Tag: Greek

Summer language learning - a book on the grass.

My Language Learning Life : July 2025 Update

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So the summer hols are here – and what better time to take stock of my own polyglot progress? July’s been solid – not life-changing, but the kind of steady language learning momentum that actually gets you places over time.

Here’s where things stand.

Greek: From Textbooks to TikTok

Greek continues to be my most active language learning project right now. I’m keeping up weekly iTalki sessions with my usual tutor, grinding through Τα λέμε Ελληνικά – a B1-B2 course that’s about as exciting as it sounds but gets the job done. Grammar drills aren’t everybody’s cup of tea (well – they are mine, actually), but they work.

The real fun’s been on social media. @greekoutwithmaria is gold – idiomatic, useful Greek with clear explanations. I’ve compiled a whole list of other useful Greek accounts here if you want more where that came from!

To not get lost in the scroll, I dip in occasionally and bookmark stuff as I go. Then, I make sure to have a weekly session where I actually do something with it – vocab decks, Anki cards, and the like. It’s a system that’s added some real conversational polish to my Greek.

German: Going Old School Again

I’ve been gravitating back to actual books to maintain my German lately. There’s something about physical pages that screens can’t replicate – maybe it’s the weight, maybe it’s not getting distracted by notifications every five minutes.

I threw myself at two very different reads this month. First up is Torsten Sträter’s Es ist nie zu spät, unpünktlich zu sein, which serves up observational comedy that’s heavy on dad jokes but light on mental effort. It makes perfect train reading when your brain’s already fried from the day. Then there’s Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, which I’m finally tackling after seeing it on every German language and literature syllabus for years. And it’s a thoroughly readable classic – there’s something very soothing about it as an adventure into the soul.

A little light Readly

Readly, the multi-magazine app, still gets plenty of action on long journeys. I’ve been reading Men’s Health Germany and Sweden’s Språktidningen (pop linguistics in Swedish – a real treat) regularly. Saying that, the platform recently axed most of their Norwegian titles, which is annoying thanks to shifting licensing deals.

As for target language reading of any kind the golden rule applies: read what you’d actually want to read, just in another language.

Life’s too short for boring books in any tongue.

Podcasts: When Your Day Job Meets Your Hobby

I’ve started listening to Der KI Podcast, which covers AI developments in chatty, accessible German. It’s the perfect overlap with both my work and PhD research, so it basically counts as multitasking disguised as language practice. That’s really the sweet spot we’re always looking for: finding content that ticks multiple boxes, rather than forcing language learning into spaces where it doesn’t naturally belong.

Side Quests: Persian, Albanian, and Library Rabbit Holes

Joy of joys – my university library recently added the entire Routledge Colloquial series digitally, which has proven dangerous territory for someone with my particular brand of linguistic OCD. My latest obsession has been Persian, which I’ve been exploring through both the recently updated Routledge title and an ancient Teach Yourself Persian volume that’s pure grammar-translation throwback. You can sense the layers of metaphorical dust on it, but I genuinely love the methodical approach of dissembling languages during the learning process to see how they tick.

Albanian also got a brief look-in after Dua Lipa’s Wembley extravaganza sent me down a cultural rabbit hole. Yes, continuing that trend of letting pop culture determine my dabbling directions. I don’t have any grand plans with it, just some structured curiosity that might lead somewhere (or probably not).

Trips: Lyon and Dublin in Linguistic Technicolor

I took two quick city breaks this month to Lyon and Dublin, which meant the usual soundtrack of overheard conversations and multilingual signage. Nothing was particularly structured – just casual linguistic tourism really. It was great to be the designated restaurant orderer in France, though – that feeling of achievement and usefulness we linguaphiles yearn for!

The Verdict

So that was the past couple of months: steady progress rather than dramatic breakthroughs. Greek keeps moving forward, German feels natural and flowing, podcasts are doing their job, and my side projects are staying appropriately peripheral (but very interesting).

It might not be Instagram-worthy content, but it’s sustainable, and that matters more in the long run than any flashy sprint.

How was your language learning month? Let us know in the comments!

The Greek flag flying in a sunny sky

Greek participles – meet the -μένος gang!

