Learn Greek from Spanish (Spain) with Natives — PBC Languages

Good news first: Spanish from Spain already has two sounds that scare most learners of Greek. The θ (theta) in θάλασσα (sea) is the same sound as the 'z' in 'zapato', and the δ (delta) in δρόμος (street) is the same as the soft 'd' in 'nada'. So those letters, which trip up English or Latin American Spanish speakers, are basically free for you. What actually costs effort is γ before back vowels, a rougher sound than the Spanish 'g' or 'j' (as in γάλα, milk), and consonant clusters that never open a word in Spanish, like ξ or ψ at the start (ξέρω, I know; ψωμί, bread).

Then come the words that look friendly and aren't. λάδι sounds like 'lado' but means oil, not side. παππούς sounds close to 'papá' but means grandfather. καλός can be misheard as 'calor' but means good. On top of that, Greek marks the role of a noun in the sentence with case endings (nominative, genitive, accusative), so you can't just take a Spanish sentence and swap words one by one â€" the ending itself carries the grammar that Spanish puts into word order and prepositions.

Where you'll move fast: Greek and Spanish share a huge chunk of vocabulary through Latin and international Greek roots â€" τηλέφωνο, πρόβλημα, τηλεόραση look and mean exactly what you'd expect. Once the alphabet stops being a wall (usually two or three weeks of reading practice in, not months), you start recognizing words you never studied.