How I Learned to Speak Greek in 1 Year (Beginner Guide + 6 Tips) — Transcript

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1. 0:07My name is Ellis. I'm from the Netherlands and this is me after 4 months of learning Greek
2. 0:09I was in Athens for work visiting  a university with a Greek colleague.
3. 0:28Up until that point, Greek had only  existed in my room or in a classroom,
4. 0:33in my books, in headphones, in  carefully controlled situations
5. 0:37where I could pause and think about what to say. But this this was the real thing.
6. 0:53It wasn't easy to understand. I remember going  outside on my lunch break to practice words.
7. 1:11Everyone around me was speaking so fast,  so naturally, and I couldn't help feeling
8. 1:16such frustration that I couldn't keep up  with their level. But at the same time,
9. 1:22I was also so determined to practice my speaking.
10. 1:40As you can imagine, at  the end of the day, I was exhausted.
11. 1:47I was so happy to have an emotional support Greek cat that doesn't talk.
12. 1:47It may look like I'm talking easily here now, but remember I  repeated the word panapistimio 500 times before I remembered it at the end of this day.
13. 1:59In literally every single language the word is university and in Greek it's...
14. 2:17like why why? So, that's how it all started. And  looking back on these videos, I'm proud of that  girl.
15. 2:24Proud of her for speaking Greek with  the little vocabulary she had at that point,
16. 2:30for trying again when she made a mistake,  for not giving up when things got hard,
17. 2:36for having an open mind, and for making  an effort to understand the people and learn about the culture.
18. 2:42Within a year,  I was able to have a full conversation in Greek. And in this video, I'm going  to show you exactly how I did it.
19. 3:57This is actually the most important tip that I  always tell beginners especially is to focus on
20. 4:02the most important words, the most frequently used  words in a language. For example, the verbs to be,
21. 4:10to have, to want, to go, to need, to buy. I can  literally not go a day without using any of these
22. 4:19verbs. You need them in everyday sentences. And  therefore, it makes a lot of sense to learn them
23. 4:26when you are a beginner rather than very specific  words that are often taught more in books or in
24. 4:33apps like Duolingo. Not saying that that's  a bad thing. It's just that these words are
25. 4:39only useful when you are more advanced and you  are able to describe something better. Because
26. 4:45often in books and in Duolingo they focus on  learning categories like clothing items, animals,
27. 4:52colors. But when you are an A1 level, then you  don't need the colors because you only use them
28. 4:58when you are describing something. But you don't  have the level yet to describe something. So it
29. 5:04doesn't make much sense to learn the colors  when you are a very very beginner. It makes a
30. 5:09lot more sense if you can say phrases like I am  going to work. I want to go to the supermarket
31. 5:17to buy food. Are you hungry? Uh where do you  want to go? These things make a lot more sense
32. 5:24to focus on from the beginning and then later  on you can learn the most specific words. So,
33. 5:29in case you are interested in that, I made a  whole list of core vocabulary in Greek. I made
34. 5:34a PDF that you can download below. I will put a  link below. These are the words that I started
35. 5:39with and that I really recommend you to learn  first before you're moving on to anything more
36. 5:44advanced because when you know these words, you  can actually already have conversations. Because
37. 5:51let me show you a clip of how I do this, how I did  this, and how I implemented the most frequently
38. 5:57used words and phrases in a conversation that  I had with my colleague when I was in Athens.
39. 6:23You see, I'm actually talking in very simple  sentences. And he goes on explaining something
40. 6:28in also very basic Greek. And if you see in the  video, I can understand exactly what he's saying
41. 6:33because he's speaking in like most frequently  used words that I had learned by that time.
42. 7:10One of the hardest things when you are learning  a language by yourself is knowing what to do
43. 7:15next. I learned mainly by myself. I had  a teacher, but we only spoke once a week
44. 7:21for 1 hour while we did a speaking lesson so I  could practice my speaking. But apart from that,
45. 7:27I mainly studied Greek by myself. And I remember  I was in this phase where I learned the alphabet.
46. 7:33I learned the most frequently used words. And  then I was thinking, what do I do now? How do
47. 7:39I learn to glue them together to make sentences?  How do I know if I should learn how to conjugate
48. 7:46them next? If I should learn the past tense first?  If I should learn the future tense first? If if
49. 7:52it actually matters. Like it does matter. There  is a certain order in which you need to learn a
50. 7:57language that makes it easier. But I had no clue  about that. Like how do I get this structure?
