Studying "Elliniká"

Learning a new language is always a challenge that can be worst or better according to the resemblance that the language have with your native speak.

Through a foreigner eyes looking at the Greek language, it looks pretty difficult.

The first obstacle is the alphabet. A bunch of letters that means nothing to you and that look like much more with Chinese characters then with words. It’s like having six years old again and starting from the first grade. Try to read something is so hard and is always very slowly. Every small step that you give is always combined with a choke of strange sounds that inside you are praying for being just a little bit similar to the original ones.

The writing is the same thing and at least you can enjoy the pleasure of write every letter carefully and with a lot of patient and time, like you were drawing something very special even if you don’t understand the meaning of what you are writing about.

You feel shy when you try to speak and one of the things that you have to accept is that mistakes are very normal in the beginning and you have to do them a lot until you say it in the right way.

Another complicated thing is when this new language have sounds that don’t exist in your mother tongue. It is something new that you never listen before and that look like impossible to reproduce. When the human being is growing up it starts to lose his capacity to learn different sounds.

Then you really have to improve your memory. Vocabulary is very needed to be able to speak, so as fast as you memorize each word, you’ll be better and you’ll learn faster because you’ll understand everything much easier.  

Although all the obstacles that you have to face, in the end is very gratifying when you start to get the conversations; the meanings; and especially to because closer of the native speakers of the language that you are learning.

In the end that is a language do, it put people closer. 

How to choose your perfect vacation according to your mental state

Unfortunately we had known the Cipriot Summer in Nicosia: 43 degree, the wind is like the air that come out of your oven when you open it, the "cold" water of the shower is like lava. The only way to survive is think about our weekend and our holiday. 

Travel can give us strong psychological benefits and it helps us to be better people but there isn't a „no one-size-fits-all dream holiday”. The type of break everyone should take is strickly linked to our mindset. 

The philosopher Alain de Botton explains this idea in his book, The Art of Travel. De Botton argues that we should ideally have “psychotherapeutic travel agencies” to help us figure out what we want from a holiday. This would help avoid those holidays that fail “in a quiet and essential psychological way”. Lastly, the philosopher offers a list of destinations depending on psychological needs. If you want discover his recommendations, watch this video.

The clinical psychologist Linda Blair, author of “The Key to Calm” says there cannot be a prescribed holiday for everyone. She suggests that those who are stressed should take shorter breaks more frequently, as opposed to one long holiday. “You’ve got to bring down those chronically high cortisol levels as often as possible,” she says. And those with such anxiety should aim to return to familiar destinations, as “all change is stressful, even good change.” Meanwhile, someone who’s just retired might go on a vacation for several weeks. Blair says it takes three weeks to break a habit, and so a long holiday would get the retiree out of the mindset of waking for work at a set time. “You’d come back much better equipped to start fresh,” she adds. 

The travel writer Judie Fein, says that a vacation is not a luxury but a necessity: “Our lives are completely out of balance, and a vacation is an enforced way to change the rhythm of your life, to expose your mind and heart to new things. It gives you some perspective.”

Do you want to know people like you, who love to travel? Do you want to listen and take suggestion from them or share your travel wishes? Passionate travelers is the group for you! Passionate Travelers aim is to gather all the people who have travelling as their passion and who are willing to share their stories with others. On 4th August there was the first meeting, a lot of people from different country (Cyprus, Romania, Italy, Brazil, Colombia, Syria, Poland and Hungary) joined the event.

Each meeting has a specific topic such as North Africa, South Asia, Latin America, etc.. So, if you are interested in discovering a new culture, if you visited these countries, if you lived there or maybe one of them it's your native country, then come! 

This is the web syte fhttp://passionatetravelers.wordpress.com follow the news on facebook https://www.facebook.com/passionate.travelers/home.

Ελληνικά μαθήματα

We started our daily greek lessons the last week, so we already had 7 lessons, which means 35 hours of learning greek. I have to say, it is not the easiest language, but the lessons are good, the teacher is nice and the group is perfect, so nothing can stop us, we will master greek... or at least reach level A at the end of the course. 

I would like to show you how much did we learn, or at least how much did i learn. ( I hope it is okey and there are not a lot of mistakes...but hey, i am still just learning it)

I tried to put a lot of things in this conversation what we already know, but of course there are more than this. Please feel free to write the corrections of the mistakes if you find one. 

- Γεια σος.

- Γεια σου. Πος σε λενε;

- Ειμαι ο Μπενιαμιν Τομπαι. Εσας;

- Με λενε Ελενη Παππα.

- Χαιρο πολυ κυρια Παππα.

- Απο 'δω η Βερα.

- Γεια σου.

- Καλημερα . Τι κανετε;

- Καλα, ευχαριστω. Εσυ;

- Μια χαρα.

- Ειμαι για το μαθηνα, Τωρα μαθαινω ελληνικα στο Πανεπιοστημιο Κυπρου και σπουδαζω μηκανικος.

- Απο που εισαι;

- Απο την Ουγγαρια.

- Που μενεις;

- Μενω στην Κυπρο.

- Που ακριβως;

- Μενα στην Λευκωσια.

- Αυτο ειναι το σταθερο;

- Οχι.

- Εχεις κινητο;

- Ναι, το κινητο μου ειναι χχχχχχ.

- Ευχαριστω.

. 

- Εντάξει.

- Εδω ειναι η ταζη σας.

- Ευχαριστω. Γεια σας.

- Γεια σας.

- Γει σας.