False friends English word agony sympathy history cuisine costume machine organ English meaning great pain

feeling sorry for describing historical events a kind of cooking special clothes (for performance) (complex) piece of equipment part of person or animal, special kind of musical instrument lacking in confidence, worried consuming cigarettes Victorian entertainment the best of some kind things that need to be done; secret plan using a graph or graphics stupid filled with gas or using air to do with the universe Greek word agonia simpathia istoria kouzina koustoumi michani organo Greek meaning anxiety, anguish, suspense liking, attraction history, story kitchen suit engine, camera as in English plus general kind of musical instrument; tool (metaphorical) bad-tempered dinner jacket modern cabaret the best (especially classical music) diary; list of things to do

nervous smoking music hall classic agenda graphical idiotic pneumatic cosmic typical character idiosyncrasy
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nevrikos smokin music hall klasikos atzenda grafikos idiotikos pnevmatikos kosmikos

vivid, quaint, picturesque private spiritual social, worldly, mundane, lay, secular characteristic tipikos formal, conventional personality, part in a play charaktiras personality unusual, strange feature idiosyncrasia personal quirk

Greekifying English Greek adapts English lexical borrowings to the rules of Greek morphology, especially verb and noun endings in o or ara. Here are some Greek verbs derived from English nouns or verbs: Greek word stressaro scoraro sokaro flertaro serfaro filmaro parkaro English word stress score shock flirt surf film park

Greeks are fond of using diminutives to make words more polite or friendly. They do this with the suffix aki, which means little in Greek. It is very common in proper names such as Yiannakis (little John), Georgakis (little George), Theodorakis (little gift of god) etc. Here are a few examples of words borrowed from English and which have been added the diminutive suffix in Greek:

Greek word tzipaki tsipaki shortsaki filmaki baraki

meaning a small jeep a small chip a small pair of shorts a short film a small bar

English word jeep chip shorts film bar

The reverse process making words bigger is also common in Greek and is applied freely to borrowings from English: Greek word penaltara filmara golara
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meaning an obvious penalty a great film a great goal

English word penalty film goal

Conclusion Many Greeks, especially those who write letters to newspapers bemoaning the fact the word is going to the dogs, worry that the purity of their language is threatened by these endless borrowings from other languages, but largely from English. They do not seem to be aware that this process happens to all languages and has been happening to Greek for centuries, with many borrowings from Turkish, French and Italian, to name but a few of the sources which have enriched Greek. The borrowing will inevitably continue, as long as Greece is not a superpower, as it once was, and, in turn, lent other languages many of its words. It will continue as globalisation intensifies the importation of goods and ideas from other countries. It is worth reminding ourselves that English also continues to borrow from classical not classic Greek when looking for a name for a new invention or idea. Teachers need to be on their guard for the way words reflect the contexts and cultures in which they are used. This applies to any item of vocabulary in a foreign language but it applies in an idiosyncratic (Greek word!) way in the teaching of English to Greeks.
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Further reading Learner English: A teacher's guide to interference and other problems, Eds. Michael Swan and Bernard Smith (CUP, 2001) For a list of Greek loan words in English, visit: http://www.wordorigins.org/loanword.htm#Greek