It's Greek To Me!

My husband is a regular, all'round American guy. He has only spoken English his entire life, and his life philosophy has been "Why go anywhere else, when everything I need is in the US? And I only need to speak English here." Then in college he took a bit of Italian (language requirement), and the resulting doors this opened for him has given him a change of heart. He loves being able to communicate with people in a different language now.

At various points in my life I took a bit of Greek, Spanish, and French. I love languages and I love to travel, and when I was in Greece and Spain I had a blast communicating with their wonderful citizens. In fact, the little we learned helped us enormously in general in different situations. It is simply fun to be able to communicate with people in a language other than that which we grew up with, and they surely appreciate anyone who studies their language.

In other parts of the world, people learn multiple languages as a matter of course. There are many benefits to being multilingual, including:

♥ Life enrichment
♥ Opens the door to other cultures and countries
♥ Gives you the opportunity to communicate with people you would otherwise not have the chance to know
♥ Increases job opportunities and makes one a greater asset to an employer or company
♥ May help with career advancement, especially in fields where communication is important or a second language is an asset
♥ Promotes greater sensitivity to different peoples of the world
♥ Has a positive effect on intellectual growth, and helps you think "outside the box"
♥ Increases flexibility in thinking and gives you a better "ear" for listening
♥ Increases the desire to learn more about the people and culture who speak the language


My husband and I decided to learn a language together as a family, and for many reasons (which I plan to write about soon) we chose Greek. It's not an easy language to learn, but it's a very rich, beautiful language that is also useful in many ways. You may have noticed a new button on my right side-bar (it links to Papaloizos, whose study materials we will be using). I am so excited for our family to learn a language together...it will be a fun hobby, and I plan to write about it as we go. If you are interested in looking into it, feel free to visit their site. We are starting with grade one, the very basics (alphabet, pronunciation, etc) and we really like how the lessons are planned out. There is a Greek study reading book (primer), a workbook, cd's, and a test booklet. This program goes up to grade seven, and we plan to play the cd's for our son, so he can pick up the language verbally over time (which is how children naturally learn anyway, they speak a language before learning to read and write in that language). Papaloizos offers other options for study as well, but since Greek has its own alphabet I really wanted us to learn to read and write in Greek as well.

Learning a second language is wonderfully enriching, especially if you have children (what a great gift to give them) and Greek is a language that will help your children in school, especially if they study medicine or science (like I did). Stay tuned for future posts on our family project!