from this book then I would recommend knowing common hanzi pinyin already, or at least not trying to learn pronunciations from this book. The hanzi are also traditional, and the biggest initial grammar differences I have seen in the book are le often being written as pronounced 'liao' even when it would be 'le' in most modern sentences, and ni being pronounced as 'nin' far more than it is in modern speech. I purchased a copy of this book years ago on ebay. This book can be found in OpenLibrary, Princeton link: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101067640563&seq=5

Another chinese textbook that's always seemed useful have been the DeFrancis Chinese books, in particular the Beginner Chinese Reader (2 volumes), Intermediate Reader (2 volumes), and Advanced Reader (1 volume). I haven't checked in a while, but recent searches say anecdotally that the Beginner Reader covers 400 hanzi in 1200 combinations (words), Intermediate covers 400, and Advanced covers 400, leaving the learner with 1200 hanzi learned (and 3600 2-hanzi words known, as the books attempt teach a TON of compound words). However some people are saying each book volume contains 400 hanzi taught and 1200 combinations, which would mean 2400 hanzi total taught and 7200 words total. As these books are dense (and I've got them), I'd say they teach closer to the higher amount estimated. I've not completed them, but they are VERY information dense. These books are out of print so buying a physical copy had to be done on abebooks or thriftbooks or ebay, and they often expensive. But there are free pdf copies floating around online if you want to get the digital copy free and browse them. The audio files for the book are also online, from the organization with the rights, so just search 'DeFrancis Beginner Chinese Reader audio files' and you should find them on itunes and the official site for free. These books are extremely dry reading (as some old textbooks are) akin to FSI courses, and they're very repetitive, but they do work and they do suit learners who prefer to learn by reading and reading a LOT to solidify knowledge. You WILL get tons of graded reading practice from the book, pick up tons of words in an organized and structured way, and get reading-review practice built into future chapters so you can simply read a chapter then progress to the next one (instead of constantly needing to review). These books do have some out of date vocabulary, and use traditional characters with only shorter simplified character reading sections at the end. However: if you've learned 1000 characters by now (or intend to) then you know how many simplified and traditional characters overlap, or are the same except for 1 radical being simplified or traditional, and you may be aware that the common hanzi which ARE significantly different in traditional may be worth learning to you if you plan to eventually read both simplified and traditional materials. I buy books from China and Taiwan so learning both is useful to me. (And a fun fact if you're a nerd who explores parallel-text reading options like me: mtlnovels.com is a site to read machine translated webnovels, with the option to display original chinese IN traditional as the only option, and I spent a lot of my first couple years learning chinese using that site to compare Modu by Priest chinese with the MTL and learn new words, since mtl often made mistakes I needed to see the chinese to look up words and get a bit closer to the actual sentences meaning... and the wonderful E Danglars translation of Silent Reading did not exist yet, so I was desperate to read and understand as much of the novel as I could. My point with this anecodote is: you may not realize how useful getting used to both traditional and simplified characters can be - from browsing online sites and not needing to worry, or buying books, or picking shows to watch, texting with people, etc).

For the learners out there who cannot suffer through DeFrancis's dry writing: fair enough, I struggled to as well which is why I never completed the textbooks. The modern Mandarin Companion graded readers are an adequate place for a beginner learner (knowing 50-300 hanzi) to start learning by reading, then you can move on to Sinolingua graded readers (or just get Pleco app and browse graded readers sold through them by unique word count, as Pleco's Reading tools will help you look up words and listen), and then around when you know HSK 4 level vocabulary and grammar (so 1000-1500 hanzi you know, and around that many words) go to Heavenly Path's notion site and browse their beginner recommendations. Around HSK 4 you should be able to start reading easier texts for native speakers, like the 1000-1500 unique words novel recommendations on Heavenly Path's site.