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There’s a class of words in Modern Greek that are derived from verbs but not used to form tenses – they’re purely adjectival. I’ve written about them in the past, in terms of how they contrast with another class of adjectives, and knowing a bit more about them can really help polish your fluency.

It’s worth revisiting these as they’re so widespread. In fact, the Duolingo Greek course has a whole unit on them, which is why they’re suddenly on my own radar again! I’m talking about passive past participles – they describe something that has been done to someone or something.

Meet the -μένος gang

You can usually spot them by their characteristic -μένος ending. In fact, you’ve probably been using a couple without even knowing it:

κουρασμένος (tired)

απασχολημένος (busy)

These words are passive as they describe a state of having had something happen to you – something has tired you out, for example (even the English is a past participle here). For busy, it’s closer to translate απασχολημένος  as ‘occupied’, which is what has been ‘done’ to busy people!

These passive past participles are formed from the verbal root. And in most cases, they’re completely transparent, containing all the elements of that root:

κουράζω (I tire) > κουρασμένος (tired) (ζ and σ are a common alternation in Greek roots)

απασχολώ (I occupy) > απασχολημένος (occupied, busy)

A disappearing act – Greek assimilation

Sometimes, however, the connection is not so obvious. There’s a group of Greek verbs that have a root with -β- and -φ- where that element disappears from the participle:

κόβω (I cut) κομμένος (cut)
κρύβω (I hide, tr.) κρυμμένος (hidden)
ράβω (I sew) ραμμένος (sewn)
βάφω (I paint) βαμμένος (painted)
γράφω (I write) γραμμένος (written)

What’s happened here is called assimilation – a case of one sound becoming more like another. Because the root consonant of these verbs is labial, ie., pronounced with the lips, it matches the place of articulation of the /m/ of the ending -μμένος. For ease of pronunciation, one becomes even more like the other – and it’s that /m/ that wins out here, passing its properties backwards (so this is regressive assimilation rather than progressive, where the properties of an earlier segment move to a later one).

There’s even a set of these participles that are formed additionally via reduplication – a doubling of syllables to express some category change (for instance, an imperfective / perfective distinction). Here are a couple:

δίνω (I give) δεδομένος (given)
πείθω (I convince) πεπεισμένος (convinced)

These are particularly exciting to scholars of Indo-European, as it’s a quite an ancient mechanism found in the proto-language, and not particularly productive in modern day Indo-European languages. When you see it fossilised in forms like this, historical linguists can get very excited.

Peeking under the bonnet of Greek grammar reveals just how deep some of these patterns run – and how much historical linguistics can supercharge your understanding and retention!

The Greek flag flying in a sunny sky

Greek Feeds on Insta You’ll Actually Want to Follow

Not all scrolling is bad for you – especially when you’re learning Greek. Language learning content feeds are popping up left, right and centre these days, so you can hop online and feel wholesome rather as you swipe and learn.

Instagram is probably my platform of choice for lingua-content, not least because of the number of language learning channels on it. Insta has nifty, intuitive bookmark folders, which allow you to save content in separate streams for each of your languages.

My Greek folder has seen a lot of recent action, thanks to a raft of edu-taining reels that are only getting better and better. They range from everyday grammar tips to mini lessons on colloquial, slangy phrases – the kind of thing that really sets your language apart from ‘book Greek’.

So what’s worth sharing in my bookmarks?

GREEK WITH DIMITRIS

If you’re new to the language, then Greek with Dimitris makes for a nice way in. He focuses on building basic vocabulary with some excellent, clearly narrated videos, but also runs regular pop quizzes in his stories.

GLOSSONAUTS

Props to Glossonauts for the wonderful channel name – etymologically hellenic and evocative of us all as language explorers (γλώσσα glossa = language, ναύτης náftis = sailor). The content is more geared towards beginner and lower intermediate learners, but with some great bonus content on people and culture.

