Greek language learning materials/Υλικά εκμάθησης της ελληνικής γλώσσας

If you’re trying to learn Greek and find materials for learning online you’ve probably run into some frustration because it seems like most of the information is geared toward learners of Koine Greek to read the Bible.
That’s all well and good, but for those of us who are looking to learn modern Greek it’s not terribly helpful.

With that in mind I’ve compiled a list of the materials that I found in my quest to self-study Greek that began in earnest about 1.5 years ago. Now keep in mind I had an excellent teacher (my girlfriend) who also served as my motivation, but even if you don’t have a close relationship with a Greek speaker you will at some point need to interact with proficient speakers to help move you to the next level of fluency. However, the materials I outlined here should be enough to give you a very good start.

<ul> <li><a href="http://www.hau.gr/?i=learning.en.podcasts-in-greek" target="_blank">Learning Greek podcasts from the Hellenic American Union</a>: The go-to audio-visual resource.  80 lessons (all FREE) with accompanying PDF transcripts.  Be warned it’s ALL Greek, not a lick of English (or anything else) in it, so you’ll need a dictionary/textbook to go with it.</li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Greek-Two-Audio-CDs/dp/0071627901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401417705&sr=1-1&keywords=teach+yourself+greek" target="_blank">Teach Yourself Greek</a>: The Greek edition of the venerable textbook series.  Definitely worth a look.</li> <li><a href="http://www.memrise.com" target="_blank">Memrise</a>: There are a surprising number of really good Modern Greek-English flashcard sets on Memrise (which uses a spaced repetition algorithm that I found very effective).</li> <li><a href="http://www.wordreference.com/" target="_blank">Wordreference</a>: King of the online dictionaries, at least in terms of variety</li> <li><a href="http://www.neurolingo.gr/en/online_tools/lexiscope.htm" target="_blank">Neurolingo Lexiscope</a>: See a word in Greek but can’t work out its uninflected form?  This is the tool for you (only 10 free searches a day, though, last I checked)</li> <li><a href="http://moderngreekverbs.com/home.html" target="_blank">Modern Greek Verbs</a>: Everything you ever wanted to know about Modern Greek verbs.  Seriously, everything.</li> <li><a href="http://www.greekgrammar.eu/" target="_blank">Greek Grammar</a>: Excellent overviews of the main grammatical points of the Greek parts of speech</li> <li><a href="http://www.foundalis.com/lan/greek.htm" target="_blank">Harry Foundalis’ Greek Language</a>: Harry’s a bit of a renaissance man, which is awesome.  His way of explaining verbal aspect in Modern Greek I found less awesome until I warmed to it, but that’s just me: I like the technical, linguistics jargon filled explanations coupled with charts of patterns and examples. Once I got past the presentation I could see what he was doing and it has a certain brilliance.  The rest of his grammar (and phonetics) stuff is top notch.</li> <li><a href="http://cooljugator.com/gr/" target="_blank">Cooljugator</a>: Conjugates most common Greek verbs.</li> </ul>

These resources, watching lots of Greek TV (thank you, YouTube) and listening to lots of Greek music (thank you YouTube again), and practicing constantly (thank you to my girlfriend) took me from zero to fairly fluent in about 1.5 years.  Now, I already spoke a lot of languages and I had help, so your results may vary, but this should be a good start on your Greek learning journey.

Καλή επιτυχία!