51. 8:04how do I get this guideline? So I at some point  I got a book and that helped me tremendously
52. 8:10in making progress and knowing chapter by  chapter what I should focus on next. And I
53. 8:16also discussed this with my teacher. So that's a  tip that I always give people is make sure that
54. 8:22you have some kind of guideline because it is so  important in in order to not get lost in learning
55. 8:30a language. And that's exactly the reason why I  also created an entire course around this topic,
56. 8:36how to learn Greek, where I give you a structure,  where I give you a step-by-step plan. It's
57. 8:42basically a road map that tells you, okay, you are  now in level A1. This is what you should focus on.
58. 8:49I created an an entire PDF that's also inside  the course that tells you step by step. This
59. 8:55is what you should focus on. After that, you  need to learn this. So, you have a structure.
60. 9:00So you know how to start learning Greek  because that is so important to have that.
61. 9:08One mistake I see people learning a language  often make is that they don't speak. They wait
62. 9:15to speak a foreign language until they feel  ready or when they feel like okay now I have
63. 9:21a lot of vocabulary. Now I know exactly how to  express myself. Well, I can tell you that that
64. 9:28feeling of now I'm ready is never going to come.  Like, you're going to have at some point find the
65. 9:35courage to speak and to speak even with the little  words that you already have, like the little tiny
66. 9:44words and phrases that you can say to people. Make  sure that you say them and that you can practice
67. 9:50them. And it doesn't matter if you catch yourself  repeating the same words and phrases over and over
68. 9:56again because obviously that's also what I did and  how I learned the language. But it is so important
69. 10:02that you just speak because that's something that  I want to show you also with these little clips
70. 10:08that I that I share is that you see me speaking  and that you can see me trying and interacting
71. 10:14and asking how do you say this? What's the word  for that in Greek? repeating it over and over
72. 10:19again because that's eventually the way to learn  a language is by speaking it and by trying it out.
73. 10:37How do you say windy in Greek? It's very windy.
74. 10:58Don't learn the grammar right from the beginning.  And I know this is an unpopular opinion and so
75. 11:04many teachers also start explaining you the  grammar. All the books start with explaining
76. 11:09you the grammar. But the way that works at least  for me is I get so terrified by it. It's a book
77. 11:18teaches me to introduce myself and I'm like okay  my name is Alice. I am from the Netherlands.
78. 11:24But then I am from in Greek the article  changes into the accusative case. And
79. 11:31then the books start explaining like why  this happens and how an article changes
80. 11:38from nominative to accusative case. And from  that moment is you only start worrying about
81. 11:43whether it's e to or like that's going to  be in your mind the whole time like which
82. 11:52gender does a word have and how does it change  in what form and it just completely ruins you
83. 11:58basically. So my tip is just just leave it. Do  not spend so much time on that in the beginning.
84. 12:07I rather want you to focus on words that actually  matter, like words that are important and speak
85. 12:13regardless of of the grammar because the thing  is people are going to understand you anyway.
86. 12:19And that is something that you saw in the previous  videos too. I'm literally asking my colleague like
87. 12:29no idea but just speak whether or not it's  correct or not because he didn't even care.
88. 12:36You can actually see it in the video. It was only
89. 12:37when I asked for reassurance like it's  "sti" right? That he's like, "Yeah, yeah,
90. 12:42it's sti" If I hadn't asked him that, he  wouldn't have cared. Greeks don't care.
91. 13:11There are four skills you need to learn a  foreign language. Speaking, writing, listening
92. 13:16and reading. And out of all these four skills, the  most important one is listening. You have to make
93. 13:25sure that you completely surround yourself with  the Greek language. And that's another mistake
94. 13:31I see many people make is that they start looking  for content that they actually understand and they
95. 13:37avoid listening to Greek because they're thinking  if I'm listening to Greek conversation and I don't
96. 13:44understand a single word that's being said,  then I'm not going to learn anything from it.
97. 13:49But that's actually not true because what I always  do when I learn a language is I completely immerse
98. 13:56myself in that language. I start looking for  podcasts. I start looking for online resources.
99. 14:02I watch YouTube videos and I watch them whether  or not I speak the language or I understand it or
100. 14:10not because you're learning from that. There  are plenty of situations where I was where I
101. 14:17could kind of understand something by the context  or I would pick up one word and because I only
102. 14:22understood like one word, I could kind of like  guess the meaning of the entire sentence. And
103. 14:29if you do that more often, then at some point you  just get what people are talking about. And when
104. 14:35you think about it, that's also how children learn  languages. Children don't read or they don't write
105. 14:41or they don't speak yet. What they do first is  listening. They just listen to their parents speak
106. 14:47the language and at some point they just magically  absorb it. And that can also happen when you are
107. 14:53an adult. Uh it just takes a little longer than it  does for children. But out of all the four skills,
108. 14:59I really recommend you to listen to Greek. Even if  you don't understand anything that's being said,
109. 15:08listen to it anyway because that's going  to help you so much to make progress.