There are some Japanese textbooks made to learn by reading a lot, and by now you may realize I love and prefer to learn by reading. A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language (Tuttle Language Library) by Roy Andrew Miller is a beast of an option. Reviews include people mentioning that this book got them to the level of being able to read the news. I am not sure this book has the most extensive vocabulary (compared to what it could have), but it is: intensely informational and condensed to be informational nearly constantly, full of useful information and reading practice, and it does help you improve a LOT. It's not the steady stream of tons of easy material slowly teaching you more words from context that I wish existed more in japanese learning materials (check out the free Tadouku books for that - someone on reddit made 1000 page compilation of many of them in gradually increasing difficulty and it was very useful and enjoyable to read personally, and this site I found recently https://jgrpg-sakura.com/ which has a bit more advanced material and recorded audio and is just a lovely site). But it is a book that prepares you for real reading. I have a personal pet peeve about how some japanese language textbooks teach very little vocabulary or things until you get to intermediate level (I wish each genki volume taught 1000+ words each, instead of the 1700 words total of both volumes... and there's other beginner textbooks that likewise sort of 'slow down' the pace of learning with less material). And so I've found this particular Japanese Reader refreshing for presenting the basics (although you won't have a good time if you start this book as a beginner, it becomes STEEPLY difficult), and also working through all the way to 'functional reading skill of normal japanese texts.' Some people are like me, and have goals of reading as soon as they can, and it's nice when a book that says they'll teach you enough to start reading... actually does.

(I have similar pet peeves with some Chinese books - the college course ones appear to be great and teach 2000 or more words to beginners, but I've seen MANY self-teach chinese books that include only 200-500 words for a beginner... when they are going to need at bare minimum, with much strain and difficulty, 1000 words to even begin to start watching shows and reading very simple webnovels and manhua... or even having simple survival conversations, that's why HSK 4 expects 1200 words known! I think some language teaching companies just think english speakers will give up at the difference in languages, the increase in vocabulary that isn't cognates, and so instead of giving learners all they need to know - and the same amount of information they'd give say a english speaker learning spanish - they instead just design materials that teach less so it doesn't 'feel' like more work. Then the students feel screwed when they finished material labelled 'beginner' just like the spanish learner, only to realize they can do MUCH less and understand much less than the spanish learner who supposedly studied the same level of material - but actually got to study more vocabulary and grammar points. Ignore me... I could go on about my issues with some of the self-learner materials I've found for ages.)

There is also a simpler Japanese Reader textbook, 400 pages each and 2 volumes, that is fairly similar to the DeFrancis chinese reader books in terms of teaching style. I have the pdfs on an old computer, and the hard copy books in a box. I'll need to go look up the author another time (the book title was something very generic like Beginning Japanese and it's 20-30 years old, so newer books show up in searches instead of the books I have). It teaches only 500 kanji per volume, and the first volume mainly goes over how to read hiragana and katakana (and many loan words) with EXTENSIVE practice and repetition. It's designed to make you VERY COMFORTABLE reading japanese and parsing sentences and words, with lots and lots of practice. I'll find what box it's in and post more information on it if anyone is particularly curious for extensive reading practice as a beginner. The print copies sold for 20 dollars a piece when I bought them, and free pdfs can be found online if you search. However: I think if you already have hiragana and katakana grasped at least to a basic degree, the Tadouku free books may be more appealing to you. The Tadouku books are: free, written to be somewhat interesting, use pictures to help you read extensively and look up less, get you used to japanese grammar and sentences, and introduce kanji at a reasonable pace that is easy to get used to.

Finally, Japanese in 30 Hours. Free on archive.org, I also have a print copy. A slim textbook, and an incredibly useful one. Someone also posted the lessons with their own audio recording read through on youtube. What these lessons are: a true basic grammar summary of japanese. This book has some of the usual flaws of japanese lessons made for english speakers: they're entirely in romaji, they include watakushi Wa or X wa as the intro to MOST sentences even though in natural japanese those would often be omitted, the -masu polite form is in most lessons and casual verb forms are only covered in the later lessons, and the distinction between wa and ga seems to not be understood by the author. This book also has some flaws usual of much older textbooks: the grammar is somewhat out of date (arimasen in modern japanese is not used NEARLY as much as this textbook, yoi "good" is now "ii" in modern japanese much more often), and the author has this somewhat racist somewhat touristic somewhat english-centered peculiar way of framing things. I am not sure if at the time it was how an author was supposed to 'make the student entertained' during the lesson, to sell the 'mystique' of learning another language or to try and make another language seem more like english to placate an egotistical learner or what. From a historical standpoint it's interesting to see how differently things were discussed, but from a modern learner perspective it gets in the way and can be frustrating. (I would suspect some other old Japanese textbooks I've found from the late 1800s and 1900-1920s would display similar qualities depending on the authors). The reason this book is useful, despite the romaji only aspect and it's extremely dated way of framing some topics: it truly does tackle covering summarizing basic grammar of VERBS quite well. This books explanation for te-imasu, strings of connected verbs, compound verbs turning into new verb meanings, rareru, sareru, and -shou verb situations, and is still probably the explanation I understand the most when trying to read and understand sentences.

