Speak Greek
σαν να είσαι εδώ.

No. Absolute beginners are welcome and common. We cover the alphabet in the first one or two lessons — it's 24 letters and it takes less time than people fear. The alphabet lab above is a fine head start if you're impatient.

With one hour a week plus a little practice between lessons, most adult beginners manage a slow but real conversation — introductions, ordering, small talk — in around three to four months. Faster if you're in Greece and forced to use it. There's a fuller breakdown by level here.

Yes, for most of the working day. I'm in Crete, seven hours ahead of US Eastern. That makes 7am–2pm Eastern (4am–11am Pacific) comfortable on weekdays — it's early afternoon to evening here, so a lesson before work or over a lunch break fits easily. What doesn't work is US evenings: 6pm in New York is 1am in Crete. If evenings are your only option, Saturday mornings US time are the answer.

Not at the alphabet, which is where every beginner course would put you and why most heritage learners quit in week two. You already have the sound system and a surprising amount of vocabulary sitting passively — what you're missing is usually reading fluency and the confidence to produce a sentence in front of another Greek. We start by finding out what's actually in there, which is normally more than you expect, and work on the gap rather than the whole language.

My lessons are built for adults, and that's where nearly all my teaching goes. I'll occasionally take a motivated teenager, but if you're looking for lessons for a younger child you'll get better results from a dedicated children's teacher or a Greek Saturday school near you — and I'm happy to say so rather than take the booking.

Moderately. English speakers usually find three things awkward: a new alphabet, grammatical gender on every noun, and word endings that change with the noun's role in the sentence. Against that, Greek spelling is far more consistent than English, there are no tones, and English has already borrowed thousands of Greek roots — you will recognize more vocabulary than you expect. The alphabet, which frightens people most, is the part that takes the least time.

Modern Greek — the language roughly 13 million people speak in Greece and Cyprus today. It is not Ancient or Biblical Koine Greek, which are read rather than spoken and use different grammar and vocabulary. If you want to order lunch in Athens, argue with a landlord in Rethymno, or talk to your partner's family, Modern Greek is the one you want. I'll also point out where Cretan speech differs, because you'll hear it the moment you land.

Yes — the official certificate of attainment in Greek, levels A1 through B2. Exam prep works best as a focused block of lessons a few months before your exam date. See the Ellinomatheia guide for levels, timing and which one you actually need.

Cancel or move it free of charge up to 24 hours beforehand. Inside 24 hours the lesson is counted, unless something genuinely unavoidable happened — I'm a human being about this.

One-to-one if you have a deadline, an unusual starting point, or a specific thing you need to be able to say. It moves roughly twice as fast because every minute is yours. A group if you want the practice to feel less like a test, if hearing other learners make the same mistakes is reassuring rather than distracting, or if $25 a class is the difference between doing this and not doing it. Plenty of people do a term of group and add occasional one-to-one lessons when something specific comes up — that combination works well.

Six people maximum, one level per group, eight-week terms with the same slot each week on US mornings Eastern. I cap it at six because past that there isn't enough speaking time per person to justify the hour. Groups start once four people at the same level want the same slot, so there isn't always one running when you ask — tell me your level and which mornings suit you and I'll put you on the list for the next one. If you miss a week you get the recording and the material.

Apps are good at vocabulary and bad at the thing that actually stops people, which is the moment a real person answers you back faster than you expected. Most learners who plateau haven't run out of words — they've run out of situations where they had to produce one under mild pressure. That's most of what an hour with me is for. If you've done a year of Duolingo, you're not starting from zero; you're starting from an unusually good vocabulary and no speaking reflex.