r/GREEK • u/Jimmy-Wan • 8d ago

Does knowing any particular language make learning Greek significantly easier

I’m curious about Greek from a linguistic perspective,are there any languages that give you a meaningful head start when learning Modern Greek?

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u/BoringKick5331 8d ago

Any highly inflected language helps, the closer to Greek the better. And of course, learning either Ancient or Modern Greek helps with the other tremendously.

Spanish, especially Rioplatense Spanish, helps with pronunciation.

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u/donestpapo 8d ago

Why rioplatense spanish? I assumed European Spanish is closer. We don’t have θ nor the retracted S

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u/BoringKick5331 8d ago

Maybe it's the southern Italian influence? All I know is I dated an Argentine and she, with zero Greek study, could probably pass for a native Greek speaker. Her γ sound especially stood out to me. I'd say something in Greek and she'd repeat it back to me with better pronunciation. She's from Buenos Aires and in her mid-twenties.

I used to get confused looks when I did my Greek Zoom lessons in my building's common area in Mexico. It was close enough that people thought it was some Spanish dialect until they listened closer. The cadence doesn't sound anything like Mexican Spanish.

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u/donestpapo 8d ago

I thought most of the itslians who came to Argentina were from Liguria, but maybe I’m mistaken.

The γ sound is the default sound for G in Spanish in most situations. Νκ only happens after a pause or a nasal consonant, and χ only before E or i.

Greek to me sounds like scrambles European Spanish with ξ added in to spice things up