Speaking Greek

In spite of spending six months in Greece and studying on my own in between semesters, I somehow left Athens under the impression that I could not speak Modern Greek at all. Although I understood most of what people said to me, I rarely uttered anything beyond “Good morning,” “How much does this cost?” and “I would like a chicken gyro.” The locals were appreciative of my attempts at Greek, but they also wanted to try out their English on me, and would insist on switching languages as soon as I made a mistake. So I didn’t get to practice as much as I would have liked to in Athens.

As you may remember from my first blog post, I’d like to go back to Greece someday. With that goal in mind, I decided to enroll in a Greek class for the summer. This has the added bonus of giving me a life in New York outside my internship and providing something constructive to do during my commute. (I love to read on the subway, but books can be unwieldy, especially when I’m standing. The flashcards and printouts my instructor uses are much easier to handle.)

My lessons are one-on-one with a native speaker, and so far, it’s working well for me. I can go at my ideal pace, and she can tailor the curriculum to what I want to learn. We’ve just ended the second week of lessons, and in those two weeks, I’ve discovered something amazing.

I actually do speak Greek.

At the end of our first lesson, my instructor pronounced me crazy for labeling myself a beginner. While I’m guessing she has a different definition of “beginner” than my study abroad program and I do, I’m still shocked at how easy it is to talk to her. Earlier this week we had a twenty-minute conversation. A real, relevant conversation, not one of the canned scenarios you so often see in language classes. And I knew exactly what she was saying to me, and had no trouble coming up with appropriate things to say back.

I’m not sure why Greek seems so much easier now. Maybe it’s because sitting in a classroom with a nice teacher is much easier than sitting in pain in a foreign hospital. Maybe it’s because I know the instructor doesn’t expect me to speak perfectly (unlike the people of Athens, who often expected fluency based on my Greekish appearance).

Or maybe I was just way too hard on myself during my time abroad.

No matter what the case is, though, I’m learning well and enjoying it. And when I do go back to Greece, I’ll have a real shot at saying something besides “I want a chicken gyro.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2014 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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