Hi everyone!
Welcome to our language basics series - I am Elena and I am the Athens expert.
Elena of JayWay, not the Helen of Troy :). So, welcome as today we will introduce you to
some basic key phrases so you can be an expert in the Greek language when you visit Greece!
Let's brush up your Greek language skills so you'll be ready for your trip to Greece.
Did you know that Greek is one of the richest languages in the world?
Actually, it's one of the most ancient languages in the world and we have over 5 million words!
5 million - can you imagine? Well, of course we don't have time to teach
you everything today and I don't even know the 5 million words...but let's start with the basics.
How we're going to say hello and greet someone when you just come...
Hello is actually used also to say goodbye which is "geiá".
So when you say "geiá" to someone you mean "hello", "geiá"
or when you're leaving you also say "geiá". The second way to approach and to greet
someone...again it's a little bit less formal and kind and sweet and you say: "geiá sou".
Or when you leave again you say "geiá sou". The third way, if you want to approach
someone in a more professional manner and more formal you will say: "geiá sas".
So again, as we said you can use the same word to greet someone when you leave "geiý sas".
Let's look at where the words come from: so the word "geiá", which is "ygeiá" and it means
"health" - so you kind of wishing to someone health.
"Geiá sas" - it's a nice way to approach someone.
So now that we've learned how to wish good health upon a person by greeting
them with "geiá sas", "geiá sou" and "geiá" we're ready to move on to the next famous
greek word and that is: "kaliméra". "Kaliméra" is a very important word.
It's a way to wish someone a very good morning - this is actually what the word
itself - "kali méra" implies. "Kali" means good, "méra" day.
"Kaliméra!"
You hear it a lot when you're traveling around Greece so it's
one of the words you definitely want to use, "kaliméra" and of course you know you
can pronounce it differently you can say "kaliméra", "kaliMÉRA", "kaliMÉ-RA"...
...and when you're telling someone, when you're leaving, as we saw in "geiá" we can say
we can wish someone a great day so again we can say "kaliméra".
So now that you've mastered to say good morning "Kaliméra", and good day - "Kaliméra", now let's
move on to how to say good evening: "kalispéra". "Kalispéra" - as you'll see the word "kali"
used again: "kalispéra" and then when you want to wish someone a good night, again,
you use the word "kali" but instead of "spéra" we use "nýchta" - "kalinychta", good night.
"Kaliméra" - "kalispéra" - "kalinychta".
So how are you feeling? Confident with your Greek skills?
Okay, now we have to learn how to say "yes" and
"no" in Greek. Let's start with a "yes".
"Ne".
Definitely, I think, you're going to be saying a lot of "yes".
A lot of yes to food, to the sun, to the sea, I think it's a wonderful experience to visit Greece
and i can't wait to see you here! So you want to come to Greece ? "Ne!"
Right? "Ne!" Come on, let me hear you saying it! "Ne."
Okay, so now that we learned how to say "ne" - "yes", we have to say "no".
"Ohi"
As you'll come to see traveling around Greece, you will realize that the Greeks
are very expressive people and they use their hands a lot when making gestures.
So when you say "ohi" or "ohi" that means "no" - "ohi"
So now that we've learned how to say our yes
and no - ne, ohi - let's move to the next phrase and that is how we say "thank you".
"Efcharistó".
Easy, right? Efcharistó - thank you.
If you want to say the word "please" in greek it
is "Parakalo". "Parakalo".
Please - "parakalo". If you want to say
"excuse me", so if you want to pass, you have to say "Me si-horite".
"Me si-horite"
which means basically "excuse me".
"Me" - me, "si-horite". "Me sihorite".
So we greeks are very much into wishing good health upon people - as we saw
with our "geiá", "geiá sou" and "geiá sas". So, let's learn the word - a very popular word,
that you're going to tend to say a lot, you're going to be forced to say a lot of - "cheers ".
And especially if you're traveling through Crete you'll have to say "cheers": "Yia mas!"
Okay so "yia mas". Okay now, if you've been paying attention
you'll know that the word "yia" ("ygeía") has a special meaning and that means "health".
"Yia mas". So again health
to us - "yia mas ", cheers - "yia mas". So since you've been such wonderful students
and we've seen that the Greek language is very rich it has five million words, I'm going to
teach you one word which a lot of people don't actually - there's no actual translation to it.
And it's the word "me-raki". "Me-raki" is a beautiful genuine word that means
"doing something with passion", doing something that you love and you'll see a lot of that.
A lot of dedication, traveling through the Greek islands you'll see the beautiful hospitality,
the warmth of the Greek people. I can definitely say that here
at JayWay our people have "me-raki". We're very passionate about what we do, we love
designing our custom itineraries for our guests and we can't wait to see you traveling again.
In the meantime I hope you enjoyed learning some basic Greek - brush up your Greek
skills and I can't wait to see you in Greece! Thank you for watching - efcharistó polý. Geiá!