Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

TAC 2013 Team Sparta’s Greek Team Thread

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
231 messages over 29 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 28 29 Next >>
Lykeio
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4248 days ago

120 posts - 357 votes 

 
 Message 217 of 231
10 May 2013 at 11:02am | IP Logged 
I've looked a few pages here, just wanted to say a few things. Firstly, Gomorris your
accent is wonderful, your vowels all reference one another beautifully though you might
want to slow down rather than have this stops and stalls now and then.
But...seriously...woah.

Music: Try listening to people listed under entekhno, it will increase both your sense
of rhythm and your vocabulary and you get to avoid some of the truly bad stuff out
there.

Sounds: As in NT vs D etc. Sometimes it helps to consult the IPA or even re-arrange the
sounds based on very basic criteria, so guttural voiced and unvoiced, labial etc. This
terms take a few minutes to learn but will be useful overall. So don't think of γκ as a
hard γ (which it isn't quite) but as a voiced guttural sound where κ is the unvoiced
version.

Handwriting: This will sound odd, but try looking at tutorials to writing ancient
Greek? I've never really used cursive and my handwriting can be sloppy in whatever
script but looking at how the ancients formed letters, and being trained to recognise
different periods of writing, sort of helped. I mean it got me out of writing a
floating O with a disjoined underline to represent capital omega. In fact the Byzantine
script is the easiest and certainly the most efficient I've seen. Keep in mind I don't
use biros though. :S

Harry Potter is ok in Greek, but the later ones are better translated to be honest. Can
you get hold of funny native materials? Arkas is awesome. I always laugh at the little
bird...
3 persons have voted this message useful



Gomorritis
Tetraglot
Groupie
Netherlands
Joined 4282 days ago

91 posts - 157 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French
Studies: Greek, German, Dutch

 
 Message 218 of 231
10 May 2013 at 11:06am | IP Logged 
This week I've been skimming through the first 30 lessons of "Assimil: Le nouveau grec sans peine". The first were
quite useless for me, but now they are already starting to get quite useful. I think Assimil is indeed a very good
method, and it would have been good to know about its existence from the beginning.

What I don't like so much is the audio. Firstly, I would like them to speak faster, the first 19 lessons are just
unbearably slow. Then it gest a bit better, but still way too slow. I understand beginners can benefit from slower
speaking, but I think the progression towards full-speed should be faster.

Secondly, the speakers are a bit soulless. Most lessons are dialogues, but there is barely any acting, just plain reading
of the texts. Especially the girl speaks very dully. I'm afraid someone following this method won't get a real feeling of
Greek intonation unless they complement it with better audio dialogue sources. I recommend HAU podcasts for this
purpose.
1 person has voted this message useful



Gomorritis
Tetraglot
Groupie
Netherlands
Joined 4282 days ago

91 posts - 157 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French
Studies: Greek, German, Dutch

 
 Message 219 of 231
10 May 2013 at 2:54pm | IP Logged 
I created a thread for Greek songs, I hope to see your contributions! (I also hope you don't hate the songs I put)

Greek songs

Thank you for your comments, Lykeio.

Handwriting is something I don't even do in latin script, other than the shopping list. I'm a man of the modern world
in that regard, I need a keyboard to survive.

Edited by Gomorritis on 10 May 2013 at 2:56pm

1 person has voted this message useful



embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4614 days ago

263 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Greek

 
 Message 220 of 231
13 May 2013 at 12:23am | IP Logged 
Lykeio wrote:

Handwriting: This will sound odd, but try looking at tutorials to writing ancient
Greek? I've never really used cursive and my handwriting can be sloppy in whatever
script but looking at how the ancients formed letters, and being trained to recognise
different periods of writing, sort of helped. I mean it got me out of writing a
floating O with a disjoined underline to represent capital omega. In fact the Byzantine
script is the easiest and certainly the most efficient I've seen. Keep in mind I don't
use biros though. :S



This is something many of us have struggled with. For those of us who are quite used to
cursive writing not joining letters in Greek is painful! I find it so slow and tedious
writing in Greek as I can't write as I do in English. I know this is not unique to
Greek. Many young Canadians and most Latin Americans I've met don't join their letters
either.

renaissancemedi provided us with some useful links which have helped me, but there are
always a few letters that don't seem to join up easily. If you have any links that you
could recommend, I'd love to see them.



Edited by embici on 13 May 2013 at 12:24am

1 person has voted this message useful



embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4614 days ago

263 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Greek

 
 Message 221 of 231
15 July 2013 at 12:16am | IP Logged 
If there is anyone around here still studying Greek, are you getting any conversation
practice?

I registered on Verbling and
Shared Talk to find conversation exchange partners but
I've had no luck with the former, and very little with the latter. Where are the Greeks
who want to practice English? It seems they are already fluent. :)

I've had better luck with My Language
Exchange
and Conversation
Exchange
. But with those sites, you exchange contact info and then schedule a
session on your own. I really like the idea of verbling and sharedtalk where no pre-
planning is required. That way, if I have a bit of spare time, I can just log in and
start chatting (in theory).

What are your experiences with conversation exchanges in Greek (or other languages)?
1 person has voted this message useful



akkadboy
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5412 days ago

264 posts - 497 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish
Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh

 
 Message 222 of 231
22 July 2013 at 11:14am | IP Logged 
I don't know if this may help or if anyone is still interested but the last pages of the
DLI Greek Reader provide a few sample of handwritten Greek.

I have the same problem for Persian right now. No book seems to really teach how to write in the way natives do so I found that studying and copying the handwritten parts of the DLI course to be the best training.

Modern Greek is the next language on my list so I really hope to benefit from your experience when I tackle it !

2 persons have voted this message useful



Gomorritis
Tetraglot
Groupie
Netherlands
Joined 4282 days ago

91 posts - 157 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English, Catalan, French
Studies: Greek, German, Dutch

 
 Message 223 of 231
24 July 2013 at 1:47pm | IP Logged 
embici wrote:
What are your experiences with conversation exchanges in Greek (or other languages)?


I think if you want to make sure it works, the exchange has to be money for conversation, not conversation for conversation! And with so many Greeks unemployed, it might be very easy to find someone right now.

Did you try www.italki.com ?

Edited by Gomorritis on 24 July 2013 at 1:49pm

1 person has voted this message useful



embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4614 days ago

263 posts - 370 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Greek

 
 Message 224 of 231
24 July 2013 at 3:39pm | IP Logged 
Akkadboy: Thanks for that! There are some beautiful examples there. It's interesting that none of the examples shows all the letters in a word joined-up like we do when we write cursive with Latin letters. One example did come very close so I may try to imitate that to speed up my handwriting.

Gomorritis wrote:
I think if you want to make sure it works, the exchange has to be money for conversation, not conversation for conversation! And with so many Greeks unemployed, it might be very easy to find someone right now.

Did you try www.italki.com ?


Hi Gomorritis. I've been on italki and similar sites for some time and have had many paid tutoring sessions and I plan to continue doing so. What I'm looking for is a little extra practice when I unexpectedly find I have a bit of spare time on my hands. I have found a couple of people, but the time difference is a challenge!



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 231 messages over 29 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.4219 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.