KPHTH fever :>

HEY! :) Happy new(ish) August!

Another blog, another.... blog. And what better time than before I go off to London to see my Greek gramps. So what did I do today, apart from pack? I watched one of those BBC "Learn Zone" things they do at awful hours of the morning. Thank goodness for Sky+!

And due to lack of a better topic, I'll rant about how helpful and ridiculous it was.

When I'm determined, it's safe to say I'm determined. So when I told my mother "OOOO! TAPE IT!" I was fully aware that I ought to get a pen and paper and take down some words. Hopefully, four sides of A4 will be enough.

The show itself was, well, not ideal, let's say. For instance, the word for "yes" was told in episode 6 of 6. Way to go, programme editor. On top of that, inbetween the useful vocabulary sessions, there were "fun" stories about Greek culture and people. This was the basis of the six episode "use of two hours".

However, it was mainly based on holidays in Greece, and not so much the arguably more useful learning the language.

Let me explain; typically, you'd expect your foreign language show to teach you how to describe different aspects. For instance, I'm sure, after seeing "Talk Greek" (that was its name, I'm not that mental) that with the best stuff condensed in two hours, you could at least talk fluently about "my name is, I am from, I like..." stuff.

Instead, I can now go to London to see Yiayia (Greek for grandmother, i suspect) and ask her when the next boat arrives. Useful? Judge for yourself.

Also, there's the matter of how they used the time. You'd normally have about two minutes of watching people use particular sayings to get to their desired destination (it's pretty bad, watching someone order a salad while the waiter - who obviously ISN'T a waiter - nod like a TOOL and return, repeating the word for a salad.), but then there's about four minutes of completely unrelated cultural stories. Like, you're watching some antics at a cafe, when suddenly you've got someone talking about how deadly a nearby volcano is, before moving on to learning the language about politeness at the dinner table, or whatever.

And, I won't lie, some of it was pretty useful, and I can see myself using it. Other times... when I ask where the hairdresser's is and am told to turn right one hundred yards down the road... that's when i saved the ink in the biro.

THERE'S MORE! There was the Sesame Street aspect; the 'adding a letter to a word until you guess what it is' every episode. When I saw the first episode and saw a letter A floating, I thought, oh come on... I'm not a bloody child, you patronising... grrr...

But that's the criticism side out of the way.

It taught me some decent vocabulary, like please, thank you, etc etc... the boring stuff that I can use with my grandparents so that they can see how good I am :S

Well, how "adequate at the most basic stuff" I am.


And I might as well end my blog there. See you all Saturday.
Miss ya all, Jimbob xxx

(PS: the title of the blog? KPHTH is actually Greek lettering for "Crete". That's where my family are from in Greece XD)