I suspect the modern Tae Kim's Grammar Guide also has good explanations for these, but the explanations are NOT in the beginner section (despite these verb types being SO common in everyday japanese you'll read or hear), and while I like Tae Kim's guide I find the written explanations a bit hard to personally 'get' and usually just rely on the example sentences/translations and compare until I *think* I understand. Like I love that Tae Kim's guide DOES explain difference between wa and ga... and yet I didn't understand his explanation enough to decide when to use wa myself, only that now I grasped the difference between wa 'a topic' (As for students - students in general - I am one) and ga "the thing THAT IS" (THE student - you're looking for specifically - is me). But I still don't know when one would pick to use wa, and why. As for Japanese in Thirty Hours: the rareru and te-imasu explanation really helped me grasp a lot of reading materials where those forms are frequently found. If you do struggle with understanding some verb form explanations, this free book may help you look at the forms in a way you may grasp better. (Or not, everyone is different). The book also has a vocabulary of over 1000 words in the back, and was designed for students to do speaking drills in different sentence patterns, to learn to speak quickly (although in a learner-type way similar to Genki sentences and the 'watashi wa' start). I never learned the vocabulary in the back, and I suspect some of it is out of date while other parts may be useful. Regardless, as it's only romaji, you would likely benefit more from using a hiragana/katakana/kanji resource for vocabulary study.

[japanese-cryptic-beauty]

Post 2: Correcting Post 1

Or: The journey of Japanese is a journey of folly.

So, I wrote that Japanese has pitch but it's usually not important for meaning, you just sound unnatural.

... Which is something you could say ... Kinda ... sorta ...

Only the Universe has been bombarding me with the importance and prevalence of pitch ever since. So I want to qualify the statement, at least.

Check out this interesting post I found here. Now, if I read this slightly cryptic answer right (it talks about "word-accent" which I assume can mean both "pitch" - Japanese, Chinese - and "stress" - English), pitch is significant to distinguish words with same sounds (homonyms) as follows: Chinese - 71%, Japanese - 13%, English - 0.47%.

Unsurprisingly, in a language (Chinese) using (in its standard pronunciation/main dialect) 5 pitches to differentiate words, pitches are "damn important" (71%). But 13% is actually also quite significant. Your mileage may differ.

Personal bias in skimming information

Now, for me, myself, this is not so surprising. I may have come across the information that pitch exists in Japanese probably twice but my brain may have chosen to willfully ignoring it.

(Textbooks may mention it but then omit it to not overload beginners, I guess.)

Thing is, I have a horrible history with learning how to stress words in other languages. These little accent-y things and squiggles on top of words? They're my nemesis. So I guess I wanted there to be no equivalent of that in Japanese.

I had three years of Ancient Greek in school, an investment of my time that taught me a valuable lesson: Don't learn Ancient Greek. I'm kidding - or am I? - the valuable lesson was to do my choices in a less knee-jerk way. In hindsight, nothing of value would have come of learning Ancient Greek even if I did well. Your opinion may differ. Fine. I really think it's a colossal waste of time unless you make a job choice requiring it. The best it could have done for me was get better at the learning itself or the learning of languages in general. But it failed in the most important thing that language does: connecting people. If it fails at that, it barely has any right to remotely exist as a subject. Nobody likes you Ancient Greek, go away.

Besides the letters, Greek gave me major problems with the stress accents. Put it on a syllable and I would never manage to pronounce the word. I always put the stress wrong. My brain hasn't unlocked how that works. I notice the same in Spanish. I may emulate a speaker (not that I speak Spanish, but when I repeat after someone), but even then I might not even hear the difference.

I know I've aggravated my Swedish teacher for not hearing the difference between his "ooh" and "uh" sounds he was making for the letter "u." (Ironically a song based entirely on the sound "U" is now playing on shuffle.) Hopefully continued exposure and awareness of the problem might help...