GREEK OUT WITH MARIA

Greek Out With Maria falls firmly into the ‘learn the language like a local’ camp, and is excellent if you’re an intermediate learner looking to speak more idiomatically. Maria focuses on expressive, colloquial phrases that you won’t find in a textbook.  What’s especially great about this channel is the amount of cultural content and nod to the ‘hellenic soul’. I particularly loved this explanation of one of the lyrics from this year’s superb Eurovision entry by Greece’s Klavdia.

LEARN GREEK WITH KALLIA

Learn Greek with Kallia is another wonderful source of colloquialisms, with a growing catalogue of micro-lessons on sounding like a native. The language is informal and really colourful – exactly the kind of thing you’ll be reaching for if you’re spending any serious time in Greece.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ7JnXiMbd0/

THE GREEK SCHOLAR

In contrast to the other channels here, this feed takes a more traditional text / infographic approach to content that works really well as a mini-lesson format. Of particular interest is its great library of swipe-through guides to colloquial vocabulary usage. Take this video on φτάνω (arrive) – who knew it could be such a versatile verb?

GREEK LEARNING HUB

Greek Learning Hub has a really good range of content from vocab for beginners to longer, in-context dialogues. Some of the channel’s best reels are those where vocabulary is introduced through subtitled conversation, like this supermarket topic lesson.

So that’s what’s been filling my bookmark folder up. Have you found any other essential channels στα ελληνικά? What have I missed? Let me know in the comments!

A Greek swirly texture!

Understanding ‘να’ in Greek: Where Did The Weather Go?

If you’re an English speaker learning Greek, you may have come across phrases like:

ελπίζω ο καιρός να είναι καλός
I hope the weather will be good

…and found yourself scratching your head. Why, you might wonder, does “the weather” (ο καιρός) seem to be relegated to a spot before the connector να? In English, we’d say, “I hope that the weather is good,” keeping “the weather” after ‘that’. In Greek, though, να doesn’t play along with this structure.

It all comes down to understanding να for what it really is – a subjunctive marker, and not a conjunction.

Say Na Na Na – for Greek

The particle να is very picky about what it allows around it: να must precede the verb, forming a neat package with it, leaving no room for anything else in between. The only exception is the word μην, not. This structure – with ‘weather’ heading it – places the whole clause, ο καιρός να είναι καλός, as the object of ελπίζω (“I hope”).

In Greek, the construction feels natural, while to English speakers, it may look like ελπίζω is just left hanging without an obvious subject. But once we appreciate να as a subjunctive marker rather than a conjunction, the structure makes more sense.

Let’s look at a few other examples where this subjunctive magic word order comes into play:

Ελπίζω η Ελένη να έρθει σύντομα.
I hope Helen comes soon.

Ελπίζω ο γιατρός να είναι ευχαριστημένος.
I hope the doctor is happy.

Recognising να as a subjunctive marker – and that ‘hope’ takes a whole clause as its complement – transforms how we see these Greek structures. Instead of expecting conjunctions and noun placements as in English, we come to appreciate how να insists on a tidy verb clause, helping Greek verbs express hope, wishes, and desires in their own neat way.

Getting a Handle on Modern Greek : The Imperfect Tense

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We all have a sticking point somewhere in our target languages. For me and Modern Greek, it was, for too long, the imperfect tense.

I noticed it in conversation classes with my teacher. I’d be narrating a story or incident, flowing easily enough when talking about single events in the past. I saw, I heard, I went… All simple past, or aorist, in Greek: είδα, άκουσα, πήγα (ída, ákusa, píga).

It all unravelled when I needed to express what was ongoing. I was talking, I was sleeping, I was thinking… The kind of thing we use the past continuous for in English. We use this device very frequently in storytelling, especially when one action undercuts or interrupts another. Think: I was watching the TV when…

All this means that if you only have a handle on the simple past, you can only really tell half the story.

When I spot a gap like this, I like to simplify it before tackling it. And with verbs, a nice simplification trick for learning is to only learn the parts you use regularly at first. For me, the sticking points came when talking to my teacher about what I was doing.

So I’d focus first on learning just the imperfect patterns for the first person, singular, the ‘I’ form.

The Imperfect Tense in Modern Greek – Egotistical Edition

Here – greatly simplified – is the ‘cheat sheet’ I used to get a handle on the imperfect tense in Modern Greek.

