What does Greek sound like to a non speak

When I was in Greece for a couple of months, I noticed that it sounded a bit like a Romance language, Italian or Spanish, more than I would have expected from what I knew of ancient Greek. It must have something to do with the vowels and the length of syllables.

Greek is a very pleasant language to hear, I would say it's very distinct, the syllables are very clear so maybe that's why people mistake it for Spanish. 

Originally posted by Ikki Yes but, too long words mixing p,k, t, s,l. You can ask to anybody in Spain and if you talk in greek automatically he will put you not in a mediterranean country but surely he will say "Eastern Europe?"

At least he will say "Europe"!
i think that the Greek language is not similar in accent to the pronounciation of a certain branch of languages for example slavic or romance.
it is similar to a certain extent to the pronounciation of some neighbouring slavic languages(like serbian,bulgarian) and some non-slavic neighbouring languages like Albanian or romanian but certainly not with Russian.


Edited by nikodemos - 13-Nov-2006 at 05:13

Yes but, too long words mixing p,k, t, s,l. You can ask to anybody in Spain and if you talk in greek automatically he will put you not in a mediterranean country but surely he will say "Eastern Europe?" The only way that somebody have for difference greek from neighbours is the classical long greek surnames mixing p-l-k like "Giannakopoulos", "Anistopoulos", "Papaloukas", "Papadakis" But when you talk quickly, slavic 

the spanish who I heard speaking greek had the best accent and they are the only ones who don't make the "th" sounds d

That is becouse you heard a castillian spanish that know that th=z; but if you talk with anybody that don't know th=z surelly they will say d/t; worst, if you talk with latinoamericans or southern spanish speakers, like i, and we see "th" in the middle of a word (example, "southern") and know that mean "z" probably we will say "S" , because we are seseants (always S) and don't pronounce the Z. So southern=souzern=sousern.

Forgive me man , talk again about greek.



Edited by Ikki - 12-Nov-2006 at 14:43

Greek-spanish?? Never!! 

For us, the greek sound: jaremeste kraprostu litristi popoprolokusnoi..., really So, sound similar to russian and other slave languages wich sound: sivirishky prakalavesky sholimev krispruschi

So very very far comparable with latin idioms.

Originally posted by Anton Like a barbarian

Vulgar comment Anton !

Hahah true u can confuse the two... but i belive that is something that is subconciuse... or should i say our brains are finetuned to belive that that is spanis.. but once u sharpen ur hearing and you pick up the greek words it all falls into place. After that it sounds quite a bit different to spanish... whell to me atleast.

I have also mistaken spanish with greek once (-and I'm greek).

To me it sounds like Spanish. I do not get the chance to meet many Greeks in the USA, but last year when I was in England, there were lots of Greeks on the streets and whenever I heard them speaking I thought they were speaking in Spanish at first and it took me several moments to realize that it was not actually spanish. 

Never heard Greek,just know some Greek alphabets from  school mathematics.