Τρίτη 20 Ιανουαρίου 2009

ABOUT GREEK AND SPANISH


Today i wanna share something with you which may sound as something silly for the majority of you ! :)
I always loved languages and it's one of my interest to find out "mmm which language is this" when somebody is speaking near, behind or infront of me :) And it just takes a few seconds to catch it. Since my childhood i've been keen on Greek language and when i hear a Greek song in shopping centres, in cafes or on the radio i stop and give ear to the song because it takes me and wings somewhere else!...

The thing i say is sometimes i confuse Spanish or Portuguese with Greek. It happened to me many times. For example when somebody in the street speaks Spanish very fast, it sounds to me as Greek, i don't know why :) Maybe it's because the speed of the speech, ha? And same happens when the Greek is being spoken in somewhere.

I guess both languages don't have any companion word between each other. Maybe in Greek there are words taken from Latin language but i don't mean the single words. I just mean the sentences or phrases that are homologous. Interesting! :)

Greek can mesure swords with Russian, in my opinion; for having a similar alphabet, right? One of my colleage can speak Russian and she says "i can read Greek but i don't understand even a word" :) And i think it's easier to read Greek with big letter as they're more understandable!

And about Spanish or Porteguese...:) Years ago i met with a guy and i asked him " I love your language, Spanish" and he told me in a blaming way "I'm from Portugal and we have a language named Portuguese" :) I went completely bright red and shy!

But even now when somebody speaks near me, i can't understand the difference between Portuguese and Spanish! But i think they can understand each other, right ? :P

By the way, i've just watched the movie "Vicky Christina Barcelona" and admired Penelope Cruz 1 more time! I think her mother tongue is Spanish and it sounds great when she is fighting with the other characters in the movie!


Have a nice week guys!
Hugs!...

19 σχόλια:

Max Coutinho είπε...

Hey Burcu!

This is interesting...I also have the love for languages :D! So we have that in common!
Spanish and Portuguese (Português) have many words that derive from Greek (just like Italian and French do); and they are extremely similar. What the Greek and Spanish may have in common is the S sounds in their words, and the speed with which they communicate lol (we, the Portuguese speaking folks, speak more slowly perhaps).

Greek has declinations (like Russian) which both Portuguese and Spanish do not.

LOL LOL LOL the Portuguese are very sensitive about their language (you see, Portugal was once invaded by the Spanish, but we kicked them out in 1640 lol). Nevertheless, our languages are extremely, extremely, similar! So it is understandable when someone mistakes one by the other.
Yeah, the Portuguese understand the Spanish perfectly, whereas the Spanish pretend not to understand us LOL... ;)!

Yes, Penélope Cruz is Spanish and what a great artist she is! I love watching her acting!

This was a superb article, darling! :D

Have a nice week, as well *hug*!

Cheers

Burcu είπε...

Hey Max!
Welcome! I've understood a long time ago that you love languages owing to speaking both English and Portuguese in a great harmony!I'm not surprised that;)
Well if you ask me, Italian and Spanish sounds very similar to each other. This is what i pay attention when someone is speaking Italian or French.. Because you know French is spoken through throat like German.
About "S", yes i agree with you S and i think "A" is highlighted as well in both Spanish and Greek.
You made me smile with saying "Yeah, the Portuguese understand the Spanish perfectly, whereas the Spanish pretend not to understand us "... I think this is what happens in France, too...
Many of friends told me that, even they can; French people do not prefer speaking English in their country. What if i even don't know any French word? :)

Thanks for your sharing Max, i love it!

Cheers

Max Coutinho είπε...

Burcu,

"Welcome!"

Thank you *bowing*!

"Well if you ask me, Italian and Spanish sounds very similar to each other. This is what i pay attention when someone is speaking Italian or French.. Because you know French is spoken through throat like German."

Hmmm, they are slightly different...but also similar, yes (I speak both). You are right: the French "R" is guttural like many German words.

