Learning languages that use a different alphabet

[Cifi]

I started with Greek not so long ago, and it is an adventure and a challenge. I proceed quite slowly and only start to explore the first few skills of the second unit.

I guess it is still easier than e.g. Hebrew or Arabic because some of the letters are equal or similar to the Latin alphabet, but on the other hand there are "false friends" that look familiar, but represent a different sound.

It is a little like learning to read in my native language for the first time in primary school. There is a big difference though: when I did this, I already had a decent vocabulary, I just hadn't been aware of the visual (written) representation of all these words I already knew.

So, I would read unknown words letter by letter, aloud or silently subvocalising, and then there would be a click: "oh, this is what is means!", and it made me proud of being able to read it. Can you imagine what I mean? As my Greek vocabulary is very, very limited yet, I miss this moment on most occasions.

My strategy up to now has been to focus on the letters a lot, trying to get friends with them, e.g. learning their names, drawing them on large sheets of paper (I remember we did that in primary school, too ). But there might be different approaches like learning words only by their sound and maybe a picture first, deferring all reading and writing to a later stage.

How do you go on about this if you are learning a language with an alphabet you are not familiar with?

[Deleted User 1929]

I’m currently learning Korean but honestly I stopped for like a month so till now all I know is the alphabet and a few words.
Nevertheless I see the Korean alphabet on the street, clothes and in videos so it felt good to be able to read what’s written there but I’m sure it’d feel much better to understand them as well.

Good luck with learning Greek!

[Corinnebelle]

Definitely learn the alphabet first as you won't be able to decipher words without it. At least on Duolingo that is the method through reading, another method by Pimsleur is to learn via audio. The alphabet is the building blocks of a language, if you want to learn to recognize the names of structures, "words", instead of focusing with how they are constructed then learning via audio would be the way to go. Definitely learning the sounds of the alphabet is helpful for learning sounds you don't have in your native language.

It depends on your learning style to what works best for you. Whether audio or visual. Some people learn by sight. Some people think primarily in words, other in images. Then main thing with learning words in a foreign language is establishing some sort of link in your mind to help you recognize them. Each word is foreign and must be learned one by one. I suppose that is how we learned to talk as children too!

I have yet to be able to glance over a passage of Hebrew the way I can read a passage of English almost without thinking. I am hoping it will take on an organic entity at some point. Right now I only know the words I know, I still struggle with new ones, I'm not fluid in Hebrew characters.

For encouragement, I know learning a foreign language and writing system is difficult, but so far I went from not be able to compose anything in Hebrew to being able to write this. I'm sure there's some mistakes in it. Determination is the key to conquering foreign languages!

Here is something I found about Greek:

The alphabet is the most difficult aspect of learning this language. It has no relation to several other languages in the region and is the forerunner of many more. With several odd conjugations, a lot of rules, and gendered nouns, the grammar may be a little hard.

Pronunciation also takes considerable practice because certain sounds in English do not have an equivalent. Greek is responsible for almost 12% of all words in the English language. There are still certain parts of the language that new speakers may find difficult.

To comprehend the sounds and pronunciation of Greek, a non-speaker needs a lot of native experience. Many people are perplexed by the stress necessary when speaking to guarantee that the other person knows what you're saying. Improperly placed stresses completely alter the meaning of the word.

Source

Apparently you can get similar problems as with learning Chinese when you get the tones wrong if you get the stress wrong in Greek!

[Cifi]

I have yet to be able to glance over a passage of Hebrew the way I can read a passage of English almost without thinking.

I actually think the way we read changes at some point. It's not letter by letter anymore (this would be ways slower), but instead we immediately recognise well-known words as a whole, the pattern of letters, and from that we can extract the meaning of a sentence if we know all of the words or enough to guess the rest from context.

By now I can read English almost as fast and easily as German.

