You learn to speak by speaking
Not by finishing exercises about speaking. From your first session you talk, imperfectly and out loud.
Γεια, είμαι η Κωνσταντίνα / About me
How I ended up teaching my own language.
Native Greek teacher from Athens, teaching since 2015. Trained in how people learn, not only in what they learn.
KonstantinaTeaching since 2015
Η ιστορία μου / My story
From Athens, to your screen.
University of AthensTranslation diploma, Hellenic American CollegeTeaching since 2015
I am from Glyfada, on the coast just south of Athens, and I grew up surrounded by a language I never had to think about. It was simply there: in the kitchen, in the arguments, in the songs on the radio all summer long.
At the University of Athens I studied Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology, which means that before I ever taught a word of Greek I spent years studying something rather more useful: how people actually learn. That turned out to matter far more than any grammar book.
Later I took a diploma in translation at Hellenic American College, which sounds dry until you realise what translation trains you to do: find the way a thought lives in one language and rebuild it in another. That is most of what I do with you in a session, only out loud and much faster.
I have been teaching since 2015, both Greek and English, to Greek students and to foreigners. In 2019 I taught my first foreign student and everything shifted. Here was somebody who knew the rules, who could fill in any exercise you gave them, and who still froze completely when a waiter asked a simple question. That gap between knowing and speaking is what I have been working on ever since.
What I am certain of is this: people do not need more rules. They need somebody patient to talk with, who will not laugh, and who genuinely wants to hear what they have to say.
My favourite moment in any lesson is when somebody hears themselves finish a whole sentence in Greek and stops, surprised at their own voice.
Πώς διδάσκω / How I teach
Four things I believe.
Not marketing lines. These are the rules I actually teach by.
Mistakes are information
Every mistake tells me precisely what to teach you next. I have never been disappointed by a student's error.
Grammar serves you
We meet a rule when it unlocks something you want to say. Explained simply, in context, never as a table to memorise.
Language needs its culture
The food, the music, the humour, the way we argue and welcome people. That is why you wanted Greek in the first place.
Εκτός μαθήματος / Off the clock
Things you will probably hear me talk about.
You are going to spend time with me, so you may as well know what you are getting into.
Freddo espressoa serious Athenian matter
The sea at Glyfadamy whole childhood, really
Greek musicold rembetika and shameless pop
Where words come fromblame the philosophy degree
Ρώτα με / Ask me anything
What people want to know about me.
Do I always get you, or another teacher?
Always me. That is the whole idea. I keep my number of students deliberately small so I can remember your goals, your family names and the word you keep forgetting, without checking any notes.
What language do you teach in?
English and Greek, sliding gradually towards more Greek as you get comfortable. I have taught English as well as Greek since 2015, so I know exactly what it feels like from your side of the screen.
Why does your degree matter for learning Greek?
My training is in how people learn, remember and lose confidence. When you get stuck, I am not just reaching for another exercise, I am thinking about why it is not landing and what would work better for you.
I am not Greek at all. Will I feel out of place?
Not for a second. Some of my most devoted students have no Greek family whatsoever, just a love of the place that refused to fade after a holiday.
My Greek is embarrassing. Can you handle that?
Your Greek is not embarrassing, it is simply unfinished. I have heard every possible beginner sentence and I still find them lovely, because they mean somebody is trying.
Let us meet properly.
Take a slot whenever it suits you. There is nothing to prepare. Come and talk, and we will see how it feels.