Archive for December, 2014
A Greek New Year’s Eve Posted by Ourania on Dec 31, 2014
Χρόνια πολλά from frozen Athens! This post is about traditions and customs. New Year’s Eve (Παραμονή Πρωτοχρονιάς, paramonee protohronias) is a special day in Greece and each region has different traditions but some customs are common. In the morning, the children sing the New Year’s Eve carols (κάλαντα Πρωτοχρονιάς, kalanda protohronias) and get money…
Greek Christmas vocabulary Posted by Ourania on Dec 19, 2014
Χρόνια πολλά! It will be Christmas soon so this post is about Christmas vocabulary. If you want to send wishes to your friends and family in Greek, below there are some common phrases that we use: Καλά Χριστούγεννα (kala hristougena): Merry Christmas Σου εύχομαι καλά Χριστούγεννα (sou efhomai kala hristougena): I wish you Merry Christmas…
Greek neuter nouns ending in -ος Posted by Ourania on Dec 12, 2014
A few months ago there was a post about feminine nouns ending in –ος. This article is about neuter nouns which end in –ος. Some of these nouns can be found in English words: chaos (χάος), anthology (from άνθος, anthos: flower), analgesic (from άλγος, algos: pain), calisthenics (from κάλλος, kalos: beauty) etc. Some neuter nouns…
Decoding Greek: What Greek people say and what they really mean Posted by Ourania on Dec 4, 2014
Sometimes there is a big difference between what people say and what they actually mean. If one wants to communicate efficiently in a foreign language it is very important to be able to tell the difference between the literal and the actual meaning of a sentence in the target language. Although, we have the reputation…