It's the yellow German book!

[pne]

Just came back from Bremen from a training session for elders quorum presidencies and high priest group leaders; Martin Fiedler was so kind to drop me off at home.

We talked a bit about Greek and Greece, since he had also spent his mission there, and he said that he was also not particularly enamoured about the grammar books he had in the MTC. He asked his parents to send him a Greek grammar in German and got sent Langenscheidts Praktisches Lehrbuch, Neugriechisch—a book I had also bought before going to Greece and which I also liked a lot. I really liked the way it presented the language, and though I didn't actually learn (in the sense of committing to memory) a lot from it before I went to the MTC, it had already prepared me for learning the language.

The funny thing was, back then the missionaries got their mail once a week at church (since all the missionaries in Athens went to the same ward back then), and when an American missionary saw Elder Fiedler unwrap the parcel, he was all in awe and said, "You've got the yellow German book! Everyone who has this book speaks Greek really well!"

I didn't know others knew about it, let alone that it had that much of a reputation! I liked it, but tastes differ—but apparently that book is "the breakfast of champions" as far as learning materials go. Makes me double glad I got it back then!

(Incidentally, I also recommended it on my list of books to get if you're called to Greece on a mission, one of the pages I made for prospective missionaries shortly after my mission, and which I haven't updated since about 1998 or so *cough*. I also see that I got the ISBN wrong; will have to try to change that.... done.)

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

I just meant.. Did they actually let you talk about your religion?

Not often.

Another linguistic problem we sometimes encountered was when we had a little exhibition in a plateia with little boards with pictures and texts and tried to talk to passers-by, at first I would sometimes ask people, "Έχετε δύο λεπτά;" and they thought I was asking them for money. (Even though "Έχετε δύο λεφτά;" makes no sense to me AFAIK, even if they misheard it that way.)

it's considered something very important and a part of the Greek culture, you could say.

*nods* To be Greek is to be Orthodox... once or twice, we met someone who was interested in principle but didn't want to change because leaving his religion would cause major problems with his family and possibly his job - as if they were renouncing their whole identity.