It’s all Greek to me…

So I thought I’d share some of the more embarassing moments from my adventure in speaking Greek.

The first tale of woe:

Me: θέλω ένα αυτό. (“I want one of those.” Pointing to a bagel-type-thing at one of the stalls selling bready things in Monastiraki)

Lady: Ένα αυτό; (“One of these?” the middle aged lady replies, pointing to what I had pointed at.)

Me: Ναι, πόσο χρόνον; (“Yes. How old are you?” FAIL! How embarassing – I had meant to ask how much they were. Cue much embarassment, me handing over the money and leaving veeeeery quickly.)

Second tale of woe:

In a class discussion we were split up into pairs and after discussing it, we had to describe what our partner did the other day.  I confidently step up to the mark to tell the class that, yesterday,  my partner (a girl) had woken up, then went back home (!), then had a shave…. And the whole class broke into laughter… I had no idea what I’d just said.

When people started miming shaving faces at me, I was like “arrgghhh” and then the teacher asked what I meant when she’d not slept at home… Rather than answer I readied the spade to dig a massive hole to crawl into and die of embarassment. How embarassing.

Third tale of woe:

Teacher: Τι θα κάνεις μέτα στο μαθήμα; (“What will you do after the lesson?”)

Me: Θα ξυπνήσω… (“I will wake up”)

Teacher: Θα ξυπνήσεις;!;! Κοιμάσαι τώρα;! (As hysterics break out across the class, the teacher, crying with laughter asks, “You will wake up!?!?! Are you asleep now?!”)

Me: Ναι…  (Still oblivious to everything, and seriously wondering what I’d just said, I simply reply the worst thing to a not-even-misunderstood question, “Yes”. Where’s that massive hole under my desk for me to crawl into when I need it?!

So there we go. The moral of all these stories is that identity is not in our language abilities!

If we’re Christian, who cares whether we look stooopid in class or when speaking a foreign language or even when we mess up big times in slightly more normal ways? Our identity is in Jesus – and the one whose opinion really matters (God) looks at us and sees Jesus. God doesn’t see my stooopid language failures or our many other failures, he sees Jesus’ perfect obedience in everything!

So next time I screw up at Greek (and believe you me, there will certainly be many worse times than these!) I can smile and laugh with everyone, realising that it doesn’t matter what they think of me!