# What should I know before starting?



## mimosa59

Hi everyone!

I'm thinking about learning Greek but first, I'd like to know what the main difficulties are with this language. 

How long do you think it takes to be able to have a conversation? And is it easy to find books and stuff to study?

Thanks!


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## Δημήτρης

Je vois que tu viens d'un milieu linguistique français, donc je crois que tu ne seras pas surpris ni par l'orthographe qui n'est pas phonétique, ou la présence du genre grammatical.
Concernant le vocabulaire et la syntaxe, je crois qu'il ne va pas aussi être très difficile.

Les obstacles majeurs sont peut-être la phonologie grec, qui a des sons qui sont pas trouves en français, et la conjugaison du verbe qui est aussi complexe, mais d'une manière différente que le français.

Je ne peux pas réponde à la question finale, mais on m'a dit que la méthode Assimil est très efficace.


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## mimosa59

Merci beaucoup !


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## Burden of Proof

I suggest paying attention to where the stress is in a word. I learned the hard way. Just learning ποτε without noting where the stress is isn't enough because there's *πότε* (question word 'when') and then there's *ποτέ* ('never'). 

Αnd there's *μάτια* ('eyes') and *ματιά* (a look, as in 'ρίχνω μία ματιά'). And a whole slew of other tonal minimal pairs.

Αnd then there's *μία* (indefinite article for feminine nouns), which can also be *μια* (same meaning), which I don't think needs the stress on the *α* in that case because it's pronounced as one syllable /mja/. Ah, but wait, some words with one syllable do take a stress mark to differentiate them from what would otherwise be homonyms: *η* ('feminine definite article') vs. *ή* ('or').

Welcome to Greek!


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## artion

mimosa59 said:


> Hi everyone!
> 
> How long do you think it takes to be able to have a conversation? And is it easy to find books and stuff to study?
> Thanks!


 
Been in touch with foreigners who live in Greece, I see that they usually can make a  simple conversation in a couple of years, without taking formal lessons. The main difficulty is the inclination of verbs, participles, nouns and adjectives which produces dozens of different forms for every word. In your early converstations is very unlikely that you will always use the correct form, but the Greeks that you will speak to are aware of this difficulty and they will be very understanding and ready to correct you. If you have a talent to foreign languages (and you probably have it if you are a woman) you will learn by experience if you talk frequently. I've seen foreigners speaking grammatically perfect Greek, and some are even working as ... Greek proof-readers!
Don't worry for the pronounciation. Is almost the same with italian and spanish.


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## Slavianophil

I think you will have some difficulty with noun and adjective declension - something that no longer exists in French, but is well-developed and very complicated in Greek.


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## mimosa59

Is it more difficult than in Russian, for example?


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## Slavianophil

Well, as Russian is my native language, it is hard for me to judge how difficult it is.

But my impression is that Greek declension is a bit simpler as there are only 4 cases (as compared to 6 in Russian). Still, the variety of declensions and the number of exceptions seems to me as great as in Russian.

There is another difficulty in Greek - it has no infinitive. You have to use finite forms instead which is not at all easy.


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## Eltheza

*Hi mimosa59!*

If you've ever studied German or Latin, this will help! I don't mean that they're directly connected to Greek, but the system's similar: genders; declensions; noun and adjective agreements and so on.

I did German and Latin at school, and this helped me with Greek simply in the sense that I knew what I was taking on!


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## mimosa59

I HAVE studied both German and Latin!


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## Eltheza

Très très bien!

Bonne Chance!

(My degree is in French, but that was a long time ago!)


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## mimosa59

Merci ! Dommage que toutes les langues ne soient pas aussi simples que l'anglais...


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## Eltheza

Un *grand* dommage!

But Plato said that, 'The unexamined life is not worth living'!

I used to teach Advanced English to Greek students in Athens, and I think that English can become a bit tricky at that level. 

(This is 'off topic', so I'd better stop, otherwise I'll be *deleted!*)

Good Luck!


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## loro3311

J'ai pour coutume de dire que lorsqu'on connaît très bien le français (notamment les mots que l'on qualifie de "savants"), on apprend le grec relativement facilement! Pour ma part, je n'ai éprouvé aucune difficulté particulière, ni avec les déclinaisons, ni avec les verbes


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