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Embici’s slow road to Greek

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embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4370 days ago

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

 
 Message 65 of 108
09 June 2013 at 3:00am | IP Logged 
stelingo wrote:

I discovered a copy of Ελληνικά B' in London the other week, and have just started using
it. Haven't got far yet, but so far I am liking it.


That's great, Stelingo. Does it come with two CDs as well?

In Ellinika A the dialogues are much more up-to-date than any other Greek materials I
have and the multinational cast of characters is nice too.
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stelingo
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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722 posts - 1076 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin

 
 Message 66 of 108
09 June 2013 at 12:47pm | IP Logged 
It has 3 CDs! Is there a workbook for Ελληνικά A' There wasn't one for Ελληνικά B' in the store.
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embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4370 days ago

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

 
 Message 67 of 108
11 June 2013 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
stelingo wrote:
It has 3 CDs! Is there a workbook for Ελληνικά A' There wasn't one for
Ελληνικά B' in the store.


No workbook but it has loads of exercises.

Edited by embici on 11 June 2013 at 2:01am

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embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4370 days ago

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

 
 Message 68 of 108
26 June 2013 at 3:38pm | IP Logged 
What on earth am I going to do about my Greek studies now?

My major motivation for learning the language has disappeared. It doesn't look like we'll be going to Greece within the next year or two as we had originally planned. My mother-in-law has changed her mind about going and my partner isn't particularly interested in going to Greece without her. When I found out, I felt a bit lost. Not only did that mess up my vacation plans but I felt I was losing my main reason for learning Greek. Between my job (which has been incredibly stressful in the last few months) and family responsibilities, learning Greek was my own little project; something I was doing just for my own enjoyment and self-improvement. Now I find myself asking "why continue?" My partner prefers to speak English and most of his relatives prefer to speak Slavo-Macedonian instead of Greek. (When they lived in Greece, their generation, in their town spoke Slavo-Macedonian privately, but in schools, church, etc. the language was Greek. They can speak both but they usually speak the former amongst themselves.) I'm not particularly motivated to learn a Slavic language at the moment.

Now I'm trying to decide what to do. Some of the options I'm considering:

1. I'll finish the book I'm using now for Greek and reassess my goals after that. That will likely take a month or two.
2. Quit now and find another hobby.
3. Give up on Greek and focus on one or two of those other languages I've been looking at over the last few months: Dutch, Catalan, Italian and Swahili.
4. Clear the rust off of my French and Spanish.

That's what I'll be thinking about over the next week or so.
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Crush
Tetraglot
Senior Member
ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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1622 posts - 2299 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto
Studies: Basque

 
 Message 69 of 108
26 June 2013 at 4:55pm | IP Logged 
I say that Catalan would fit nicely between your Spanish and French ;)

I gave up on Greek because i was struggling to keep up with Mandarin, which is a bummer because i think Greek is much more interesting all around than Mandarin. I've been looking for an excuse to dive back in, if you want to provide me one i'd be more than happy to take it up :D

But really, i'm sorry to hear about the change of plans. It sucks to have your main source of motivation just drop away, though i must say the way you phrased it scared me a bit, it made me think something a little more life-changing had happened. I'm glad that's not the case!

Wish i could give you some slightly more encouraging words, all i can really say is ¡ánimo!, a lot can change in a year (as i guess you've found out), but things can take positive turns, too!
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embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4370 days ago

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

 
 Message 70 of 108
26 June 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged 
Thanks a lot for your support Crush. Yes, perhaps my phrasing was a bit on the melodramatic side.

I must say, reading your log is certainly motivation for me to study Catalan. Your progress is impressive.
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Ogrim
Heptaglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 4399 days ago

991 posts - 1896 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian

 
 Message 71 of 108
26 June 2013 at 5:39pm | IP Logged 
Hi embici, I can understand that you feel demotivated. The fact that I am going to Crete for a week in July has certainly helped motivating me, although I don't do far as much as I should with Greek, my wanderlust has been to overwhelming the last couple of months.

On the other hand, maybe if you take a short break your motivation for Greek will come back again? I have the impression that you have reach a good level already, so a break of a month or two probably woudl not hurt that much. Or simply try to do things in Greek that you enjoy, whether it is listening to music, reading stories or the news etc.

It is a bit sad that Team Sparta has not been very successful so far this year, more than one team member seem to have met their Thebes:-)

Whatever you decide, good luck! Catalan is certainly a language worth learning.
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embici
Triglot
Senior Member
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4370 days ago

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

 
 Message 72 of 108
28 June 2013 at 10:24pm | IP Logged 
I envy you Ogrim. I've only been to Greece once, and it was over 20 years ago. I spent most of my time in Crete and absolutely loved it and even considered staying long-term. That's where I bought my first Greek for Foreigners book. I hope you will tell us all about your time there and thereby provide me with a bit of additional motivation. :)

I have been continuing with Greek these past few days. As I mentioned once before, I borrowed Spoken World Greek from the library (before they lost their only copy) and was really impressed. I thought I'd snap up a couple of their programs before they disappeared. I can't say for sure they are out of print, but I don't see many on-line retailers carrying them. I ordered Greek and Swahili. I really like the sound of Swahili and I may continue with it.

I probably shouldn't spend too much time on Spoken World Greek as I've already spent entirely too much time with beginners materials.




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