"About "S", yes i agree with you S and i think "A" is highlighted as well in both Spanish and Greek."

True.

"You made me smile with saying "Yeah, the Portuguese understand the Spanish perfectly, whereas the Spanish pretend not to understand us "... I think this is what happens in France, too..."

LOL it does...

"Many of friends told me that, even they can; French people do not prefer speaking English in their country. What if i even don't know any French word? :)"

It is true...when I lived in France, many moons ago, the French had a hard time speaking languages (particularly the English); but now I think that things are changing a bit: the French speak more the language...and speak it well.

"Thanks for your sharing Max, i love it!"

It's my pleasure, darling :D!

Have a great week!

Jernest είπε...

Hey pretty!

Actually, spanish and portuguese sound very alike, even for us latin people... so don´t feel bad if u confuse them. What´s really interesting is that u confuse spanish with greek! xD They´re so different one from another!

I wanna see Vicky Cristina Barcelona so bad since I watched the trailer, but I haven´t :(

I love languagues too, and I love that you love them too... I´ve been wanting to learn Portuguese since a long time ago, but I haven´t :(

I haven´t done a lot of things as u see jejejejeje

And don´t worry, my next post will be about celebrities, I just needed to tell to my readers all of the things that happened on my New Year´s road trip

Love

Jernest

Burcu είπε...

Hola Jernest!
How nice to see you here again! Welcome!!!
Ok then whenever i meet a Portuguese and confuse his/her language with Spanish i'll not feel sorrow and say "they're alike what can i do" :)
Yes you must see Vicky Christina and Barcelona and then post something in your blog about film characters and we're gonna comment it, oleyyy ! :) I love your irony and way of telling stories about them!

Keep blogging!!!
Hugs

Qualityservice44 είπε...

I went to college for teaching, and in one of the courses, they said that the best way to get smart is learning a new language. So it shows that you are very intelligent by knowing a number of languages!
I had a very difficult time once when I tried to learn German. I ended up dropping out of the class.

TOPolk είπε...

Spanish is a very sexy language. Almost as sexy as Penelope Cruz!

Burcu είπε...

@ Vince: Yes you're right, because once you learn a language, then the others gets easier to be learnt. But i still hate German, and nothing makes me love it:)

@ToPolk: Believe me Greek is more and more! :)

Amel είπε...

OH OH OH I WANT to watch Vicki Cristina Barcelona!!!! ;-D

I don't know many languages, so I don't think I'll have the problem that you have he he he...

Btw, I've told my Mom that you're a fan of Ken HE HE HE HE...Mom says that Ken is such a joy to her. :-))) I bet!!! ;-D

Burcu είπε...

@Amel: Welcome sweetheart! I just wonder don't you see any other similar language to finnish?
About Ken, he's so lovely and so lucky that he's a perfect aunt as you! ;)

Amel είπε...

Well, Estonian is similar to Finnish, but I've only met one Estonian. Since we live in a SMALL village (yes, a village, not even a town) of 10,000 inhabitants, it's rather hard to meet foreigners who speak other languages he he he he...

Ανώνυμος είπε...

Well, through my experience living in Spain for some years and being Greek, I can assure you that the phonetics between Greek and Spanish seems to be similar, and the same happens to me especially when, after a long period in Spain, I visite Greece…seems that all people speak in Spanish! Or viceversa!

As I like languages and I have studied most of the latin ones, my opinion is that the Portugal Portuguese is quite rough (when I was listening to the radio, I had the impression that I was visiting Romania), although, the Brasilian Portuguese is more soft (as the Latinamerican or Canarian Spanish). On the other hands, don’t forget the different latin languages spoken in Spain, like Gallego that really sounds like Portuguese and Catalan or Valencian or whatever that sounds like a mix-up of Spanish, Italian and French.

