Paphos Life

My wife and I, made it our goal to try and learn one word a day, and we would practice on each other, for example thelis kaffe...do you want coffee..and I would reply nei/ohi.. bit babyish, but thats how we learnt and we can now have a conservation with Cypriots providing they talk slowly.

Uncle D wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:57 pm Some years ago, we were in Neos, I said epharisto to the waitress, a woman next to us said 'this is Peyia, we only speak English here'.
I replied in English 'speak for yourself'.

What a stupid remark from that woman. I do like your reply to her.

WHL wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2017 1:05 pm My wife and I, made it our goal to try and learn one word a day, and we would practice on each other, for example thelis kaffe...do you want coffee..and I would reply nei/ohi.. bit babyish, but thats how we learnt and we can now have a conservation with Cypriots providing they talk slowly.

Indeed, where there is a will there is a way !

Start lessons at the local school later this afternoon! Scary!

Good luck Ian! Let us know how you get on.

Austin7 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:54 pm I think most Greeks are quite happy that Brits can't understand a word when they are talking about you in your presence

Exactly! So it's not always best to let them know until after they've finished their conversation

One of our IT guys at my old office in Limassol knew I could understand what was being said and was often very quick to make others in my presence aware of that fact if they started to get a bit vocal when we were all together in the kitchen area.
You could learn a lot there if you stayed shtum!

Our daughter was recently working at a hotel as a waitress before returning to University were most patrons were Russian and like Photo Lady kept shtum that she is fluent in Russian and Greek and it was amusing when she related some of the comments made.

Although I've spent over forty years working abroad I'm totally language deaf, what is spoken appears to be totally different from what I hear. My wife gave up trying to teach me Russian after she realised I was a basket case as far as languages are concerned. Fortunately English is the international Engineering language and we have some really fantastic Technical Interpreters; in fact they're that good I married one.

Jim

Yeah but when she is cross with you you have no idea what she is saying.

Going by your description of him, Lloyd, Jim B reminds me of me, actually...

I tried really hard with my Greek when I first went to Cyprus.

I remember ordering two beers in a busy cafe:
"Tha ithela theo megales bieres, parakalo".

The waitress responded "Don't speak to me in Greek! I'm from Bulgaria!"

It was easier to just order in English after that.

Just going to bump this thread once given we only had 43 votes. So far 2/3 are relying pretty much 100% on English to live our lives while 30% are getting by with Greek Cypriot. Only 2 people so far able to hold strong conversation in the official language of the country.