Type A (verbs stressed before the final syllable like γράφω – write)

The stress moves back a syllable – if there’s no syllable to move back to, you add a stressed ε- at the beginning. The first person singular ending is -α.

Example: γράφω (gráfo, I write) – έγραφα (égrafa, I was writing)

In many ways, this is the easiest one – it has the same pattern as the aorist, which many master early on, but without any root change. Compare έγραψα (égrapsa – I wrote).

Type B ( verbs with final stressed -ώ or -άω like μιλάω – speak)

These verbs have a whole set of endings to themselves – variations on -ούσα (-úsa). There’s no stress change – we just substitute the -ώ/-άω for -ούσα in the first person singular:

Example: μιλάω (miláo, I speak) – μιλούσα (milúsa, I was speaking)

Passive and Deponent Verbs (ending in -μαι like κοιμάμαι – sleep)

Now these are the strange ones. Although not so strange, if you’ve already learnt the word for I was, which is ήμουν (ímun) in Modern Greek. The verb ‘to be’ – irregular in so many languages – actually follows the endings of the passive verbs, so you already knew the pattern without realising. In the first person singular, the imperfect tense takes the ending -όμουν (-ómun):

Example: κοιμάμαι (kimáme, I sleep) – κοιμόμουν (kimómun – I was sleeping)

Roundup

So there you have it. Rather than learning a whole paradigm of six persons for three types of verb – 18 forms – you can get your first grip on the imperfect tense in Modern Greek by learning three examples. To round them up:

Group Present (1ps) Imperfect (1ps)
I γράφω έγραφα
II μιλάω μιλούσα
Passive κοιμάμαι κοιμόμουν

Needless to say, when you’ve memorised these, changing the person – to you, she, we and so on – is just a case of adjusting the ending slightly. The -α (-a) changes to -ες (-es) for ‘you’, for example, while the -όμουν (-ómun) changes to -όσουν (-ósun). But that’s for the next stage of your functional, chunked-up tense learning. In the meantime, you can enjoy being able to express what you were doing in the past when chatting with your teacher!

The one-form-at-a-time focus can be a motivation-saving shortcut for heavily inflected languages. It’s helped me with other tricky verb forms in Greek, as well as other languages. It’s part of the wider truth that nothing is too big to learn if you break it down into chunks – advice worth remembering when you keep coming up against stubborn gaps in your language learning knowledge.

Have you had similar experiences when learning conjugations? Which were your trickiest tenses? And how did you master them? Let us know in the comments below!

Fun With Texts : Travel Edition

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I came across an ancient video this week that took me right back. The video in question  was from a series of video diary entries I made on a trip to Austria in 2004. In this particular segment, I was proudly showing off the stash of free leaflets I’d cached from Klagenfurt town hall – treasures of authentic texts to take home for my teaching materials box.

German-language texts from Austria - leaflets about the EU in 2004

Austrian leaflets about the EU (2004)

A still of Rich West-Soley showing some leaflets from Austria in a video from 2004

Showing off my Austrian leaflet haul in 2004 in a video shot on a phone just a little more sophisticated than a toaster, judging from the quality

Fast forward 19 years, and I’m approaching the end of a wonderful, extended trip around Greece. It’s been a holiday full of wonderful sights, amazing food, and of course, lots of language practice. Incidentally, Greeks must be amongst the most encouraging people on the planet when you try to speak their language.

But what links this trip with that early noughties vid is that continued fascination with curating authentic texts. It’s a polyglot obsession that’s lasted well beyond my classroom teaching days; there’s no longer any teaching materials box to fill, but I’m still on the hunt.

Hunting Texts : Then and Now

The format has changed, naturally. It’s less about free brochures and leaflets now. Alas, my EasyJet baggage allowance won’t quite stretch to that any more. This time, it’s digital – and I’ve been going to town collecting text samples for my virtual Greek learning box.

Of course, Greece has a tradition of texts that stretches back a little further than many fellow European countries. It’s been particularly fun looking out for inscriptions on the many ancient monuments, and spotting similarities and differences between the ancient and modern languages.

A stone tablet in an Ancient Greek ruin, with a partial inscription in Greek

Authentic Texts in stone!

