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> He learned the language primarily from us parents, there are almost no Russian friends around, so his language is very adult, I'd even say academic. For insta
by mjn 9y ago
> He learned the language primarily from us parents, there are almost no Russian friends around, so his language is very adult, I'd even say academic. For instance, he normally does not use the word "круто", Russian equivalent for "cool", he'd rather say "remarkable".
As a Greek-American who grew up speaking both, I agree with this, although in my case I'd characterize it to some extent as more "old-fashioned" than "academic". I learned Greek primarily from my mother, but it was especially reinforced by my grandparents (because they didn't speak English, so I had to speak Greek with them). As a result my level of fluency with Greek of the 1930s-70s is better than with contemporary Greek, especially when it comes to colloquial terms and nuances like intonation, pauses, implications, gestures, etc.
I think the first time this really became clear to me is a few years ago when I was on a bus in Crete full of elderly people (mainly 80+), and I realized that listening to their conversations, I felt really 100% fluent in Greek down to the last nuance. Usually, when surrounded by Greeks who are younger, I think of myself as more like 80% fluent and miss many nuances, so being on this bus full of grandparents felt like some kind of fog was lifted and my comprehension went up to near-perfect.
- orless 9y agoHow did you learn Greek? Only from parents/grandparents or did you have additional lessons?
- mjn 9y agoMostly just at home. My dad is American and mom is Greek, so they each spoke to me primarily in their native language and I grew up speaking both natively to some extent. The Greek side's grandparents also lived with us for about a year when I was aged 3-4, which I think helped a lot. I'm told my Greek was better than my English up until I started going to school, and then my English rapidly got better and I started using Greek less often even with my mom— she'd speak to me in Greek and I'd often reply in English. I did take some lessons from the local Greek Orthodox church's after-school courses, but most of the kids spoke less Greek than I did (many were 2nd or 3rd generation Greek-Americans) so I don't think I learned a lot there as far as spoken fluency goes. I did learn the basics of reading and writing from there, but this didn't seem interesting to me at the time so I didn't really put much effort into it. Now as an adult I put a little more effort into reading Greek newspapers now and then, but I still approach it as mainly an oral language and read very very slowly due to lack of practice.