Languages

I thought since I have making making various posts about the Greek language that it was time for a page all its own. I have talked at length in various different posts about my reasons for learning certain languages and the bits that I find easy versus the bits that I find difficult. I seem to come to a certain point in a language having learnt basic words and according to Memrise my tally is about 300, then no more as I’m both too shy and embarrassed to talk to native people plus I have enough difficulty as it is making friends. I don’t want to offend them in their own language. I do that often enough in my own.

I have various strategies that I use to immerse myself in a language e.g. writing blog posts, stories, FB posts, listening to the radio, attempting to read as much dual language articles as I can, watching YouTube videos, as I find that’s the best way to learn and to keep going back over previously learnt items to see what can be recalled and what has been forgotten to endeavour to improve the process so that I minimise the loss and increase the gain. Here is where I may start sounding like I have swallowed a dictionary or thesaurus as that does sometimes happens with my speech and it sounds so unnatural.

Spending time in a foreign country however is by far the best way to get your language skills to a state of fluency as all your senses are engaged and immersion is all around you. It just seems to happen almost by osmosis that all these words stick in your head and gain meaning. Words are built upon words and your language structure and knowledge improves drastically. Keeping this going when you have left until the next time you visit does require quite an effort though as you need to recreate that environment and its not the easiest of things to do in today’s busy world. If you don’t keep up the effort your work will have been in vain as it will atrophy like muscles do when they are not worked out.