My conclusion: I hardly understand the Portuguese when they speak, better communication with the Brazilians and as far as the rest latin languages in the area, well, with a little effort, you can bring it off!

Though my tip is…learn Italian and transform it a bit…Thanx a lot, greetings from Spain.

Burcu είπε...

Thanks for your visit Felipe!
Thanks God, i'm not alone who thinks that Spanish and Greek sounds are similar :)
And yes, i heard about Catalan and as far as i know it's a kind of language mix of Italian, French and Spanish ha? Because in our office, there were some texts in Catalan which should be translated in Turkish but we couldn't find any translator knows Catalan.
But spanish must be easier than learning Greek :)

demetres είπε...

Please let me answer your question, even though a lot of time has passed.
To begin with, I am a 16-year-old greek student who loves languages. I have studied by my self: Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Anglo saxon, Old high german and of course SPANISH.=D I know German, English and Greek (and ancient greek too).
The thing is that the spanish and the greek pronunciation is in some way the same. We both use a LOT the sound "ð" (as in the word "the") (spanish "d" and greek "δ"). We also use a lot the sound "þ" (spanish "c+vowel" and the greek "θ"). And of course the pitch of the voice is in some way the same.
Moreover, I would like to add that Greek has no simmilarity in vocabulary with russian. The only common thing is the alphabet. And that's because two greek priests, Kyrillos (Cyrilic alphabet) and Methodios, before many years made the russian alphabet, because Slavs asked them to, which was mainly based on the greek alphabet (and on some others, like the hebrew one). Grammar has also many common things just like all the languages do.
In greek there are some REALLY difficult parts, which are really tough for a greek too(!). We have got many letters for the same sound, and that´s why you should learn by heart the way each word is written. I mean that we have fot the sound "o": ο,ω,(ό,ώ) for "i" we have: ι/ί/ΐ/ϊ, η/ή, υ/ύ/ΰ/ϋ, ει/εί, οι/οί, υι/υί, for "e" we have: ε/έ, αι/αί. And unfortunatelly there is no way to understand which one you should choose (sometimes there are some rules). These derive from ancient greek.
In greek we have: Nominative, Genitive (anc.Greek: Dative) Accusative, and Vocative. These cases are found in the slavic and in the romance languages too. I also have to say that the most languages have MANY modern/ancient greek words. (for example:terra (=latin word for earth): τέρσομαι/τέρρομαι (térsomai/térromai)=i get dehydrated) or (german) kueschen- (english)to kiss= κυνέω-κυνῶ (kynéo-kynó= (penelope said to odysseas: κὺσσον μέ: kýsson mé:kiss me)=D

That's what I wanted to say, I really hope that my answer was good enough and I still hope that you won't stop being interested in greek language.
Δημήρης (Dimitris)
Σας ευχαριστώ για τον χρόνο σας! (sás efcharistó yá tón chróno sás) thank you for you time (which you have spent for reading my mesage)= greek expression.

angelos είπε...

Γεια σου Δημήτρη,
πολύ ενδιαφέροντα όσα έγραψες.
Απ' ότι βλέπω έχεις μια αδυναμία στις γλώσσες.
Καλή συνέχεια και καλή πρόοδο.

Burcu είπε...

@jimakos93: Thanks a lot for your visit and believe me, i found your respond quite informative! Regarding your being only 16 years old student, you are talking like a linguist, i liked it:)

The thing is, i can sing in greek. I learn the songs by heart and i like the sound when i'm singing them, hahahaha it's funny isn't it ?:)

I'd like to visit your blog as well if you let me access!

Hugs from Istanbul!

demetres είπε...

Actually i have no blog ^_^...I just made my account in order to make this comment. But I will definately make one (about languages of course).

demetres είπε...

hmmm...can somebody answer me?... I have made a blog but when I try to search for it i cannot find it:\... is there anything important to do after pressing the button which saves the text?

Ανώνυμος είπε...

you love languages but your English spelling sucks. go use some MS Office