Great things that I learned in Greece

It all started some time ago with a vague idea… I was just wondering… Wouldn’t it be a great idea to learn a new language myself? After all, it is always good to stand in the shoes of other people right? Certainly now that I am teaching Dutch myself all the time…  I just wanted to be sure that everything I believe about learning and teaching languages would be true….

So now I just needed to choose a new language. It should not be too easy for me, so therefore I decided not to go for Portuguese, because that would be too familair… I needed something that was exotic and at the same time, this language had to belong to a nice country, preferably with nice food and sunshine… So after some time I thought that I found the right language. It was Greek!

So, 2 years ago, I signed up for a Greek course. Certainly in the beginning I was laughing my head off, because there were 10 people in the class and most of them found it extremely difficult. I thought it was nice to relax and after some time, people were dropping out… at the end there were only 3 people left.

A year later I was in another group, but somehow things changed. All of a sudden I did not found myself so smart anymore and I have to admit that actually I started to find it difficult. And then, also doubt came in. I hardly made my homework, thinking that one day I would catch up and then all of a sudden I was asking myself if it was not a foolish idea to learn Greek in the first place. The last time that I went there was 5 years ago, and somehow for some reason I never went to Greece, so no wonder that learning Greek felt completely irrelevant to me…

My favorite Greek woord is ilioterapia… sun therapy 🙂 

But then, all of a sudden it came to my mind that it could be a good idea to go to Greece, just for a couple of weeks and do a course.  Still, it was a bit a strange idea, because I did not really know why I wanted to learn and speak Greek in the first place. All I could think of was that it is nice to listen to the music of my favorite singer Katy Garbi, but this was not really a convincing reason of course. Anyhow, I booked a course, took a plane and went to a nice Greek island with a perfect blue see and a lot of sunshine…

And then… once I came there, something started to change… The fact that I was in a class room with great people and great teachers somehow caused a tremendous shift. All of a sudden, I understood the reason why I wanted to speak Greek. It may sound stupid to you, but here it is: it just feels good!

While learning a new language all of a sudden I discovered again, how a whole new world opens up. Somehow, I was open for new adventures, new ideas, new insights and new friends. And now I am so glad that I did…

Here is one important message in Greek: Don’t wait because then life is really short… 

The strange thing is that now I somehow understand on a deeper level why I love to speak Greek. It just allows me to enjoy life from a different perspective. And here is a strange thing… although I knew that I would love to go to Greece for a course, I somehow postponed it year after year… until now…

So here is what I learned… whenever you learn a whole new language a whole new world opens up and… you have to go for it, throw yourself into it… Here is another amazing thing… although Greek is far more difficult to learn than Dutch, everyone from the Omilo School seemed to love it. There was just such a big vibe that was truly amazing… One thing is certain… In Amsterdam I will continue to learn with refreshed energy.  And… if I meet a new obstacle again, I just now that I have some great teachers in Amsterdam and… I will have a perfect excuse for going back to a great sunny island!