Not much blog activity in the last 2 months... I have to say that blogging about learning a language is a bit challenging. Learning a language, especially one as relatively difficult as Modern Greek, and pursuing one's career and having a personal life is not easy. It demands effort everyday and whenever making a blog entry you have to ask yourself whether you should really be blogging or reviewing dialogs, reviewing your vocab or doing some misc. reading. By and large I've chosen the later, with the result that I've actually made quite a bit of progress, finishing both Pimsleur and Rosetta stone courses.

Language Course	Lessons Remaining	Total Lessons
Rosetta Stone	0	210
Greek by Radio	90	105
Pimsleur's	0	30

Night Thread

Όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη

Στίχοι: Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης
Μουσική: Βασίλης Τσιτσάνης

Είσαι το καμάρι της καρδιάς μου
Θεσσαλονίκη όμορφη γλυκιά
κι' αν ζω στην ξελογιάστρα την Αθήνα
για σένα τραγουδώ κάθε βραδιά

Ώ! όμορφη Θεσσαλονίκη
ώ! τα μαγικά σου βράδια νοσταλγώ

- Ρεφρέν -
Μέσα στα στενά σου τα σοκάκια
έζησα τις πιο γλυκές στιγμές
καντάδες χίλιες νύχτες έχω κάνει
για όλες τις μποέμικες καρδιές

Translation of Previous Comic.

Γερός: Εσύ! Μου καινουριος εισαι; Δεν σ’εχω ξαναδει!

Φύλακες: Υα’ χάςες γερός! Τριανταπέντε χρονιά είμαι εδώ μέσα!

Φύλακες: ...Σε λίγο παιρνώ τη συνταξή μου και φεύγω!

Γερός: Αχ, τα νειάτα! δεν ησυχάζουν ποτέ!

---

Old Man: You there! You’re new aren’t you? I haven’t seen you before.

Guard: You’re losing it old man. I’ve been here 30 years.

Guard: I’m going to be retiring shortly.

Old Man: Ah, the young. Always restless.

Progress

Language Course	Lessons Remaining	Total Lessons
Rosetta Stone	35	210
Greek by Radio	104	105
Pimsleur's	29	30

Retirement

(Click image to enlarge)

Progress

Language Course	Lessons Remaining	Total Lessons
Rosetta Stone	46	210
Greek by Radio	104	105
Pimsleur's	29	30

Translation of Previous Comic.

Μεγάλος ελέφαντας: Για πεζ μου γιε μου, τι θα κάνεις όταν γινεις μέγαλος σαν κι' εμενα;
Μικριος ελεφαντάκι: Διαίτα.

Big Elephant: Tell me, my boy, what will you do when you get big like me?
Little Elephant: Diet.

Progress

Only Rosetta Stone and a bit of Pimsleur's. Apparently, Dr. Pimsleur felt the best way to learn a language was to was to teach phrases, as soon as possible, that could be used to pick-up women. A line from a Pimsleur's conversation might be: "Που θα ήθελα να πίω κάτι; Σπίτι μου;"

Language Course	Lessons Remaining	Total Lessons
Rosetta Stone	48	210
Greek by Radio	104	105
Pimsleur's	29	30

Progress

Worked a bit on Greek by Radio. A mammoth, free on-line course. Some of the audio is a bit low-fi. But mastery of all 105 course will take you quite far indeed. It can be found at: http://www.kypros.org/LearnGreek/

Language Course	Lessons Remaining	Total Lessons
Rosetta Stone	55	210
Greek by Radio	104	105

An Old Joke in any Language.

Progress

Today was pretty busy, with little time to work on Greek. However, I always try to spend a little time every day performing a few quick exercises, listening to some lessons, watching a Greek cartoon, etc. From what I've read, supported by my own experience, even five or ten minutes a day is useful as a 'maintanance dose' keeping your language skills from backsliding. In general it's alway better to do, say, 20 minutes every day rather then two or three hours on the weekend. Today all I had time for was about 15 minutes of Rosetta Stone. I plan on writing a complete review of the software when I've finished the course, but one of the strengths of the Rosetta Stone software system is that it's quite easy, and even fun, to jump in and spend a few minutes working on lessons.

Language Course	Lessons Remaining	Total Lessons
Rosetta Stone	55	210

"Why Modern Greek?" This is a question that I've been asked before about my, if I can flatter myself, Quixotic endeavor. When I was in high school, I tried to teach myself Classical Greek, but failed. In trying to figure out why I failed, I arrived at the conclusion, probably in further retrospect incorrect - the root problem was lack of diligence, that my failure was due to me being a very aural person. And, so I figured, since I couldn't hear the language I was handicapped in learning it.

I decided to start studying Modern Greek as a means of quickly learning the language and then assuming that it would be easy to learn the classical language once the modern had been mastered. This logic was flawed in both its premises Modern Greek is not an easy language to learn -- though perhaps easier in morphology to classical Greek, and learning the classical language, once the modern one is learned plus the difficulties of learning the modern language itself is probably greater than learning the classical language directly. Roughly:

While,
[Modern Greek] < [Classical].
Unfortunately,
[Modern Greek] + [Modern to Classical] > [Classical Alone]

So, if I'm not learning Modern Greek as a means of learning the classical language then why? Firstly, it IS a means of learning Ancient Greek, just not the most efficient. I still plan on learning both. But Modern Greek is a wonderful language, with a wonderful urban folk music, ρεμπέτικο, many world class, Nobel prize winning poets and is the native language of one of my favorite authors, Kazantzakis (Καζαντζάκης).

I'm Back!

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, I think it's fair to say. Perhaps I should just start a new blog? But, this is similar to my approach to Greek -- I put it away for a while, sometimes a long while, and then come back to it -- and I think that it's fitting that I keep plugging away at this one.

So, my progress in Greek has actually carried forward more than my posting history would indicate. My focus right now has been to improve my listening comprehension. I'm finishing the two level Rosetta Stone course and starting Pimsleur 1 (all there is unfortunately) and Greek by Radio. A Mammoth free online course with over 100 audio lessons, with text. Currently my reading material consists of the Little Prince (Ο Μικρος Πριγκιπας) and Plato's Apology (Απολογία), in Modern Greek, not the classical.