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Books : Rapid Greek: 200+ Essential Words and Phrases Anchored into Your Long Term Memory with Great Music: v. 2 (Earworms)
Rating: 
- It's all greek to me....
Volume 1 has already been useful - my wife, daughter and myself were in Greece a couple of months ago and having even limited skills in the language totally changed the attitude of the locals towards us! Christine (daughter) was a great hit around the town we were staying in as she was the only British child who had any skills at all in the language.
The Rosetta Stone system is pretty good (and goes further) - but for pain free and quick learning of basics of a language at sensible prices, I'm really impressed with the Earworms method!
Volume 2 expands on vol 1 - although it can mostly be used standalone, you'll want some of the parts from Vol 1 - particularly the numbers track.
This volume leads you into talking about yourself and interacting with other people - it's billed as "allowing you to flirt" which is pushing what it gives you.
It includes a basic intro to verbs - how to speak in past/future and conditional, and extends counting introducing eleven to a hundred. Also covered is a meal at a taverna.
Good - a bit basic, but recommended!
Alex
Rating: - Greek made easy
If you want to acquire some basic Greek phrases then I would highly recommend this CD as your best starting point. It is made up of ten tracks which cover some 200 basic words and phrases. Each track has music in the background - more about this later. There is also a booklet which accompanies the CD. It has the text which is spoken and also some advice on using the CD.
Everyone wants a shortcut to learning and it would be easy to be disappointed by any course which made such bold claims. This is not, in my opinion, a shortcut to learning a language. There is no magic here. The reason why it seems to work so well is that the musical background makes it much more palatable to listen to it over and over and over again. And, with repeated listening, things do start to stick.
Once you are familiar with the pronunciation on the CD you can then follow the text in the booklet. I also thought that this was useful. For example, the word for 'please' is often given phonetically as 'parakalo.' In the booklet it is written as 'baragalo.' By adopting a compromise between what was heard on the CD and what was written in the booklet, it did seem to result in an improvement in my pronunciation (I hope!)
Also with language CD's you can find that you are suddenly presented with a lengthy sentence which is difficult to assimilate. Here the sentence might be spoken and then broken down into its component parts. You get a chance to repeat each part before the whole thing is then reassembled. The repetition of words and phrases is very well done.
Rating:
- depends on your definition of 'melody'
Just got my CD. I think it's a great concept. However, here's what they don't tell you on the box: while it is set to music, the words are spoken. There is no melody or beat to the words, but only behind the words. Sometimes they'll electronically repeat something, but it's still not singing; it's spoken.
Rating: - Implants Greek words in your mind
I think this cd is very good. I do a lot of driving and listened to it in my car. I take greek lessons in a class too and this definately helped to put some extra words in my vocabulary.
Rating: - Love it!
This is an interesting concept - hypnotic music dubbed with language to help it sink in. I saw this for sale on amazon and checked out the publishers site (where you can hear samples). One play and I was sold on the idea (amazon worked out almost 50% cheaper by the way).
The CD is now on my MP3 player and a regular listen. I'm not sure if it is totally perfect for beginners as the order on the CD is quite random (starts with "I would like a coffee, with milk, please", and teaches you how to say "I am vegetarian" before you can count to ten). However, for all the strange order, it works. If you listen to it often enough, the tunes sink in, rather like an annoying pop song (!) but be warned, look at the booklet whilst listening - some of the pronunciations are a little odd.
To get you through a holiay, this is great - I'd like a tea... a table for two... how much is this... Unfortunately I don't like the background music on a couple of the tracks, and this is reflected in that I can never remember those words! My Greek is never going to be native, but it has certainly improved. (NB, on the strength of this cd, I have also bought the German version vol 1 and the French versions vol 1+2 for a refresher course so it is obviously a style that works for me)
- It's all greek to me....Volume 1 has already been useful - my wife, daughter and myself were in Greece a couple of months ago and having even limited skills in the language totally changed the attitude of the locals towards us! Christine (daughter) was a great hit around the town we were staying in as she was the only British child who had any skills at all in the language.
The Rosetta Stone system is pretty good (and goes further) - but for pain free and quick learning of basics of a language at sensible prices, I'm really impressed with the Earworms method!
Volume 2 expands on vol 1 - although it can mostly be used standalone, you'll want some of the parts from Vol 1 - particularly the numbers track.
This volume leads you into talking about yourself and interacting with other people - it's billed as "allowing you to flirt" which is pushing what it gives you.
It includes a basic intro to verbs - how to speak in past/future and conditional, and extends counting introducing eleven to a hundred. Also covered is a meal at a taverna.
Good - a bit basic, but recommended!
Alex
Rating:
- Greek made easyIf you want to acquire some basic Greek phrases then I would highly recommend this CD as your best starting point. It is made up of ten tracks which cover some 200 basic words and phrases. Each track has music in the background - more about this later. There is also a booklet which accompanies the CD. It has the text which is spoken and also some advice on using the CD.
Everyone wants a shortcut to learning and it would be easy to be disappointed by any course which made such bold claims. This is not, in my opinion, a shortcut to learning a language. There is no magic here. The reason why it seems to work so well is that the musical background makes it much more palatable to listen to it over and over and over again. And, with repeated listening, things do start to stick.
Once you are familiar with the pronunciation on the CD you can then follow the text in the booklet. I also thought that this was useful. For example, the word for 'please' is often given phonetically as 'parakalo.' In the booklet it is written as 'baragalo.' By adopting a compromise between what was heard on the CD and what was written in the booklet, it did seem to result in an improvement in my pronunciation (I hope!)
Also with language CD's you can find that you are suddenly presented with a lengthy sentence which is difficult to assimilate. Here the sentence might be spoken and then broken down into its component parts. You get a chance to repeat each part before the whole thing is then reassembled. The repetition of words and phrases is very well done.
Rating:
- depends on your definition of 'melody'Just got my CD. I think it's a great concept. However, here's what they don't tell you on the box: while it is set to music, the words are spoken. There is no melody or beat to the words, but only behind the words. Sometimes they'll electronically repeat something, but it's still not singing; it's spoken.
Rating:
- Implants Greek words in your mindI think this cd is very good. I do a lot of driving and listened to it in my car. I take greek lessons in a class too and this definately helped to put some extra words in my vocabulary.
Rating:
- Love it!This is an interesting concept - hypnotic music dubbed with language to help it sink in. I saw this for sale on amazon and checked out the publishers site (where you can hear samples). One play and I was sold on the idea (amazon worked out almost 50% cheaper by the way).
The CD is now on my MP3 player and a regular listen. I'm not sure if it is totally perfect for beginners as the order on the CD is quite random (starts with "I would like a coffee, with milk, please", and teaches you how to say "I am vegetarian" before you can count to ten). However, for all the strange order, it works. If you listen to it often enough, the tunes sink in, rather like an annoying pop song (!) but be warned, look at the booklet whilst listening - some of the pronunciations are a little odd.
To get you through a holiay, this is great - I'd like a tea... a table for two... how much is this... Unfortunately I don't like the background music on a couple of the tracks, and this is reflected in that I can never remember those words! My Greek is never going to be native, but it has certainly improved. (NB, on the strength of this cd, I have also bought the German version vol 1 and the French versions vol 1+2 for a refresher course so it is obviously a style that works for me)