3 ms·
Mostly 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 so
by mjn 9y ago
Mostly 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.