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What marvellous answers! It may be to start the ball rolling [για να βάλω το νερό στ’ αυλάκι?] but to me they are a mine of information as I follow them up. (I had a terrible Greek lesson today, trying to communicate on all sorts of subjects with speakers at all levels of spoken Greek. It was...

Thanks, m_a_a for drafting this in between calls! You use ποιότητα as in the press article and κίνητρο which he is more likely to say in a Greek context. I used both φλόγα and φινέτσα as a deliberate alliteration for ‘fire’ and ‘flair’ to match his ‘fire and flair’.

"Hold my beer" is an informal phrase used to signal that someone is about to attempt a reckless, foolish, or surprisingly daring action. Formerly the idiom was “hold my coat!” It implies, "Watch this," often preceding a stunts or a challenge, and acts as a humorous prelude to a potentially...

I am trying to translate into Greek a statement in English made very recently by the famous tennis player, Novak Djokavic about why he continues playing tennis at the age of thirty eight. He said:” "So my logic is, why not keep going as long as I have that fire, flair and quality, and the...

Thanks, ‘Man! I should have thought: your name and songs go together ‘like a horse and carriage’… 🤗 A question:- what do the words in greyscale mean, δηλ. ώρα μιας ορμά; I loved the words of the song! Thanks so much. I had been looking for them for hours. Our Greek teacher always starts her...

I’m trying to trace a Greek song which perhaps goes back to 1973. I only picked up some phrases, like πάμε για δουλειά but easier phrases to identify the song are κάτω τα δολάρια, ζήτω τις δραχμές. The song also has a mocking reference to Αμερική with the English words in an American accent:-...

Thanks very much, cougr, for your very full answer. I rather suspected as much!

There is a website of slang Greek in which it is claimed that γαλλικό! is a Greek exclamation to mean ‘pardon my French!’, as με το συμπάθειο is commonly used in such contexts to apologise for foul language. I cannot verify this, so I am asking for comments as to whether this is true or not. I...

Thanks, cougr! It is similar in Latin, as I should have recognised, when a word like sic/ita/ [ = in such a way ] is followed by that [ut] with the subjunctive later in the sentence. A simple example will serve: Ita vixit ut ab omnibus amaretur. = he/ she lived in auch a way that she/he was...

Thanks so much for taking the trouble to correct my attempts in Greek prose! I have studied (and noted) carefully all your kind comments. Only one query: can you explain to me the reason why a native Greek would add να in the result clause με αποτέλεσμα ακόμα και στο ένα τέταρτο της κανονικής...

Προς m_a_a: από ευγένεια νόμιζα ότι θα σου έλεγα ποιες ήταν οι λέξεις που δεν μπορούσα να “αποκρυπτογραφήσω”. Έγραψα για να ρωτήσω τη δασκάλα μας τι είχε πει στην πραγματικότητα. Έχει απαντήσει και μου είπε τα ακριβή της λόγια, τα οποία ήταν “Αναφέρομαι στο κείμενο και λέω ακριβώς: μέσα στο...

Thanks for trying, m_a_a. I thought the link would work! I tried but obviously the link is only open only to subscribers. Your help is appreciated, none the less!🤗

Here is the material. It is only the first or second sentence that to me is unintelligible. It occurs in the mp4 entitled Προβλήματα στην πολυκατοικια.mp4:- https://drive.google.com/drive/home After about 10 seconds there appears ΛΕΧΙΛΟΓΙΟ and ΦΡΑΣΕΙΣ. At the bottom of the ΛΕΧΙΛΟΓΙΟ list is η...

You both have given me lots of help. Thank you so much!! I have seen two programmes on hippos and found them not only fascinating but lovable. If you have time, have a look at these two programmes by Steve Backshall, who has spent much of his life trying to prove that ‘dangerous’ animals are not...

Thanks, SBE, for the instagram clip and for defining the context of my question more clearly. With you as Muse, the indefatigable cougr came up trumps with δωρεάν στέγαση!

Hippos make what is called a’wheeze-honk’ to identify members of their group (pod). This noise can be heard up to half a mile away. Can anyone coin a Greek word (verb & noun) to describe this characteristic noise? Here is a clip to give colleagues an idea of the sound. The English ‘wheeze-honk’...

Thanks, SBE. All these expressions I have noted down in my own English—Greek, Greek—English ‘phrase book’, which is a veritable thesaurus of idioms, grammatical points, memorable Greek expressions, fillers, aircraft wing terms, Lent customs, Greek dances and a host of other things! Thanks for...

Thanks, so much, ‘Man!

Thanks, cougr, again! It is an excellent word to remember in this context. Strangely and entirely accidentally it sounds like the English ‘perk’: so, a nice mnemonic too!😄

Thanks, cougr! I suppose, then, in conversation you might have to say something wordy like “Έμενα σε ένα σπίτι που δεν ήταν δικό μου, αλλά ένα προνόμιο που μου είχε δώσει ο εργοδότης μου, ώστε να βρίσκομαι κοντά στον χώρο εργασίας μου.”. This is the sort of thing you have to say when, in my...