There's some good news, though

While my chosen learning method of WaniKani doesn't display stress, it features two speakers, Kyoko and Kenichi that say the readings. I wondered on occasion if they were real, but they do use pitch when pronouncing words. (And they might slightly vary between each other.)

So there's a neat little feature:

You pick your speaker and chose to let pronunciation play out every time the reading is featured - in case of reviews after you transcribed it yourself first.

I have to admit I was in the habit of not playing it when I could do multi-kanji word readings well, but this exposes me to pitch and pronunciation peculiarities I might otherwise ignore.

More exposure!

[EDIT:] Probably more good news, depending where you come from

So, in researching this I came across this article. It provides two pieces of context that I want to quote .

A reply to a letter to the editor of a manga magazine printed in Romaji (without accent marked) quoted in point 5: "When two or three words sound exactly alike except for pitch accent, context is going to resolve the ambiguity virtually 100 percent of the time. In practical terms, accent is probably the least important aspect of Japanese pronunciation no matter what your level of language skill."

In other words, even bad pitch accent will be understood almost always. This is where I first will employ the most horrible, stereotypical example that's ALWAYS trotted out to justify anything: the chopsticks/bridge example.

Chopsticks and bridge both transcribe to "hashi" (and to the same Hiragana). They only vary in rising and falling pitch. Now you could argue that makes pitch important. But as the above quote states - context usually resolves that quite reliably.

I mean, having browsed reddit and Quora for a while, you will inevitably see this being trotted out, and people ask the rhetorical question: Don't you think it's important to know if the bridge is burning or a set of chopsticks?

Rhetorical questions are, of course, only questions in the most technical sense. They're usually just people being smug or actually making biased or even bad faith arguments.

As mentioned above, people are not dumb. Japanese is already incredibly context-sensitive. You constantly have to keep track of things said before - because omission is common. You can leave out the subject because you mentioned it before as "the topic." Good luck with translating that, AI...

You usually can infer what is being said. But propagators of the burning chopstick dilemma are trying hard to make you think their way. Or are they even trying? It's so tired an example. If there were lots of these, surely people would quote them, too? Who cares what's going on with the damn bridge, anyway?!?

Okay, moving on.

I found this from point 6 a very useful and probably true assessment: "People without hearing impairments can mimic the melody of language, but they can hardly interpret visual accent markers into the oral/aural domain without special training because visual and auditory stimuli are processed very differently in the human brain. In all likelihood, the author of the above-mentioned letter simply feels more comfortable visually with accent markers. But using such markers to speak Japanese creates pronunciations that are worse than a crude synthesizer."

Well, I was notoriously bad at it in one language already. I guess I will hold my horses on trying to make that my method. Thankfully, audio material is available in enormous quantities, so we can learn from the melody of native speakers. And that is good news.

[fragiledewdrop]

Hello, and sorry in advance for the long post, but this is really interesting to me :)

Based on my own experience and that of those who study English at university with me, it tends to be phrasal verbs and prepositions. By a mile. Even people who could almost pass for native speakers mess them up, and learning them is really hard because there's no rhyme or reason to them , so either you a) straight up memorize endless lists (rarely effective), or b) listen to and read so much material in English that you eventually pick most of them up by osmosis. Either way, you will still make mistakes.

English grammar is fairly easy, though, especially the verb system. I speak a Romance language. Irregular verbs in English have only three forms each, sometimes two. Irregular verbs in my language, or in Spanish, or in French? They can have six different forms just for the basic present tense. I feel your pain, OP, because I am learning French too, and I would take the whole of English morphology over the French Indicative any day with zero hesitation.

Plus, irregular verbs in English were mostly formed through vowel alternation, which was the productive morphological process before you switched to adding -ed (I think it was in Early Modern English? I have to check.) That means it's not actually random. There are patterns: swim/swam/swum, sing/sang/sung, run/ran/run; bring/brought, teach/taught, catch/caught, think/thought.

They sound very similar, even to someone who knows knows nothing about linguistics. Once you figure it out, they are not that difficult to remember. Same with adding -en to some participles. There are still a few wild cards, but it's not that overwhelming.

What is hard, on the other hand, is figuring out aspect: do you use the Simple Past or the Present Perfect? The Future Simple or the Future Continuous? I have given English lessons, and this is what they are about, mostly, especially in high school. Then again, this is a problem when learning any language that is not very closely related to your own. My brother has a Master's degree in Japanese, and he had very, very similar issues there.