An Ancient Greek artefact


But it’s the modern examples that really hit the spot – the more everyday and prosaic the better. From bags of crisps to public notices, every bit of writing is a potential new word learnt, and an extra peep into the target language culture. It’s addictive.

A notice to save water on a Greek ship

Save water, and save those words (in Anki!)

A washing machine control panel with Greek labelling

It’ll all come out in the wash

As far as I’m concerned, there’s never any going over-the-top when collecting digital texts. Knock yourself out with as much target language as you can! The criteria for what makes an authentic text are wildly broad – it can be the odd couple of words, a text-dense poster or an entire book. It all has worth to us as learners, no matter how long.

The only rule I try to stick to is one of practical use; I aim to try and use the images somewhere, be it a blog post (like this one on German political posters) or by scraping the language for Anki flashcard entries.

A bag of crisps with Greek labelling

Language snacks

Are you a curator of authentic texts in your target language? How do you collect them, and what do you do with them afterwards? Let us know in the comments!

False equivalencies - the equation 1+1=3. Image from freeimages.com.

Equivocal Equivalencies : Avoiding the X=Y Trap in Language Learning

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When starting out with language learning, it’s tempting to assume a one-on-one correspondence between your native and target language for everything you come across. It seems like a simple game of equivalencies: X equals Y. But you quickly learn that it’s not always as simple as that. Different languages carve the world up in subtly different ways.

It’s most obviously the case with content words. For instance, ‘sad’ in English covers both the person feeling the emotion, and the situation causing it. In Greek, it’s two words: λυπημένος (lipiménos, the former, with a Greek passive adjective ending) and λυπηρός (lipirós, the latter). Now that would have scuppered Elton John’s sad sad situation.

But function words differ, too. Grammatical categories that have lexically crumbled into each other in English remain resolutely separate in other languages. Take the word where. In English, you can use this as an interrogative:

Where is the bank?

And you can use it as a relative:

I know where you are.

Same word, two completely different functions. It leads English monolinguals to assume that they’re equivalent, identical. For sure, their function is related – both referencing place – but they’re performing different jobs, respectively standing in for missing information and joining two clauses.

False Equivalencies

Something that took me a little time to get my head around was the same situation in Scottish Gaelic. The interrogative and the relative are different words here, càit(e) and far:

Càit a bheil e? (Where is he?)
Tha fios agam far a bheil e. (I know where he is.)

Norwegian behaves in a similar way, although with a further complication. Generally, hvor is the interrogateive, and der the relative:

Hvor er du? (Where are you?)
Jeg vil være der du er. (I want to be where you are.)

But when a question is implicit, the relative is just hvor, as in English:

Jeg vil vite hvor du kommer fra. (I want to know where you come from.)

Incidentally, it’s the same situation with Norwegian then, which is variously når or da, according to the rule above.

Interesting tidbits of language, for a geek like me / us. But they serve as a reminder to delve a little deeper into usage using a resource like Wiktionary when you learn a word that seems to correspond neatly to one in your native language(s).

It may be less than half the story!

A Short and Easy Modern Greek Grammar (Gardner 1892). Dense, but thorough descriptions!

Feeling Dense When It Don’t Make Sense

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When I first started learning Greek many years ago, as a very inexperienced polyglot-in-the-making, I remember trying to get to grips with an interesting quirk of pronunciation – and feeling a little dense when it didn’t make sense at first.

It was all about stress placement. Specifically, something a bit funny can happen in Greek when a little word like μου (mou – my) follows a polysyllabic word. The longer word gets an extra stress accent – very strange considering the fact that Greek words usually only have a single stressed syllable.

το διαμέρισμα (to diamérisma – the flat)
το διαμέρισμά μου (to diamérismá mou – my flat)

I remember reading this in some dusty old grammar I got from the library, and not quite getting it. I made a mental note that the stress can sometimes change under certain circumstances, and left it at that, feeling ever so slightly befuddled (but undeterred!).

With time, of course, I came across lots of examples of this happening in Greek texts and speech. And with that exposure, my hit-and-miss attempts at reproducing it, and my eventual improvement, came a kind of instinct for where it takes place.

