Thats such a shame re: the Greek class community. I've been trying to do my best to learn greek for the last little bit, but methods for doing so are rather... limited? It's easier to learn basic Spanish here in the US, or Chinese because my partner's family speaks it, but there isn't enough of a Greek community or anything like that in the city/area I'm closest to, and any places that offer a Greek class (not a 1:1 tutor which is hella $$$, but an actual class with a few other students) are in person only and at least a 6 hour drive away :(
Re: apps, so many have started integrating AI to generate lessons that native speakers (of multiple languages!) Have called them out on having down right incorrect information.
I've got vocabulary lists and Greek radio stations, but they talk so fast that it's really just for immersion right now, there's no way I can follow any of it lol
All that to say, I (and I'm sure many others) appreciate your language posts, they've been super fun/interesting/helpful, so thank you for posting them (despite tumblr being... tumblr)
Thank you! I am really happy to know they actually help some people in their effort of learning Greek or deepening their understanding of it.
It might be perceived as sabotaging people's efforts or killing their motivation but I can't help but agree that the resources for Greek are limited and often of low quality. Nobody who is studying Greek should feel disheartened because they struggle with it, because the resources really are not that good and it is totally legit if not expected to have trouble learning due to it.
Also, I have been seeing "entertaining" educational content left and right and even that makes me... angry. I have seen Greek-learning content that has actual mistakes and I am not even a linguist, so they are glaring mistakes and it's unacceptable to see mistakes or limited knowledge in the content of the supposed teachers. So much of the content features unserious and pointless intervals for fun, focusing on funny expressions or hand gestures or malaka malaka malaka tzatziki malaka yassou souvlaki malaka and honestly this is not a befitting image for the Greek language (or any language for that matter). And even serious resources are chaotic for real. It can not be justified because Greek is easier than Chinese, if Chinese can be taught methodically and realistically, so can Greek. Half of the Greeks making educational content don't truly believe others will learn Greek other than to say a couple vacation phrases for fun. And malaka. *sigh*
If it makes you feel any better, if I weren't a native speaker I would not be able to learn Greek with the tools and apps I have seen around, except some basic with Duolingo. Duolingo is solid. I have checked some other apps and have hated them all but people learning Greek swear by Language Transfer. I didn't get the hype at all but maybe it's a me problem. Check Language Transfer if you haven't. It has recorded actual audio lessons of a Greek teacher with a foreign student and it was originally designed with the Greek language in mind. Maybe this one offers that depth of understanding I mentioned earlier and this is why people like it. I still found it a little chaotic tbh but most people say otherwise so give it a try if you haven't.
You said something that works like a trigger in me XD about Greek being spoken very fast and being unable to follow. I admit it's bold of me to say since I am a native speaker but honestly......... I don't think we speak THAT fast. I have seen this comment many times, people joking that Greeks speak like "atdkyfkaugsakikoakistakpidakoltesiki" so I decided to look into it and there was a study confirming that Spanish and Greek said on average the biggest number of syllables per time unit. However, I kept looking into it and I found what could be clearing things out and maybe it's a trick you can use (though of course I don't know your level in Greek):
The trick is that the difference of Greek (and Spanish) is that unlike many others, they are overwhelmingly open-syllabled languages and have MANY open syllabled endings. That confuses people from more closed-syllable lingual backgrounds because they sort of miss the beats in which the word or phrase is ending and they think the speaker pronounces a never ending word or sentence and they can't follow. Furthermore, despite the openness of the syllables Greek has strong and sometimes challenging consonant clusters (quite stronger than Spanish) and people from closed-syllable backgrounds tend to think this is where a word or phrase is supposed to end but this is never the case since Greek has usually open syllables and the words never end in a consonant cluster (just a sigma or a ni at most), so they kind of miss the flow of the language. To make this false perception worse, Greek has some seriously long words and due to the open syllables it makes people feel like a lot more things are said than what is actually said! And the unpredictable stress also perhaps confuses people with a first language that is usually stressed in the same spot within each word.
For example, imagine a Greek saying in a breath:
"o-si-ði-ro-ðro-mi-kós-stath-mós"
"wow hold on a bit now"
"what...? I just said 'the rail station'!"
You know? It's like German but with a lot of vowels which adds more and more length. I don't know if this hits any close to home, maybe the difficulty you encounter is different, but I figured I should mention this potential explanation just in case. If this hits close to home, then try to train yourself to expect the pauses and the endings of words and phrases only in a vowel or a ni or a sigma. And when you start listening to the radio, don't feel defeated but keep thinking "I am listening fewer words than I think" and "I am missing less stuff than I think".
By the way, by radio you mean classic radio or podcasts? Because there are some podcasts where the narration is a bit on the slower side (to my native ears at least). Check the podcasts of LIFO, such as Mikropragmata by Ares Dimokidis. Check in general podcasts with one single speaker (because in dialogues things get more animated and faster).
From youtube, if you like science, check channels like Καθημερινή Φυσική, Astronio, Greekonomics. Obviously the vocabulary is advanced in this context but I feel they speak medium to slow.
If you like Criminology, real crime stories etc, check out Vassilikou's channel, she speaks slowly and is thinking as she speaks so I think it's a good pace.
For some lightheartedness, trash tv references, celebrity news (Hollywood and Greek), LGBTQ+ representation (mild though, he doesn't really focus on sexuality topics), check Eponimos. He speaks slowly.
And as always, I keep recommending ERTFLIX, the entirely free and internationally available Greek state TV OTT platform which has lots of good content with Greek audio and foreign content with Greek subtitles. Available in all devices, apps, platforms etc
I know you weren't really asking for help but I thought that maybe these notes would make it easier for you idk