One thing that often gets overlooked, but is really hard to get into your head when you are an Italian speaker, is that English is a non-pro-drop language. It means you cannot omit the subject, even if you have to use the same pronoun five times in the same sentence. That is difficult for us, because not only is that not the case at all in our language (we can form whole sentences where the subject is implied; we do it all the time) but we absolutely abhore repetition. It feels extremely weird at the beginning. As I have been told, repeatedly, "it sounds wrong".

Also, in English you never put the verb before the subject. The order is strictly Subject Verb Object, except for questions, where Verb and Subject are switched. Our language is way more flexible about that (it still has nothing on fusional languages that use cases, which know no fear of man nor god when it comes to word order. Think German, Latin, or-lord help us- Ancient Greek.) In Italian we might say "è finita la partita", but in English you can't say "is over the football match". You have to switch the order of the components to put the subject first: "the football match is over". This becomes a recurring, pesky issue with longer sentences, especially when writing long texts.

Lastly, well, spelling and pronunciation, obvioulsy. I think a lot of native speakers are in a bit of a pickle there too. It's just the way the etymological cookie crumbled. At least you don’t have random accents on your vowels xD

That's it, mostly. There are a million different things to say about this, but I really need to go to bed. I hope it was interesting, and not extremely boring🌸

Native English speaker here who thinks learning French is hard so I was curious

Bonus points for tagging your native language

[smileandscream]

Okay, first of all, I'm really sorry! It's been a long while and I have no excuse!

The alphabet is complete and ready to be posted, but since it's a pretty boring bit I'm going to offer you an incomplete list of my favourite Greek sayings, which is more fun, and hope it kind of makes up for my extreme lack of dedication, lol.

Anyway, here we go:

My favourite (not especially family-friendly) Greek sayings

Στου κουφού την πόρτα, όσο θέλεις βρόντα.

[Direct translation (warning for the wild syntax differences between the languages :P): On the deaf man's door, as long as you want knock.]

It means there is no point trying to convince someone unresponsive or especially thick-headed of a thing that is true (to you).

Έβαλε τον λύκο να φυλά τα πρόβατα.

[He had the wolf guard the sheep.]

When you try to recruit someone to your cause who is obviously doing it with ulterior motives and will betray you.

Γλώσσα παπούτσι, μυαλό κουκούτσι.

[Tongue a shoe, brain a seed.)

When someone talks a lot but is, simply put, not very bright.

Αλλού ο παπάς κι αλλού τα ράσα του.

[Elsewhere than the priest are his robes.]

Spoken of a very untidy, disorganised person.

Δεν μπορείς να έχει�� και την πίτα ολόκληρη και τον σκύλο χορτάτο.

[You can't have both the pie whole and the dog fed.]

You can't have everything; you have to make compromises, sacrifices.

Είπε ο γάιδαρος τον πετεινό κεφάλα.

[The donkey told the rooster he had a big head.]

When you criticise someone, despite having the very same flaw you attribute to them, or ignoring your own wrong-doings.

Έχεις κι εσύ πολλά ράμματα στην γούνα σου.

[You too have a lot of stitches on your fur.]

When you are not blameless for something you accuse people of; when you've done plenty of sketchy things yourself.

Ήταν στραβό το κλήμα το έφαγε κι ο γάιδαρος.

[Crooked was the grapevine the donkey ate it too.]

When a situation worsens even though it was already ~not ideal~

Κακό σκυλί ψόφο δεν έχει.

[A bad dog death doesn't have.]

A bad person is very difficult to get rid of, never leaves it alone, persists for years and years. Frequently used about elderly politicians.

Ο βρεγμένος τη βροχή δεν φοβάται.

[The wet man the rain doesn't fear.]

When you have nothing to lose anymore, you're already used to the situation and are probably angry and ready to fight it.

Ο πνιγμένος από τα μαλλιά του πιάνεται.

[The drowned man for his hair grabs.]

When you're really desperate and willing to grasp at anything to try and save yourself.

Ο χορτάτος τον πεινασμένο δεν τον πιστεύει.

[The sated man the hungry man doesn't believe.]

Pretty self-evident. Privileged people aren't able/willing to listen to others talk about their suffering.

Όταν ακούς πολλά κεράσια κράτα μικρό καλάθι.

