Does anyone have any good resources for learning Standard Modern Greek? For example, a grammar like the ones we have for ancient Greek. I really want to learn a language that people actually speak.
There’s nothing really that good, most of the stuff is really old Katherevousa stuff. The other stuff insists on teaching modern Greek as if it still functions like Ancient Greek: good job dealing with the lack of dative/constant ellipsis of consonants/many diminutives/endless prepositions and other little words like that…
I would say the list is small, like this:
Grammar: either the routeledge one “An Essential Grammar…” or there’s a Greek book “kleidia” (the keys to Greek language) which is awesome, hard to find in English. Probably downloadable…
Dictionaries: You can choose between Magenta (fussy) or Oxford. Go for Oxford. Collins you say? get out of here…
Readers: None. There are several for children though, but…come on.
Textbooks: I suggest getting something common and cheap like “Colloquial Greek” since like “keys” it treats Greek like Greek, a foreign language you’re trying to learn. After you do that you should have a decent grasp, you’ll be able to start speaking/listening and reading. Not as quick as some of the more “academic” books but will give you a decent feel for spoken vocabulary.
ευχαριστώ, I’ll check to see if my uni library has them.
On the listening and speaking front, some of my friends are Greek, so the next few months are going to be annoying/hilarious for them.
I have used the FSI series with good results when working on German and French. Here is the Modern Greek course:
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Greek
The page description says: The Greek Basic Course introduces the modern spoken language to those who wish a working command of contemporary Greek. The Greek represented in this course is a representative of the Kathomilumeni variety that is the “standard” speech of educated Greeks. It is neither entirely colloquial nor strictly formal. In the written materials the Greek alphabet is used from the beginning.
It is free, and completely legal (having been developed by US tax dollars). You can easily have the pdf book printed at a local copy center for convenience.
Thank you, that’s awesome. Was the course developed quite a while ago? I thought Greek dropped all the diacritics except the acute accent, but I see circumflexes there.
You’re welcome.
These were developed post WW2 as the US prepared to occupy multiple lands, as I heard the story. This way diplomats, and, say, Army captains could at least do a bit of basic newspaper and document reading and conversing with the locals.
I found the French a bit stuffy (but accurate) and the German similarly useful, especially for its rigorous drills, although saddled with some odd archaisms. (e.g., gnadige Frau)
I cannot speak to the Greek set because I am a student of Homeric through Koine Greek. Irene here is a native Greek speaker…perhaps you could ask her what she thinks of the quality were she to peruse the pdf? Good luck!
Yeah the FSI is free, I didn’t mention it for a reason: it’s quite outdated, lots of words/usages we don’t really have any more.
Textbook wise like I said I recommend “Colloquial Greek” since its the easiest to get hold of. Babionotis’ book is also good, as is Greek 1 + 1 but again they’re written in Greek. If you want to spend the cash (around £45 and I’ve not seen it outside of Greece…) search for “Greek as a modern foreign language” I think it’s called.
Also get some Greek TV shows like s’agapw m’agapas just to expose yourself to the language/ a fantastic series.
I really want to learn a language that people actually speak
Hi, Nooj,
My friends and I speak Ancient Greek.
{
I really want to learn a language that people actually speak
χαῖρε Νοοι
Ἑλληνιστὶ λαλοῦμεν οἱ φίλοι κἀγω. }
But don’t you get tired of not being able to use AG anywhere else outside of your circle of friends?
I have very mixed feelings about having learned Latin and Ancient Greek instead of French, German or any other language that is spoken by a living culture. Once I thought it was important to read texts in the original. And yes, the Aeneid and the Iliad are awesome, worthy of every praise that’s been thrown their way. But in retrospect, I’d be happy to have read both in translation. Most translations are ‘good enough’. When people say that they want to learn Greek to read the NT, I want to tell them that it’s probably not worth the trouble.
I’m having a great time listening to Disney songs in Greek. Greek is a beautiful sounding language. Although the reconstructed pronounciation of AG that I learned keeps throwing me off. I have to consciously force myself to read Greek as it’s spoken now.
