Learn how to use words and expressions that can have both literal and figurative meanings depending on the context, from a conversation with mixed levels of formality
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hello everyone and welcome back to GreekPod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, lesson 13, Don’t Be A Sheep in Greece! I’m Becky. |
| Stefania: And I’m Stefania. |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn about Greek metaphors. And the conversation takes place at the office of the daily Greek newspaper. |
| Stefania: It is between Antonia Georgiadi and her colleagues. |
| Becky: The characters know each other well, but since there is a difference in their status in the company, there is both formal and informal Greek in the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Ματίνα: Δεν μασάω τα λόγια μου! Το λέω καθαρά και ξάστερα. Είναι ατάλαντος! |
| Αντωνία: Μα, στην κριτική σου για την πρώτη του ταινία είχες γράψει «Αντίθετα με άλλους σκηνοθέτες που μαϊμουδίζουν τους Αμερικανούς, εδώ έχουμε μια ανάσα φρεσκάδας». |
| Ματίνα: Και το εννοούσα! Όμως από εκείνη την εποχή κύλησε πολύ νερό στ' αυλάκι! |
| Αντωνία: Δηλαδή τώρα έχασε το ταλέντο του; |
| Ματίνα: Πρόσεξε! Άλλο η φρέσκια αντίληψη για τα πράγματα και άλλο η πραγματική φλόγα! |
| Αντωνία: Και αυτός δεν την έχει; |
| Ματίνα: Όχι! Δες τι έχει κάνει από τότε. Ξαναζεσταμένα φαγητά. |
| Αντωνία: Ο κόσμος όμως δεν το βλέπει έτσι... |
| Ματίνα: Ο κόσμος! Τα πρόβατα που κάνουν ό,τι λένε τα μέσα μαζικής ενημέρωσης! |
| Κώστας: Σ' αυτήν την περίπτωση, όταν λες «τα ΜΜΕ» εννοείς «οι κριτικοί», έτσι δεν είναι; Όταν ξεκίνησε, όλοι γράφατε τι καλός που είναι και τώρα όλοι τον θάβετε! |
| Ματίνα: Ωραία! Το παραδέχομαι κύριε Γιαννουλάτε! Ίσως τότε ήμουν κάπως υπερβολική στα καλά μου λόγια. |
| Κώστας: «Κάπως»; |
| Matina: I don't mince my words! I'm saying it clearly. He is untalented! |
| Antonia: But, in your review of his first film you had written "In contrast to other directors that mimic the Americans, here we have a breath of fresh air." |
| Matina: And I meant it! But since then, a lot of time has passed! |
| Antonia: So, did he lose his talent now? |
| Matina: Look: A fresh outlook on things is one thing, but a real spark is another! |
| Antonia: And he doesn't have it? |
| Matina: No! Take a look at what he's done since then. The same stuff again and again. |
| Antonia: But people don't see it that way... |
| Matina: People! Sheep that do what the media say! |
| Kostas: In this case when you say "media" you mean "the critics," right? When he started, you all used to write how good he is and now you are slandering him! |
| Matina: Fine! I admit it Mr. Giannoulatos! Maybe back then I was a bit exaggerated with my nice words. |
| Kostas: "A bit"? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Do Greeks listen to what the critics say? |
| Stefania: Actually not much. Greeks don’t like to be told what to do and this extends to all authorities. We prefer to make up our own minds about what is good and what is not, for example a film. |
| Becky: Do you go to the movies very often? |
| Stefania: Personally, not so much these days, although there seem to be many more cinemas available now than when I was a child. It seems like Greeks do go to the movies a lot! |
| Becky: What about local film productions? Is there a Greek Hollywood? |
| Stefania: Haha! A Greek Hollywood?! Far from it! Although during the 1960’s there was a time when literally hundreds of movies were produced every year. |
| Becky: And what happened? |
| Stefania: Television happened! |
| Becky: I see. Is there a way to see these old movies today? |
| Stefania: Yes! They are constantly replayed on TV. Everyone grew up with those movies! |
| Becky: At least there’s some way to see them! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is... |
| Stefania: μασάω [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to chew |
| Stefania: μασάω [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: μασάω [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: καθαρά [natural native speed] |
| Becky: clean/clearly |
| Stefania: καθαρά [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: καθαρά [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: κριτική [natural native speed] |
| Becky: critique/criticism/review |
| Stefania: κριτική [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: κριτική [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: μαϊμουδίζω [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to mimic |
| Stefania: μαϊμουδίζω [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: μαϊμουδίζω [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: ανάσα [natural native speed] |
| Becky: breath |
| Stefania: ανάσα [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ανάσα [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: φρεσκάδα [natural native speed] |
| Becky: freshness |
| Stefania: φρεσκάδα [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: φρεσκάδα [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: κόσμος [natural native speed] |
| Becky: world/people |
| Stefania: κόσμος [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: κόσμος [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: πρόβατο [natural native speed] |
| Becky: sheep |
| Stefania: πρόβατο [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: πρόβατο [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: θάβω [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to bury/to slander/to gossip |