[When you hear a lot of cherries hold a small basket.]

On a controversial, very argued-about issue, be careful what you believe and use critical thinking.

Όπως έστρωσες θα κοιμηθείς.

[As you made (the bed) you will sleep.]

Simply put: You did this to yourself. Deal with it.

Στερνή μου γνώση να σ' είχα πρώτα.

[My later/last knowledge if only I'd had you from the very start.]

Again, self-evident. Used when you regret having done something the way you did when you were younger.

And, last but not least, possibly the best out of all these,

Στους τυφλούς κυβερνάει ο μονόφθαλμος.

[Among the blind men rules the one-eyed one.]

When a group of unknowledgable, probably dim people, is led by someone who is not very smart either, but is smart enough to know what buttons to press and what to say in order to get to them and have them follow.

That's about it with tidbits of Greek wisdom for today.

Little Trivia: these sayings are obviously the product of a closed-off, rural society. They are old, maybe going as far as the nineteenth century, and stopped being made or widely used when people started moving to big cities some seventy years ago. Since then, many have been forgotten, seeing as the concepts they describe, on a shallow level, seem to be outdated to most modern Greeks. They are viewed as part of their cultural heritage and painstakingly written down by researchers aiming to preserve these little memorials of the country's past.

On a following post, I may list some of my favourite sayings which include curse words (the word "shit" is used much more than you'd expect), or analyse some of these on their tenses and vocabulary. Let me know what you prefer.

Going to post the alphabet in about an hour, I think.

[autoneurotic]

damn i have ONE more unit of Russian to go before i’ve completed (and mastered!!) the duo course :)

[aureliaeiter]

Hi!! I have an issue with Duolingo and it's that their lessons aren't really structured. For example, when you learn the Japanese hiragana or the Greek alphabet they don't teach you the letters in order but randomly.

I would advise you to first learn the Greek alphabet, both the names of each letter (for example, ε's name isn't “e” but “epsilon”) and their pronunciation.

Then buy (or pirate) a high school text book that's designed with your native language in mind. Like Ancient Greek for English speakers, Ancient Greek for Spanish speakers or whatever. If it has a CD with conversations you can listen to then that's even better.

Also anytime you buy any books written by Ancient writers try to buy a bilingual version so you get the original Ancient Greek text on one side of the page and your language in the other.

And yes, Ancient Greek is very different from Modern Greek. Imagine someone talking to you in Shakespearian English.

Anyways good luck!! Especially with declinations. Those made me want to pull my hair off back in high school lol

Reading a textbook on mythology and randomly wondering how Greek words are stressed and giving it a google, then finding a site with a transcript and reading through cause interesting but then they use Athena as an example.

Is this a sign? 🤔

Anyone have a good non-Duolingo free resource to learn Greek? Is there a big difference between Ancient and Modern? I don't think I'd aim for like, having conversations, but probably more use it for studying and maybe writing prayers?

[symeona]

Ok I'll say this in English for non-greek speakers to understand . I major in sociology and one of our mandatory lessons is The structure of modern Greek society during and after the revolution and eventually the liberation from the Empire . And our professor mentioned that during the liberational war , forces from France , UK , and other European countries were really " surprised" after seeing that modern Greeks had long and hooked noses , were really tanned and " ugly " compared to the image THEY had of us , the image of white washed statues and " civilised " dudes probably white and blue eyed. And I'm standing there like honey you really believe that 450 BC Greeks were white , NO they dont look like you , you are not their successor nor their descendant ,get over it , and leave us alone .

YOU ARE NOT THEIR SUCCESSOR NOR THEIR DESCENDANT

Seriously.

Please, Europe, don't come telling me you love our culture when our people have been massacred and burned in front of your eyes and you've done nothing. Where was all that enthusiasm during those 400 years?!

Smyrna wasn't long enough ago that we'd forget.

We're European. But you're not Greek.

[yourlanguagehost]

Why every English learner should study root words

If there’s one thing that almost every English student, regardless of level, struggles with, it’s how to improve their English comprehension.

During my time as an English teacher, I’ve noticed a pretty common problem arising among students when it comes time for them to read –

“What am I supposed to do when I come across a word that I don’t understand?”

This is a notoriously challenging situation that has happened more than once in our recent English conversation classes, especially since we’re reading an upper-intermediate level book right now.