110. 15:15This is the last tip that I want to give  you because it's also a misconception that
111. 15:19so many people have is people just assume  that in order to be fluent in a language,
112. 15:24you have to invest like hours and hours and  hours and you have to spend the entire day
113. 15:29just learning that language and immersing yourself  in it. That's actually not realistic and that's
114. 15:36really not how I did it. I worked a full-time job  alongside learning Greek. I had a life, you know,
115. 15:43I did things beside like working a job and  learning Greek. So, the key is actually to just
116. 15:51make goals that are so incredibly small that it's  just easy for you to accomplish them. goals that
117. 15:59you can just easily plan into your week that you  spend every day just a little bit investing in in
118. 16:08Greek. And it could be in like simple moments when  you are on the car on your way to work, you can
119. 16:13listen to a podcast episode. If you go take your  dog out on a walk or you go on a walk by yourself,
120. 16:18you can listen to Greek. There are these little  tiny moments that you can create that can actually
121. 16:25help you get involved in the Greek language and  have it in your daily life without actually like
122. 16:32sitting down and actively studying it and doing it  for hours because that is certainly not something
123. 16:39that worked for me. The way I did it is I would  make myself goals so incredibly small that I
124. 16:44could just easily achieve them and I would plan  them into my calendar. And that is also something
125. 16:50I show you in my course, how to learn Greek. If  you want to have ideas on, okay, then what kind
126. 16:55of goals do I need to set for myself? If you want  to have some examples or some methods that I use,
127. 17:00I made a whole document and I show you this  exactly how I would plan that into my day and
128. 17:05how I learned Greek even while working a full-time  job. Because let's be honest, we all have a life
129. 17:12beside learning a language. It's not like we're  students anymore. or maybe you are, but most of
130. 17:18us don't have the time to like learn Greek for an  entire day or have like 8 hours per day that you
131. 17:26can just dedicate into learning Greek. Like that  would be absolutely wonderful if you have that,
132. 17:30but let's be realistic. Not not many of us have  that time. But there are ways that you can be
133. 17:37fluent in a language, that you can become fluent,  and you don't have to study for hours every day.
134. 17:46So, these were all the tips that I wanted to give  in this video. I noticed there are so many more
135. 17:51tips that I can tell about this, but then it's  going to be like a 6-hour long video or in case
136. 17:57you want to hear more about me, you can also  join my online course where I give more tips
137. 18:01and I explain everything more in depth. But I  just wanted to make like a shorter version that
138. 18:07you could watch that already packs a lot of tips.  So, I really hope that you found this useful. And,
139. 18:14you know, there's really not an excuse not to  learn Greek anymore or that you cannot learn Greek
140. 18:20because there are so many resources out there.  You just have to find them and make time to look
141. 18:26for them. And I made a whole list of resources.  I will pack all my tips and recommendations and
142. 18:32links like below this video in the description  box in case you are interested to check them out.
143. 18:39But there are also so many free resources. There  are YouTube videos. There are podcasts. I made a
144. 18:45podcast with my Greek teacher that you can also  listen to for free. It's called Unlocking Greek
145. 18:50Potential where we also like take you through  the entire language where we also focus on
146. 18:56the most important words. So definitely check  that out too if you are uh in a beginner level
147. 19:02because it's really made for beginners. If you  like the little progress videos of me and you
148. 19:07want to see more about me speaking Greek in  different phases, there are two interviews
149. 19:12that I did that you can also find YouTube videos  on. One was after 9 months of learning Greek and
150. 19:18the other one was after one year of learning  Greek. So I will link them below in case you
151. 19:23want to see how I spoke at that point. Uh then  you can also watch them. And I think that's it.
152. 19:30have fun learning Greek because honestly it  shouldn't be a chore. It shouldn't be something
153. 19:35that you dread doing because Greeks are honestly  the most amazing people to practice a language
154. 19:41with because they love you. They love you from  the start. They love it when you say one word in
155. 19:49their language, let alone an entire sentence.  It's like you immediately become their best
156. 19:54friend. They introduce you to their entire family.  They like adopt you from the second that you say
157. 19:59one sentence. And it's just for me it's such a  magical experience to to see that and to connect
158. 20:06with them on a way deeper level. And it just  made my life so rich and so incredibly amazing
159. 20:14because I got to experience that and I felt so  grateful even though I was frustrated at times,
160. 20:20even though I thought I'm never going to learn  it. Even when I made mistakes and when I said
161. 20:24embarrassing things, it's like the moments that  I had with people where I felt so intensely
162. 20:30grateful that I could say something were worth  everything. And I wish nothing more for you to
163. 20:37have that same experience and to allow Greek to  change your life the way that it changed mine.