Learn Greek for Free at PBC Languages: Practice with Natives
Free Greek practice at PBC Languages: small classes with native teachers plus 1-to-1 exchanges, half Greek half English. See what's actually hard first.
Create your free accountNo card needed. Exchanges between members are always free.
The alphabet stops most people before they even start, then it turns into the easiest part. Twenty-four letters, several unlike anything in the Latin alphabet - Δ, Θ, Ξ, Φ, Ψ - but once you can read them, Greek spelling is far more predictable than English. There's no silent letter hiding in a word, no 'read' that changes sound depending on tense. Give the alphabet two honest weeks and pronunciation stops being a guessing game.
The real friction is in sounds English doesn't have. Γ (gamma) is a soft, back-of-throat sound with no English equivalent - it's not the 'g' in 'go'. Χ (chi) is the same rasp as the Spanish 'jamón' or the German 'Bach'. Ρ is a light tap, not the English 'r'. None of this is a dealbreaker, but your own ear won't catch the difference at first - you need someone native correcting you out loud, which is exactly what the exchanges are for.
Grammar is where English speakers get stuck for months, not weeks: Greek nouns carry gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and change ending depending on their job in the sentence (nominative, genitive, accusative). English dropped almost all of this centuries ago, so there's no instinct to lean on - you build it ending by ending. Where progress is genuinely fast is vocabulary: English borrowed so heavily from Greek - democracy, philosophy, chaos, drama - that once you can read the alphabet, you already recognise hundreds of words on sight.
Words you will actually hear
| Here | Elsewhere | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| ιδιωτικός | idiotic | False friend. It means 'private' (as on a sign for 'ιδιωτική οδός', private road), not stupid. |
| εμπάθεια | empathy | False friend and a mean one - in Greek it means malice or spite, close to the opposite of what it sounds like. |
| φαντασία | fantasy | True friend. Means imagination, same idea as the English word. |
| δράμα | drama | True cognate, same meaning, easy to remember once you see it written. |
| τηλέφωνο | telephone | Same word once you break the compound: tele (far) + phono (sound). |
| χαρτί | chart | False friend. Just means 'paper' in general, not a chart or graph. |
| συμπάθεια | sympathy | Partial friend. Close, but in everyday Greek it leans more towards 'liking someone' than formal compassion. |
| γραφείο | graph | Shares the root 'grafo' (to write) but means office or desk, not a graph. |
| κρίση | crisis | True cognate, almost the same word and the same meaning. |
| τόνος | tone | Tricky one - it means tone, but also tuna and a ton (weight). Context decides. |
How it works here
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Sign up and say your level
Two minutes. If you do not know your level, we place you in the first class.
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Pick a class or an exchange
Classes are led by a native teacher. An exchange is with another member: half the time in their language, half in yours.
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Join by video, nothing to install
From your phone or your computer. If you cannot make it, cancel and get your place back.
Questions about this
How long does it take to get comfortable in Greek starting from English?
The alphabet takes most people around two weeks of regular practice to read without stopping. Basic conversation for everyday things usually comes after a few months of steady classes and exchanges. The grammar - cases, gender, verb endings - is the slow part and keeps developing well beyond that, depending on how often you actually speak.
Is the 1-to-1 exchange really free?
Yes. You're not paying for anyone's time - you're trading it. Half an hour you speak English with your partner, half an hour they speak Greek with you. No money changes hands, no subscription for the exchange itself.
What level do I need to join?
For the exchanges, you need enough Greek to hold a basic conversation - the alphabet plus common phrases - since there's no teacher guiding the session. For the small group classes with a native teacher, you can start from zero.
How is the hour split in the exchange, exactly?
Thirty minutes in one language, thirty minutes in the other, with a clear switch in between so neither language dominates the session. Both people are producing language the whole time, not just listening.
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