It’s a perfectly reasonable question – After all, English incorporates vocabulary from multiple languages, and many words can have a variety of meanings. Learning it all is a huge challenge!

And, it can be made even more difficult if you don’t have your confidence built up from practice.

Consider this – Do you believe that every English speaker knows every single word we read or hear, especially in the higher-difficulty books and conversations?

Of course not! I’m an English teacher, and I frequently come across completely new words when reading. So, how do we understand what’s actually being said?

Root words!

A root word is the most basic part of a word, which can have prefixes and suffixes added on to create new words.

Root words are used as a basis for the majority of English words – So, if you know the root words meaning, you can also begin to understand the general meaning of the overall word.

In other words – If you can memorize the definition of 30 root words, you’ll now understand the 300+ English words they are used in. Think of how quickly you will be able to improve your English comprehension if you have access to all this new vocabulary.

Root words come from Latin and Greek, and are generally very short, so they should be pretty simple to remember!

Let’s take a look at some examples:

In the word Astrology, the root would be “Astro” – It originates from Greek, and means “star”.

If we know “Astro” means star, we automatically know the definition of “Astrology” is related to stars.

And, we know the suffix “logy” means “the study of”. Put it together, and what do we have?

Do you see how this might be able to help you? You could be reading an English book, and come across the word “Astrology” – Even if you’ve never seen the word before, if you understand the meaning of the root “Astro”, you can automatically determine what the word means without the use of a dictionary.

Here, let’s take a look at another example – The root word “Bene” (pronounced “beh-neh”)

This root word is used for longer words, including “Benevolent”, “Benefactor” “Benevolence” “Benign”, “Benediction”, and at least ten others.

Maybe you don’t have any idea what all of these words mean – They’re not super common, and they’re pretty complex.

But, you can see the root word of “Bene” in all of them, right?

So if you understand what “Bene” means, you can also understand the general definition of all of these words, without studying them individually. If they’re in a sentence, you can probably figure out what they mean based on the context and root word alone.

Definition: “Bene” means Good.

Think about these sentences, and how you can use the root word and context in them to understand the meaning.

The benefactor decided to remain anonymous after his large donation to the hospital.

Benefactor: Someone who helps another person/group – Someone good.

The cancerous tumor was benign – It wasn’t as big of a danger as we thought.

Benign: Something harmless.

Our king was a kind man – His charity demonstrated his benevolence.

Benevolence: A desire to do good, or to be a good person.

Is this starting to make sense? Do you see how this might improve your English comprehension?

One more exercise…

I’m going to write a pretty difficult, advanced-level English paragraph. Using the list of root words provided below, try and see if you can understand the general meaning of the paragraph WITHOUT using a dictionary.

Root words:

Cred = believe

Tele = far away

Cardio = heart

Derm = skin

Mal = bad

Micro = small

Using these root word definitions, the paragraph means something like this:

It was hard to believe the phone salesman (who is far away) – His claims of the device being able to improve the heart and skin health of users was crazy. After all, what would happen if it didn’t work / worked badly, or caused some small damage to my body that I wouldn’t be able to see?

So, how do we study root words?

To study root words, just use the same method you use to study normal vocabulary! If you want to take it up a level, put a few example words using the root word on your flashcards with the definition. You could have something like this…

Learning root words is way more efficient than studying every English word on their own, and is a very quick method of improving your comprehension. I STRONGLY recommend that every English learner give this a try!

Just spend 30 minutes a day studying these root words, and in a few weeks you’ll have 50+ root words memorized.

Assuming every root word is used in ten English words, you now understand the general meaning of 500+ English words without studying any of them on their own!

Give this method a shot and see how much easier reading and listening become! If you’re interested, try signing up for our monthly English lesson plan to practice what you learn!

For a full list of English root words, use this website – And if you want to just study the most popular root words, I suggest you go here.

And, read the full article here!

