Making Cypriot friends

[lakelander]

I would be interested to know how many of you who live there have Cypriot friends. Also have any of you managed or tried to learn Greek?

I have lived in Ukraine for 2 1/2 years and although my Russian is far from good I know enough to manage most everyday things. However, although I have a few Ukrainian friends most of my friends are expats and it's something I'm very conscious of if I move again.

It's nice to have friends who are from the same cultural background and speak the same language but I would like to make more of an effort the next time to integrate with the locals. I'd love to know how successful or not some of you have been.

p.s I haven't read everything on the forum so apologies if this topic has been covered before.

[Veronica]

Originally Posted by lakelander

I would be interested to know how many of you who live there have Cypriot friends. Also have any of you managed or tried to learn Greek?

I have lived in Ukraine for 2 1/2 years and although my Russian is far from good I know enough to manage most everyday things. However, although I have a few Ukrainian friends most of my friends are expats and it's something I'm very conscious of if I move again.

It's nice to have friends who are from the same cultural background and speak the same language but I would like to make more of an effort the next time to integrate with the locals. I'd love to know how successful or not some of you have been.

p.s I haven't read everything on the forum so apologies if this topic has been covered before.

We have been here for 5 years and have made friends of several nationalities,
Romanians, Germans, Bugarians and well as Cypriots.
We have learnt a little Greek but as most Cypriots tend to speak English it is difficult to get very far with it. You have to insist that they speak a little Greek to you, just the basics at first.

[lakelander]

Originally Posted by Veronica

We have been here for 5 years and have made friends of several nationalities,
Romanians, Germans, Bugarians and well as Cypriots.
We have learnt a little Greek but as most Cypriots tend to speak English it is difficult to get very far with it. You have to insist that they speak a little Greek to you, just the basics at first.

Yes Veronica, I understand what you mean about the language. I've had the same problem here.

There aren't nearly as many English speakers here as in Cyprus but most people who speak it or are learning it want to speak English to you so they can practice rather than speak Russian so you can practice.

[ryucoop]

iv lived here 6 months and have many cypriot friends. my girlfriend is english cypriot. i am learning greek at the moment and getting pretty well at it

[lakelander]

Originally Posted by ryucoop

iv lived here 6 months and have many cypriot friends. my girlfriend is english cypriot. i am learning greek at the moment and getting pretty well at it

I'm glad to hear that. I imagine it's a difficult language but I suppose they all are at the start.

My intention would be at least to try and master the basics of it.

[teandto]

Originally Posted by lakelander

I'm glad to hear that. I imagine it's a difficult language but I suppose they all are at the start.

My intention would be at least to try and master the basics of it.

We bought one of those cd and book sets to learn Greek but its been difficult sticking with it and its hard to learn enough from it without being surrounded by the language. Also the Cypriot dialect can be quite different from Greek, so whilst you'd still be understood I think learning the local slang and pronounciations when you're in the country would maybe be easier.

[kimonas]

Hello Lakelander

I made an effort to learn Greek when I first arrived (nightschool classes) and can read it reasonably well, but spoken Greek on the island is almost impenetrable in my experience - most people speak a dialect that mainland Greek speakers find confusing. English is so widely spoken here, that most people revert to it as it has become the lingua franca with so many different nationalities here working, most of whom have a basic English but little Greek. I have made many Cypriot friends here (my family is Cypriot which gave me a bit of a head start) although we tend to hang out with mixed couples (many of my wife's Cypriot girl friends have married foreigners). I think the vast majority of Cypriots tend to be welcoming and are a friendly bunch to get along with.

[BabsM]

Originally Posted by lakelander

I would be interested to know how many of you who live there have Cypriot friends. Also have any of you managed or tried to learn Greek?

I have lived in Ukraine for 2 1/2 years and although my Russian is far from good I know enough to manage most everyday things. However, although I have a few Ukrainian friends most of my friends are expats and it's something I'm very conscious of if I move again.

It's nice to have friends who are from the same cultural background and speak the same language but I would like to make more of an effort the next time to integrate with the locals. I'd love to know how successful or not some of you have been.

p.s I haven't read everything on the forum so apologies if this topic has been covered before.

I am learning Greek at night school from a Cypriot teacher. She emphasises what is Cypriot and draws our attention to the differences.

I am getting to grips with it slowly. I watch Cypriot TV, particularly the news and cookery programmes as you have a point of reference. When I go shopping I insist in trying when I can and reply in Greek even if the people I am talking to reply in English. Its not easy but I am making progress.... but then I speak a number of other languages and have an applied language degree.

The only thing that grieves me is that getting practice is difficult because most of my acquaintances speak English and think that they are helping by doing so!

[teandto]

I ended up with language overload - I was trying to learn from one of those cd and book sets but whenever I needed to think of the greek workd, I could only think of the spanish or the french word!
the language set is now on ebay!
Night school for it sounds a good idea though. I'd definitely like to learn more. I can only do the hello, goodbye, how are you and several choice swear words at the moment.

[Veronica]

Originally Posted by teandto

I ended up with language overload - I was trying to learn from one of those cd and book sets but whenever I needed to think of the greek workd, I could only think of the spanish or the french word!
the language set is now on ebay!
Night school for it sounds a good idea though. I'd definitely like to learn more. I can only do the hello, goodbye, how are you and several choice swear words at the moment.

I know the feeling, too many bits of different languages going round in my head and apart from German which I speak fluently the rest have a tendency to get mixed up.
Spanish especially gets in the way of the Greek.
It is taking me a lot longer than I anticipated seperating the Greek words from the rest
Still I keep trying