Greek - How the ...

[animula]

Ds has started learning Greek.

He has a list of words to learn (about fifty).

How? Just ... how?

We've tried flash cards, but "random" is not even orbiting the ex-star of the word-void that describes how these strings of symbols look to my eyes (and, it would appear, his).

Any cunning tips?

I did Greek in school, and the only thing I can say is: persevere, ease of reading Greek comes only with practice and time.

I assume they started with the greek alphabet and what sound in English each letter corresponds to? Make sure there's a nice, clear, decent sized font printed copy of that somewhere for your DS, and just keep going over that till it sticks. Preferably with the word list - any symbol he doesn't recognise, check it with the alphabet-printout, then go back to the word until he can see each one as an actual word rather than a collection of squiggles.

The flash cards will be good once he's happy with the alphabet and his brain has learned to process the Greek characters without him having to consciously think about it.

I do remember finding it really hard as well when I just started, but tell your DS not to despair - it's not just him, and it will get easier. A couple of months in all of us in the Greek class were at least fluently reading the words - understanding them was another matter sometimes :o but at least we could identify the squiggles without trouble.

fifty at this stage does sound tough!

He needs to practise writing them, not just reading them, as that will help it sink in much better (active learning as opposed to passive etc).

also MOST of the letters have some relation to the Roman equivalents - he should go through and pick out the ones that don't (
eta, theta, vu, pi, rho, sigma, phi, psi, omega) and put special effort into learning these; the others will look after themselves.

Hurray! Helpful replies! Thank you.

Ds claims they haven't started with the alphabet - which, frankly, I don't believe. Yes, fifty words struck me as a bit steep; this is after the first lesson, and there's a test. But hey ho.

Great advice, though. Will get cracking on it (though not tonight, obviously). And I will pass on the reassurance.

Thanks again.

Ooh, I just saw this. I struggled like mad with Greek (cracked it in the end, more or less). Just an idea - but I found sounding each word out made it much easier to learn. It's very difficult for anyone to memorize a whole word by sight, especially in Greek as the words are often quite long.

I actually think flash cards are just as bad an idea for learning Greek as for learning to read English - after all, he's not just learning a language, he's effectively re-learning how to read. So he needs to go slow and sound things out, not expect his brain to take in a whole word at a glance.

Also, if he sounds them out, I bet he'll find lots of those words can be linked quite easily to English meanings. For example, the Greek for 'air' sounds like 'aer', the Greek for 'human' is 'anthropos', which you find in English words like 'anthropology' (the study of human kind). 'gune' is 'woman', and also comes into English as 'gynecology'.

I'm guessing if he has fifty words, quite a few will be like this, ones he can remember by thinking of the English word it's similar to.

Seems very odd not start with the alphabet. DS just started this week, has some letters to learn and some simple words. I can't remember how I started - too many years have gone past - but 50 sounds a lot to learn @ once...

I'm a Greek teacher. 50 words is a lot to learn. How old is your ds?

Are you sure he's understood the instruction properly? Maybe he was set 50 words as a reading task, ie he would have to be able to read 50 words, rather than learn the meanings?

Thinking about it, this would make a lot more sense, especially if your ds is Year 10 or older, as once you know the alphabet you can read any number of words.

Hello everyone.

imgonnaliveforever (and others) - you have it. He did misinterpret the instructions. He hasn't, quite yet, explained to me what the, actual, instructions were, but it certainly wasn't to revise them for a test!

I feel such an idiot for even thinking anything to the contrary. I really should have known. Though I must admit I am now wondering if his hearing is not a little impaired (we're both prone to getting blocked-up ears). Of course, it's more likely to be teenage-boy syndrome.

But all the above advice was/is great, and I've been having a hunt around on the internet, and we had a go at playing with pronunciation. So that's been fun, actually. Weirdly like being a spy, or an explorer, or someone in a Dan Brown book.

Thank you!