[awed-frog]

I once found a book at the library about that huge famine in Iran during WWI and I was so astonished by what it said that I wondered if it was truly reliable information. I had never once heard about this event before, and I found very little information in English on the Internet. It is astonishing to think the British were never held accountable in the slightest for this

Well - first of all, since it's my job what I can say there is that the more 'exotic' the language, the less likely it is anyone will pay attention. For instance, the EU noticed with a delay of like five months that some Greek MPs were calling for a second Holocaust, and the only reason they noticed at all was because of an English documentary that had been aired in the UK. Some languages are harder to learn for people who work in the 'centres of power', and native speakers of those languages find it difficult to get there for various reasons. This situation is actually getting worse because on the one hand we're expecting everyone to speak English and not even bothering to teach other languages anymore, and on the other AI translation also relies on English to get the job done (for instance, a Farsi > French Google translate is actually Farsi > English > French), which means things can get very nonsensical very quickly. It's also hard to do a good job when it comes to hearing victims because some languages and cultures obviously lack the kind of legal framework we use in the West, which means you need very skilled interpreters and a lot of time to get anything done.

This is a very serious issue when it comes to academic research, which is absolutely crucial to understanding history and thus start a process of peace-building and/or accountability. In those countries where documents exist, like Iran, they're not likely to be available in other languages, which means there is only a very small number of Western academics who can actually get their hands on those documents and read them. As for local academics, very often it's hard to carry out objective research in countries with a 'troubled' past because they generally tend to have a 'troubled' present, and academia is always the first target of dictatorships and scumbag regimes. Meanwhile in other countries, you might not have written sources at all, and again relying on eyewitnesses accounts is hard work which requires a lot of resources and people who know the language very well.

(And I mean this is a problem with interpreting in general: for major languages there are proficiency tests, but for 90% of the languages out there, we have no way of checking whether someone actually speaks it well or not. If you work with refugees and have to hire, say, a Tigrinya interpreter with some urgency, you have to trust that the person who shows up actually knows the language and won't make up things on the spot. Plus, the fact this person will generally belong to the same community you're interested in will likely compromise their trustworthiness. Both these things are issues way more serious than people realize.)

The other major problem is that people tend to understand crimes against humanity as a kind of 'oppressor country vs victim country' situation, when the reality is more like 'elite of oppressor country profits a lot > elite of victim country profits > general population of oppressor country gets a mixed bag > general population of victim country starves'. The case of Persia is a good example, because while Persia was royally screwed over when it comes to oil money (I don't have time to look it up but the British historically kept, like, 80% of the profits), what little was left was enough to keep the shah very happy and into a lavish lifestyle. The fact his own population was dirt poor wasn't a concern of his at all. The same happens today in a lot of African countries, where former colonial powers and newcomers like China tend to deal with some corrupt ruling elite and everyone else can just die in a ditch.

So anyway the British were never held accountable for about 99% of the stuff they did, same as the other colonial powers (Western or otherwise). This is mostly because accountability needs a) a court of law that will accept your claim and b) a sympathetic & well-informed public opinion in the target country and c) a well-prepared & influential team of activists in the victim country and d) decisive proof. All of those things are hard to get, and on top of that it seems like the international community will only act against countries that have zero international leverage, so - yeah.

I hope things will change, but realistically, they won't. The only thing we can do here as random citizens is the usual thing: try to read more and listen more and understand our school history lessons are usually oversimplified or outright propaganda and generally demand better from the people in charge.

[jeanbeaux]

CONGRATULATIONS ON 1K!!!!! i like ur writing so so much, u seem really cool and i’m excited to see what more u have in store for us :]

i’d love to place my bid!

major: i’m in the teacher trainee course nd the subjects that i study are english nd german :)

three things: i have to have my plushy that my friends gave me for my 18th birthday, a golden grid on my wall with all kinds of polaroids and stickers on it and my bluetooth speaker!

drink of choice: either a coke or a fruity cocktail, something that gets me drunk but tastes really good!

struggle meal: either grilled cheese or rice w butter and frozen veggies

fandom: i’d love an aot matchup :D

hi love!! your compliments are making be blush help im glad you like my writing!! i hope you enjoy this <3

your greek life soulmate is.....frat bro eren!

when you signed up to be a library tutor, you weren't expecting you would be dealing with an overgrown child of a college student.

eren was brash, handing over a folder with dog eared papers from his german class, saying, you shouldn't' have such a hard time because I'm german, I'm sure after one or two lessons it will click.

but it doesn't. and erens sitting with you for most of the semester, and you can see the steam coming from out of his ears when he tries to conjugate the words.

but his enthusiasm is endearing, and you can see your time with him is really starting to help. and at the end of the semester, he surprises you, asking if you would accompany him to the party his frat is throwing in german.

join rush week!