Well that’s neither here nor there. If we were being so utilitarian why would bother with extraneous languages anyway? I learnt AG and Latin due to my overwhelming interest in the ancient world and my chosen courses of study. I’m all about the context, it would be inconceivable for me to ever look at Homer in English and be satisfied, after all don’t you know how weird his language actually is? When we’re discussing whether or not such a particle is a Luwian loan word or whether such a phrase is a clumsy rendering of an Akkadian original or even reading a Hellenistic novel and laughing at the slight change of an old Homeric phrasing Greek is obviously important.
No learning is in vain. You want Italian or French? well go learn it in the safe knowledge that having learnt Latin your acquisition of them will be somewhat faster and perhaps even more pleasant.
Disney songs in Greek? I hate the habit of dubbing everything, it really ruined movies like Toy Story. I spend most of my team in Modern Greek…I don’t think anyone would reasonably call it a beautiful language. Be wary btw of idiots stressing the similarity between that and Ancient Greek too much, I’d bet they’ve never undertaken a good cause of Composition or something to realise the massive differences in semiotics and nuances which are damn important for a Classicist to note.
If you need help with resources, learning or just want to try some chatting in Greek hit me up.
Just so you know where I’m coming from, my area of study is linguistics. One of my interests, more like a passion really, is in language endagerment.
Speaking a language with only a couple hundred fluent speakers who are found only in an isolated portion of the country probably won’t get you a job or improve your position in life. Heck, you might get looked down for speaking it. But I’m not going to say that these languages should be abandoned just because they’re ‘useless’ in the wider society. I’m opposed to utilitarian arguments like these.
When I say that I want to speak a language that has speakers, it’s because I feel lonely learning a language that is primarily connected with the past. I like meeting people from different countries and different backgrounds. Travelling around has made me more aware of this.
It’s ironic that I can read Homeric Greek but I don’t appreciate it!
I’d be satisfied with reading Homer in translation in return for those years spent learning Greek, because Homer doesn’t interest me to the extent that say, Sartre does. I’m one of those people who’s more interested in existentialism than the debt that Greek owes to the Ancient Near East. That’s not to say I’m not interested in Greek at all, but I’ve realised that I’m not as interested as I first thought. It’s why I changed from Classics to linguistics.
Yes well, French is for next year in university. 
Good luck with your studies friend. For what it’s worth I can somewhat understand your angle. 
I think native speakers would take an issue with that wouldn’t you? 
I mean I don’t consider it the most beautiful language in the whole wide world but it’s not such a plain language either to me. Actually, for some obscure reason, it sounds better than reconstructed classic and homeric AG to my ears. Go figure! 
As for the similarities between the two, well, yes, those that over-stress them are going way too far, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of things that bug foreign students of ancient Greek (no matter which their native language is and whether it’s declined or not, or whatever) that a native speaker that actually knows their own language (Greek) finds completely natural.
I didn’t suddenly switch to the “MG and AG are almost identical” side (still nuts but not a nut-job thankfully) but I’m just saying.
Nooj if you need any help and/or online sources tell me.
synfonw kyria, apla enoousa oti den einai i idih…eixa akousei poly malakies apo tous ellhnes pou kserw. Panda legw oti prepei na diavasete eite “History of the Greek Language and its Speakers” - Horrocks eite “Vox Graeca” prin mou lene kati gia thn phonologia ths ellhnikhs glossa…
sygnomh epeidh den ithela na sas enoxlhsa…
This seems to be a really awesome resource: http://www.slang.gr/
Now if only I could read it.
Is it just me, or do Greek speakers speak Greek faster than English speakers do with English?
I would say this depends on a) where you are in the English and Greek-speaking worlds, and b) who’s talking. Lots of people tell me I speak too fast (in all the languages I speak), and I know some people who really draaaawl out their words.
Also, I’ve heard this from so many people, going in every direction. When I was teaching English in Chile, the Spanish speakers said “all English speakers speak so fast! How can we possibly understand?!” While on the other hand, just about every English speaker I’ve known has said that Spanish speakers “talk so fast, it’s impossible to understand what they’re saying!” I’ve heard the same from French speakers about English and Spanish alike, and from English and Spanish speakers about French!
I think any language you’re not familiar with sounds fast (obviously this does depend on the individual speaker, like I said, as there certainly is individual variation); the more you learn, the easier it will be come and the less fast it will seem.
I think as Alacritas said any language you are not fluent in sounds fast to you, at least if you are trying to understand it. Speech is almost at the speed of thought and people think a thought a lot faster than they translate the same, if they are not fluent in the language.