Spanish used to be harder than it is now, with needing a translator sometimes, or reading slowly and getting tired only after a few paragraphs. Lately I actually looked for information about some Spain-related topics in Spanish rather than in English or German, which was really rewarding.

In Greek I would recognise maybe every 10th or 20th words, so reading random texts doesn't make much sense yet.

For encouragement, I know learning a foreign language and writing system is difficult, but so far I went from not be able to compose anything in Hebrew to being able to write this. I'm sure there's some mistakes in it. Determination is the key to conquering foreign languages!

Awesome (I had to use a translator as I don't know a single word of Hebrew)! It motivates me to write something in Greek with the few words I've learned so far. Thank you!

[IceVajal]

Before I started learning Russian I learned the Cyrillic alphabet with a video where they already teach you some words.

For a few months now I'm writing my shopping list in Russian and have BBC news in Russian on my mobile. Still many words I don't know, but usually I get an idea what it's about. But I'm, according to Busuu, just A2, so it's still a long way t go.

[Cifi]

Btw, when I was on vacation in Greece it wasn't much of a problem to get around because in touristic areas everyone spoke English, and signs would usually have additional Latin transliteration, but I accidently bought a bottle of Retsina because I mistook this "Petoiva" for the name of a local variety of grapes (like "Chardonnay", "Riesling", "Pinot gris") and thought I couldn't go wrong with local wines. So, I absolutely agree: it's wise learning the letters.

[IceVajal]

I was in Athens in January 1999 with friends who recorded a live album there. And everything was Greek to me! Luckily the hotel had business cards, one side in Greek, the other Latin script, coz 2-3 times I encountered taxi drivers who didn't understood Latin script and we didn't get back to the hotel.
The hotel gave us a map of the city, but on the map it was Latin script and the signs were in Greek. Back than it was some kind of a challenge.

[LICA98]

when I was learning the Arabic letters on duo I saw someone explain it with a mnemonic and it really helped
like
ب [dot is] below
ن noon
ت two [dots]
ث three
س snake
ل liana

don't remember what the rest were unfortunately

for Korean:

[Cifi]

I have put together some material about the Greek alphabet which helped me a lot to make friends with these letters. It might be possible to reuse it for other languages, but to achieve this, I'd probably need some help as I'm not learning any of these.

[dakanga]

References to other posts/information about different languages:

• Cyrillic : viewtopic.php?p=23747-cyrillic-script-alphabet#p23747
• Right to Left scripts : https://www.w3.org/International/questi ... ht-to-left.

Other recommendations would also be very welcomed.

[Corinnebelle]

References to other posts/information about different languages:

• Cyrillic : viewtopic.php?p=23747-cyrillic-script-alphabet#p23747
• Right to Left scripts : https://www.w3.org/International/questi ... ht-to-left.

Other recommendations would also be very welcomed.

Old Hungarian was written right to left in Old-Hungarian Latin? In Thai? In many places in Africa as well.

[SweNedGuy]

Math and quantum mechanics combined use the entire Greek alphabet. They even add Greek looking letters such as the 'aleph' ∞ for infinity. The 'nabla' (an inverted capital delta) is used as a differentiator symbol for a vector function.

With its 24 letters, the Greek alphabet is the easiest alternative to the Latin one. When compared with a Latin alphabet stuffed with loads of diacritical marks, the Greek alphabet is even easier.

[David680268]

Math and quantum mechanics combined use the entire Greek alphabet. They even add Greek looking letters such as the 'aleph' ∞ for infinity. The 'nabla' (an inverted capital delta) is used as a differentiator symbol for a vector function.

With its 24 letters, the Greek alphabet is the easiest alternative to the Latin one. When compared with a Latin alphabet stuffed with loads of diacritical marks, the Greek alphabet is even easier.

I only know the classical Greek letters (and absolutely nothing about modern Greek), mostly from mathematics. I agree, the Greek alphabet is far easier than the diacritical letters in Polish. It really took me some time to get my head around these letters and their pronunciation.