Getting Technical

Wind forward a good twenty years, and I’m leafing through a Modern Greek grammar primer from 1892 (as you do). A Short and Easy Modern Greek Grammar was an introductory text originally penned by German Karl Wied, and released in a translation by Mary Gardner in 1892. As it’s such an old, copyright-expired book, it’s quite easy to get a PDF scan of it, such as this 1910 edition at the Internet Archive.

I love these texts for the insight they give into how the target language itself has changed in recent years. But they also offer a fascinating glimpse into the history of foreign language education. How things have changed in a hundred-and-twenty years! But then again, how they stay the same. The technical descriptions aren’t vastly different from the thorough explanations you’ll find in a Routledge Comprehensive Grammar. Well, maybe a little extra Victorian bombast, but the format has remained surprisingly static over a century.

Page from a Short and Easy Modern Greek Grammar (Gardner 1892). Dense, but thorough descriptions!

A Short and Easy Modern Greek Grammar (Gardner, after Wied, 1892)

Right there, on page eight, is that accent phenomenon I struggled with as a youth. The description is given in quite traditionalist, grammatical language. It explains that the stress-jumping occurs with enclitics, snippets of words so short that they lack an accent of their own and almost merge into the preceding word.

It’s a technically accurate and comprehensive explanation. But I probably wouldn’t have had a clue if I’d read it there first!

A Time and a Place

There are two points to make here. First, don’t be fazed if you struggle to get difficult grammatical points in traditional texts. With enough exposure to real language, you’ll develop your own instinct for these intricacies. There’s a time and a place for comprehensive, formal grammars, and it’s probably not at the very start of your journey (as much as I love to geek out with hundred-year-old tomes).

Secondly, it’s not that such resources are not useful at all. It’s just that they’re perhaps better used when you have a bit of a handle on the language already, and you are ready for the why as well as the how. It’s also a nice reminder that a little time and experience can make a huge difference with language learning.

What first seemed dense and inaccessible can make complete sense when you revisit it with some street-learned smarts.

A Capsule Language Learning Library?

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Sometimes, it feels like I’m permanently on the road. With family, friends and work spread out across the country,  I travel a lot. Anything that makes that easier is a win in my book, so I’m all for minimalism and streamlining. Lately, I’ve been taken by the idea of the ultra-simple capsule wardrobe – it worked for Einstein, Steve Jobs, and a host of others, after all – and in that spirit, I’ve been trying to pare down my togs to a few essentials that I can fit into a travel bag.

But if we can do that with our clothes and feel instantly lighter, why not try it with other things… like our language learning materials, for instance?

Now don’t you worry. I haven’t decided to donate all my language books to charitable causes just yet. But the idea strikes me as a decent one for the language learning traveller: deciding on a core set of books that provide the max learning learning on the go, but don’t weigh down your carry-on. (Obviously a couple for each language project, assuming you just focus on one per trip – I’m not talking polyglot minimalism here, just resource minimalism! )

In any case, it’s a fun exercise to try with your (probable, if you anything like me) heaps of books. As with a capsule wardrobe, it’s good to set a limit on the number of pieces. Because books are a bit heavier and (gulp – forgive me saying this – marginally less essential) than clothes, I think two (only two?!) is a good number to play the game. A good course book and a decent reference volume go pretty well together, I think.

Here are some of my attempts, limiting myself to two (really only two?!) books per language:

Gaelic

You can’t beat a Colloquial for in-depth language tuition. I find they always double as reference works too, so you have a double whammy right there. My other choice is quite a grammar-heavy look at Gaelic verbs, but with lots of side references to other aspects of the language too. Every time I dip into it, I come across something new. Solid.

German

Less of the learning material, more of the reference here, with German being my second language and strongest foreign language. Hammer’s Grammar is the definitive reference on all things Deutsch, and Wort für Wort has kept me in advanced conversation topics since I did my German A-level in the last century.

Greek

Who amongst us doesn’t love a good Routledge? I have a special soft spot for the Essential Grammar series, since they’re almost as comprehensive as the, ahem, Comprehensive series, but a bit less overwhelming. Twin that with a Teach Yourself (and you know I love me a Teach Yourself), and we’re ready for that trip to the islands.