Also to the person commenting on the Aeneid in translation being “good enough”. Good enough for what purpose?
If you had some mild interest in Roman history, but not enough to learn Latin, I guess I could understand that. But otherwise it’s like saying the Cliff’s Notes of a novel, or a photograph of a painting, are “good enough”. The Aeneid is a poem. The only purpose a poem has is to be read (well sung actually, but close enough). If you read it in translation you’re reading a different poem. Either it’s worth reading or it’s not worth reading.
And if you have a genuine interest in philosophy you’re doing yourself a grave disservice by not learning Greek. I think it says a lot about the quality of liberal education these days that one can obtain a philosophy PhD without having any Greek.
Also to the person commenting on the Aeneid in translation being “good enough”. Good enough for what purpose?
To read.
I guess I could understand that. But otherwise it’s like saying the Cliff’s Notes of a novel, or a photograph of a painting, are “good enough”. The Aeneid is a poem. The only purpose a poem has is to be read (well sung actually, but close enough). If you read it in translation you’re reading a different poem. Either it’s worth reading or it’s not worth reading.
What you’re saying is that it’s worth reading in the original language or it’s not worth reading at all. I don’t agree.
But otherwise it’s like saying the Cliff’s Notes of a novel,
Tolstoy has been translated numerous times into English. Are they Cliff Notes versions? That’s doing a disservice to the translators. I don’t have the time to read every one of my books in the original language they were written in.
or a photograph of a painting, are “good enough”.
Actually, yes I think it is. I don’t want or need a big painting, I’d be happy with a photograph of it blown up and framed.
And if you have a genuine interest in philosophy you’re doing yourself a grave disservice by not learning Greek. I think it says a lot about the quality of liberal education these days that one can obtain a philosophy PhD without having any Greek.
The sort of philosophy I’m interested in doesn’t require Greek, although interestingly enough Simone de Beauvoir taught herself Greek. Not sure about Sartre.
It also betrays a Eurocentric perspective. If I was interested in Buddhist philosophy (and I am), I wouldn’t need Greek. I’d need Sanskrit. Philosophy is much bigger than the philosophy created over 2000 years ago in one corner of the world. Even in the West, especially in the analytic tradition, there’s much philosophy that has nothing to do with the Greeks.
Well said Nooj. Well said.
- And what’s the purpose of reading “the” Aeneid? To say you have read it?
Why listen to a Bob Dylan album when you can read the liner notes instead?
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I was suggesting that there are not many reasons to read the Aeneid other than to experience the poem that it is. I did give an example of one possible other reason.
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I think a Russian lover of Tolstoy would indeed tell you that reading him in translation is not “good enough”. But there is a significant difference between reading a novel in translation and a poem. You necessarily lose a tremendous amount in the latter which is perhaps not the case in the former.
And translation is an odd business now that you mention it. I think you will find that for many translators of poetry it is a labor of love but they are quite ambivalent about whether they are really doing a service to the world by encouraging reading poetry in translation.
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So is the purpose of a painting to be seen or to be possessed?
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Sartre would definitely have had some Greek. And how do you know what the sort of philosophy you are interested in “requires”? What does it mean to seriously understand existentialism? I think neither Sartre nor Heidegger would agree with you about the unimportance of Greek.
Existentialism in a nutshell is a certain working out of what it means to live in an acosmic or irrational world. That is to say it is a rejection of the Platonic and Aristotelian idealisms. If you are really interested in existentialism you will want to know whether it is true, and if you want to satisfy yourself on that point you will have to have Greek.
And even the Analytic types believe themselves to be deeply engaged with the same topics as Aristotle. How well they actually understand Aristotle and thus their own activities is certainly open to question.
Finally regarding your comments on Buddhism, it seems to me that you are the Eurocentric one here in that you project a Greek conflation of wisdom with reason onto a way of life that does not seek wisdom through reason.
To shoehorn Buddhism into “world philosophy” is, to use the old saw, a Procrustean effort. Whatever Buddhism may be (revelation perhaps?) and whatever truth it may hold, it’s not philosophy. To read that as an insult to Buddhism is to display a deeply-rooted Western prejudice in favor of philosophy.*
And anyway there’s nothing European about ancient Greece, which makes the charge even more ill-fitting.
*In fairness I’m winging it a bit here with regard to Buddhism but I believe I am correct.