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Greek lessons for Serbian speakers.
Taught from Greece, by someone who learned this language the same way you are about to — and then spent sixteen years living inside it.
Greek is not a difficult language for a Serbian speaker. It is an unfamiliar one, which is a different problem and a much more solvable one. The alphabet takes a week. The cases will feel oddly familiar. What actually slows people down is that most courses teach a formal, written Greek that nobody speaks at the bakery.
So we start from the language as it is spoken now, and add the formal register when you need it — not the other way around.
I graduated in Greek language and literature from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, spent the year 2007–2008 at the University of Ioannina on a Greek state scholarship, and have been teaching for ten years. Sixteen of those years I have lived in Greece — which is where the difference between textbook Greek and spoken Greek stops being theoretical. See the documents →
The alphabet, in the time it takes to read this.
Tap any letter. Most of them sound exactly like a Serbian letter you already use; four of them do not, and those four are the whole of the work.
Each tile shows what the letter sounds like in Serbian. The four in red have no Serbian equivalent — tap any letter for the detail.
Selected letter
Α α
Као српско А
Identical to the Serbian A. Nothing to learn here beyond the shape.
Five ways to work.
All taught one-to-one. You can move between them as your goals change.
The alphabet, pronunciation, and the first few hundred words that carry most of daily life. By the end you can handle a shop, a doctor's appointment and small talk with a neighbour.
Aspect, subjunctive, the tenses that don't map cleanly onto Serbian, and longer texts. This is where Greek stops being a set of phrases and becomes a language you think in.
For people who read Greek well and freeze the moment they have to speak. No new grammar — just sustained speaking practice at natural speed, with correction that doesn't interrupt the flow.
Meetings, email, contracts, and the polite formulas that make the difference between sounding foreign and sounding professional. Includes the vocabulary of your specific sector.
A compressed schedule when there's a date: a move, a job start, a wedding, an exam. More frequent lessons, more homework, and a written plan working backwards from the deadline.
Systematic work towards the certificate, including exam format, timing and the parts candidates reliably lose points on. More on exam preparation →
What trips up Serbian speakers.
Knowing the specific friction points is half the work. These come up with nearly every student.
Sounds
The δ, θ and γ that Serbian simply doesn't have.
Not hard to produce once someone shows you where the tongue goes. Very hard to guess on your own from spelling.
Articles
Greek has them everywhere. Serbian has none at all.
The most common error in written Greek by Serbian speakers, and the easiest one to fix systematically.
Aspect
Where Greek and Serbian nearly agree — and then don't.
Your instinct for perfective and imperfective is a real advantage here. It just needs recalibrating, not building.
False friends
The words you'll swear you already know.
Centuries of shared vocabulary through Orthodoxy and the Balkans, with meanings that have drifted apart.
What each level actually lets you do.
Level labels mean little on their own. This is the practical version.
| Level | What you can do by the end of it | Typical reason people stop here |
|---|---|---|
| A1 | Greet people, introduce yourself, order food and drink, ask prices, read the alphabet without effort, survive a shop and a taxi. | Holidays. Enough to be polite and to be liked for trying. |
| A2 | Handle a doctor's appointment, describe a problem, make an arrangement, talk about your day in the past tense. | Regular visitors and second-home owners. |
| B1 | Hold a real conversation without rehearsing it first. Follow most of what is said to you directly, if the speaker is not rushing. | Many people settle here and are perfectly functional. |
| B2 | Work in the language. Handle meetings, write a formal email, follow a film with effort, argue a point and be understood. | The usual requirement for employment and for residency paperwork. |
| C1–C2 | Read the press comfortably, follow fast group conversation, write with register and nuance, study in the language. | Academic study, professional accreditation, citizenship. |
Where most Serbian speakers actually are after a year: somewhere between A2 and B1, if we meet twice a week and you use the language between lessons. Less often, or no contact with Greek outside the lesson, and it is slower — not because of talent, but because a language needs contact.
What sixty minutes looks like.
Not a fixed script — but this is the usual shape, and it is deliberate.
We start by going through what you did since last time, and clear up whatever was not clear. This is where most of the actual correction happens.
One idea at a time, explained through examples you will actually meet — and, where it helps, by contrast with Serbian.
Immediately, out loud, in sentences about your own life. Grammar you have only read about does not survive the week.
Something short enough that you will actually do it, aimed at whatever gave you trouble today.
Things Serbian speakers ask me about Greek.
How hard is the alphabet, really?
A week of discomfort, then it is behind you. Several letters you already recognise from mathematics, and the rest follow rules without exceptions. It is by far the smallest obstacle on the list, despite being the one everyone worries about first.
Will my Serbian help or get in the way?
Mostly help. Your instinct for cases and for verbal aspect transfers, which is the expensive part of learning an inflected language. What gets in the way is the absence of articles in Serbian — Greek uses them constantly, and your hand will not reach for them.
Is the Greek I learn here the Greek people actually speak?
That is the point of learning from someone who lives here. Textbooks lag behind spoken language by a decade or more, particularly in register and idiom. We work from the formal written language where you need it, and from the spoken language for everything else.
I need it for residency paperwork. Where do I start?
With an honest diagnostic, because the requirement is usually a specific certificate level rather than general ability. Tell me which document and which deadline in the trial lesson and we will work backwards from there.
Can I switch between general Greek and exam preparation?
Yes, and many students do. The two overlap heavily; exam work simply adds format practice and timing on top of the language itself.
Not sure which of those is you?
That is what the free trial lesson is for. Thirty minutes, online, and you will leave knowing your actual level and what the first month would look like. You can also take the level test first, if you would rather find out alone.