Handy bonus: all of the Teach Yourself audio is available online in the TY library app, too. Or, if you have a Kindle, you can get the book and the audio in a single format.

Polish

Never one to shy away from being predictable, I paired up my Polish outfit to match my Greek one. Well, if it works…

Ready, steady… Capsule!

So there you go. Four of my essential Summer outfits.

Apart from the fun element of challenge to it, capsuling your books makes you think hard about what you already have. It  helps you to take stock of your materials. and decide what your core strategy is. And it keeps you ready to run and learn – whether that’s on holiday, or up the road for some study time in the library!

Which textbooks are your hero items? What would make your desert island cut? Let us know in the comments!

Teach Yourself enhanced ebooks plus audio for Kindle

Teach Yourself Enhanced eBooks : Bargains Hiding in Plain Sight

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I had a bit of Amazon credit to spend this week (from TopCashBack, no less), so I decided to treat myself to a couple of Kindle books I’d had my eye on for a while: the enhanced ebook + audio editions of a couple of Teach Yourself Complete titles.

As Greek and Polish seem to have lodged themselves firmly in my heart as big life language projects (did I choose them, or did they choose me?), it seemed only right to install both of them on my device. Although they’re hardly brand new editions, the ebook + audio range being available since the early 2010s, they’re my first in that format. They’re cheap, too – most are just £3.99 right now, with the odd one, like Cantonese, even cheaper.

Of course, I already have both of these books (in several versions, vintage and otherwise, as you’ll know if you’ve been following my recent compulsion!). But even though I’ve completed them both in other guises, I still love these titles for revision. I’m also stoked by the idea of a one-stop-shop mobile library – a single place for all that content, with no need for app-switching for listening material.

Teach Yourself enhanced ebooks plus audio for Kindle

Teach Yourself Complete Greek and Complete Polish on my Kindle app

Teach Yourself… To Be Compatible?

Confession: I almost didn’t bother with them at all.

The reason was the not insignificant number of negative reviews left for those products on Amazon. The big bad mark against them was the charge of incompatibility, particularly the audio. A number of users frustratedly left their one-star slaps-in-the-face stating that the audio simply didn’t work on their devices.

Thankfully, it seems like an issue on older Kindles, rather than the content itself. I’ve had no problems at all running them on the Kindle app for iOS on my two-year-old iPad. Audio prompts appear as little speaker icons, and a mini player pops up at the bottom of the screen when you tap them. There is full scrub / pause functionality too, so you don’t have to listen to the whole thing from start to finish.

Teach Yourself… to Read Non-Latin Scripts?

That said, there was another frequent review gripe that put me off plumping for them even more than the potential audio issues. Several users mentioned a lack of support for non-Latin characters in the dialogues. Instead of letter characters, some only saw blank boxes – clearly a font fail. Now that would be a deal-breaker for languages like Greek, Hindi and Russian!

Again, it seems to be a case of device support, not product support. Greek characters display perfectly on Kindle for iPad. Not only that, but they’ve used a really nice, readable font for the Greek.

If there’s anything to be said in the way of constructive criticism, it’s just a question of layout. Sometimes, vocab lists can look cramped, for instance, although that’s easily fixed by rotating to landscape. Elsewhere, some exercise tables are obviously images rather than text, with instructions to ‘fill in’ despite not being editable (as the image above illustrates). Nonetheless, they’re tiny quibbles given the convenience of the format.

If In Doubt…

All in all, my experience with the Teach Yourself Complete ebooks has been tiptop. It all goes to show that you can’t always trust reviews out of context.

If in doubt, though, you do have one tool at your disposal for a definitive answer on compatibility: the free sample. There are free samples – usually just the first chapter or so – available for all Amazon Kindle books. I made sure to download both the Greek and Polish samples above before spending my hard-earned (yet still bargainous) £3.99.

If you want trusty Teach Yourself content on your devices, these are a really good punt. They’re not available in all the Teach Yourself Complete languages, but most of the major learning languages are available (French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese, for starters).