| Stefania: θάβω [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: θάβω [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: υπερβολικός [natural native speed] |
| Becky: exaggerated/extreme |
| Stefania: υπερβολικός [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: υπερβολικός [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. What’s the first word? |
| Stefania: “κριτική”. Literally, it means “criticism”. However, it can also be used to mean a good or bad “review”, especially in the theater or the cinema. |
| Becky: Is there a proper Greek word for “review”? |
| Stefania: There are some that are quite close to the meaning. |
| Becky: Such as? |
| Stefania: For example, “αναθεώρηση” means “reconsideration” and “ανασκόπηση” that means “retrospection”. Sometimes in websites, the area where people leave “reviews” can also be called “σχόλια”, which means “comments” in Greek. |
| Becky: OK. Next? |
| Stefania: A long phrase from our dialogue: “Άλλο η φρέσκια αντίληψη για τα πράγματα και άλλο η πραγματική φλόγα!”. Shall we explain it a bit? |
| Becky: Yes please! |
| Stefania: “άλλο” means “other” as in “someone or something else”. In this sentence, however, it is used as an idiom to emphasize the difference between two things. It’s like saying in English “A is one thing and B is another”. |
| Becky: And the sentence means? |
| Stefania: “A fresh outlook on things is one thing, but a real spark is another!” |
| Becky: If we don’t want to be specific or repeat saying A and B that perhaps have just been mentioned, the expression can be... |
| Stefania: “άλλο το ένα και άλλο το άλλο”, roughly meaning “these are two different things”. |
| Becky: And finally, what do we have? |
| Stefania: The masculine noun “κόσμος”. |
| Becky: This sounds like the English noun “cosmos”. |
| Stefania: Because it is the same! In Greek it means “the world” as in the world around us, our planet, our environment, but it might also refer to “people”, “the public”. In our dialogue we can see the latter use, while in our sample sentence “Θα πάω ως την άλλη άκρη του κόσμου για να τον βρω, αν χρειαστεί.” we can see the first one. |
| Becky: Which means “I’ll go to the other side of the world to find him, if I have to.” Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Grammar Point (running time 3: 00, preparation time 30 min) |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn about the metaphorical use of words and expressions in Greek. |
| Stefania: Yes. |
| Becky: A more “literary” lesson if you will…Do metaphors work in Greek the same way they work in English? |
| Stefania: Actually it’s the other way around! Metaphors work in English the same way they work in Greek! The name “metaphor” itself comes from the Greek word “μεταφορά”, literally meaning “transportation” |
| Eng: So metaphors are words or phrases whose use is different from their literal meaning... |
| Stefania: …yes! It can also be words or expressions that can only be used in a metaphorical way. So no literal meaning at all. |
| Becky: So, shall we see a few examples? |
| Stefania: Sure! Actually, the first sentence of our dialogue contains two! |
| Becky: Wow! And they are? |
| Stefania: First “Δεν μασάω τα λόγια μου”. |
| Becky: Yes, I wondered about that. What does it mean? |
| Stefania: Literally “I don’t chew my words”. |
| Becky: Is this like when we say in English “I don’t mince my words”? |
| Stefania: Exactly! |
| Becky: Can we have that once more? |
| Stefania: Yes. Δεν μασάω τα λόγια μου. |
| Becky: And then? |
| Stefania: Το λέω καθαρά και ξάστερα. |
| Becky: Kathará. It means “clearly” or “clean”, right? |
| Stefania: Right! |
| Becky: So what is xástera? |
| Stefania: It is an adverb and means “a sky so clear that all stars can be seen”. |
| Becky: Wow, that’s a long translation for such a small word! |
| Stefania: To give you an idea of how you can use “ξάστερα”, you can say “Τι ξάστερα που είναι απόψε!”, meaning “The sky is so clear tonight!” |
| Becky: So the full expression means? |
| Stefania: “I’m saying something clearly” |
| Becky: ‘Clearly’ as in “I am saying what I believe in the most upfront way”? |
| Stefania: Exactly! |
| Becky: And these two expressions we saw are metaphors of course because… |
| Stefania: …because speech can not have stars, nor be chewed! |
| Becky: OK, got it! One more example? |
| Stefania: Somewhere later in our dialogue, one of the characters says “ξαναζεσταμένο φαγητό”. |
| Becky: And this means? |
| Stefania: “Nothing new to offer” or “the same thing over and over again”. |
| Becky: This is the metaphoric sense, yes? |
| Stefania: Right. The literal meaning is “reheated food”. |
| Becky: Because “food” is… |
| Stefania: “φαγητό” |
| Becky: And “reheated” is? |
| Stefania: “Ξαναζεσταμένο”. |
| Becky: By the way, this is a compound word like the ones we discussed in our previous lesson. |
| Stefania: “Ζεσταμένο” means “heated” and the prefix “ξανα-” means “again”. |
| Becky: So maybe it would be a good idea to review those lesson notes, huh? |
| Stefania: It’s always a good idea! And of course, to review some more examples of metaphors that we have included there. |
Outro |
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| Becky: That’s it for this lesson, everyone! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Stefania: Γεια χαρά! |
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