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Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian
| Message 89 of 231 22 December 2012 at 6:16pm | IP Logged |
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
Does Greek by the way not have a proper d as in David or g as in Gatwick? All I found was a d like in English “that”, and a g which sounds like something between a Spanish g and a French r. Weird. Beautiful and enchanting, but weird. |
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The 'proper' d sound is spelt ντ and the g sound is spelt γκ, just as b which is spelt μπ. In Ancient Greek, β, γ, and δ used to be pronounced like b, g, and d, but they underwent a sound shift, so modern pronunciation is different and those digraphs became necessary.
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
What I have never seen in any language though is an ι without the dot (i). Does anyone know the origin or reason for that? |
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The Latin i is derived from Greek iota and was originally written without the dot. The i-dot was only invented in the 14th century (for whatever reason), but the Greek alphabet was not concerned by this invention.
Good luck for your Greek journeys to all of you! I did some Modern and Ancient Greek about 10 years ago, but I never got very far. Maybe I'll get back to Greek some time in the future.
Καλή επιτυχία!
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| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5830 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin
| Message 90 of 231 23 December 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged |
Ellasevia, I have a question for you. When do you use the aorist and when do you use the perfect tense in Greek? Is there preference for one or the other, or is it similar to English usage? Maybe you wouldn't mind checking this little paragraph, especially at my use of the tenses. Thanks.
Μ`αρέσει να ταξιδεύω. Έχω πάει σε πολλές χώρες της Δυτικής Ευρώπης. Έχω επισκεφθεί αρκετές χώρες της Ανατολικής Ευρώπης. Ἠμουν επίσης στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες και το δυο χιλιἀδες δἐκα πήγα στην Κίνα. Το καλοκαίρι πήγα στη Βραζιλία και στην Αργεντινή. Η Βραζιλία είναι η αγαπημένη μου χώρα. Δεν έχω πάει ποτέ στην Ελλάδα, αλλά ελπίζω να πάω εκεί σύντομα.
Edited by stelingo on 23 December 2012 at 2:56pm
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian
| Message 91 of 231 23 December 2012 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
stelingo wrote:
Ellasevia, I have a question for you. When do you use the aorist and when do you use the perfect tense in Greek? Is there preference for one or the other, or is it similar to English usage? Maybe you wouldn't mind checking this little paragraph, especially at my use of the tenses. Thanks.
Μ`αρέσει να ταξιδεύω. Έχω πάει σε πολλές χώρες της Δυτικής Ευρώπης. Έχω επισκεφθεί αρκετές χώρες της Ανατολικής Ευρώπης. Ἠμουν επίσης στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες και το δυο χιλιἀδες δἐκα πήγα στην Κίνα. Το καλοκαίρι πήγα στη Βραζιλία και στην Αργεντινή. Η Βραζιλία είναι η αγαπημένη μου χώρα. Δεν έχω πάει ποτέ στην Ελλάδα, αλλά ελπίζω να πάω εκεί σύντομα. |
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The usage of the aorist versus the perfect generally corresponds to how we use it in English, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. A trickier distinction is between the aorist and the imperfect, which is similar to perfective/imperfective in Slavic languages. As for your paragraph, it looks good to me in terms of grammar.
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| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5764 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian
| Message 92 of 231 25 December 2012 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
Hi everyone,
Sorry for the lack of posting here. I flew home to London as a last-minute Christmas
and birthday surprise to my dad on Christmas Eve and have been too jet-lagged since
then to even think about posting here. One of our many Christmas habits or traditions
is that we don't open presents all at once. We open some in the morning before
breakfast, some after and the rest after Christmas lunch. Somewhere in my living room
is Assimil Griechisch Ohne Mühe, but I'm having to wait a bit longer for it until I
find it amongst the presents under the tree. Grr. Merry Christmas to you all! I hope
you're all having a fantastic day.
Oh, I've been typing some Greek on my computer, and have just realised that my brain
automatically associates Greek with Russian. For example, I just typed the "H" key on a
QWERTY keyboard expecting to get the Greek letter "ρ", but got "η" instead. Strange how
the mind works (or maybe it's just mine).
Jack
Edited by LanguageSponge on 25 December 2012 at 2:29pm
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 93 of 231 26 December 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged |
Jack, that happens to me when i (try to) type in Greek, too: "καλο" somehow becomes "ρφκξ" and my fingers just get really confused and don't know where to go. It's much closer to the qwerty layout i'm used to, so i don't know why it's so hard for me to type in Greek...
Hope you found your Assimil book!
So far i've enjoyed seeing all the similarities between Greek and Spanish/English. My Spanish seems to interfere quite a bit with my Greek, as lots of times it seems Greek is "backwards". Some funny things that i noticed today listening to my Greek lessons: "ο μόνος" (the only one) sounds like "the monkeys" (spanish: los monos) to me, and "κουρασμένος" (tired) sounds like an anticlerical slogan "fewer priests!" ("curas menos/menos curas!").
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| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5764 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian
| Message 94 of 231 26 December 2012 at 1:06pm | IP Logged |
Hi Crush,
That's interesting. I'm really enjoying just listening to anything I find in Greek at
the moment. I got an iPad Mini for Christmas with more memory than I know what to do
with so I'm enjoying looking for apps for that. So far I've found the apps for Die
Welt, Le Monde and a few other newspapers. In a little bit I will look into Russian and
Greek newspapers. If anyone knows of any good apps we could add a section in the
resources post for them. I'm just getting used to the whole concept of apps as I never
bothered with them for my iPhone. It seems as though the only limit with it is your
imagination. At some point this afternoon I'll put links to your logs on the front page
of this thread, so if you haven't created your log yet, please do so sometime soon, and
certainly before 31st.
I'm really looking forward to the beginning of the Challenge! I hope you're all looking
forward to it as much as I am! Long live Sparta!
Jack
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| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 95 of 231 27 December 2012 at 12:56pm | IP Logged |
@LanguageSponge and @Crush: I keep mixing Russian and Greek. Every time Pimsleur asks me to
translate the sentence " I am Greek" it comes out as: " я- ellenida" ( I do not know how the Greek part is
spelled).
It is driving me nuts.
1 person has voted this message useful
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5764 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian
| Message 96 of 231 27 December 2012 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
@LanguageSponge and @Crush: I keep mixing Russian and Greek.
Every time Pimsleur asks me to
translate the sentence " I am Greek" it comes out as: " я- ellenida" ( I do not know
how the Greek part is
spelled).
It is driving me nuts. |
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I don't mix up Russian and Greek when I'm writing or speaking (yet), but I do when I'm
typing. This has rendered me completely crap at typing Greek. This makes absolutely no
sense because the Greek keyboard layout is pretty close to the QWERTY layout I am so
familiar with, so I have no valid excuse. It's driving me nuts too. Also I've been
trying to add links to your logs and the system is pretty much acting like a petulant
child and only allowing this when it feels like it. I'll keep trying.
Jack
1 person has voted this message useful
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