The neighbourhood I now call home is helping me learn the language I gave up

This First Person article is the experience of Florence McCambridge, a writer who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

If I'd known how hard it would be to learn a language as an adult, I never would have convinced my dad to let me drop out of Greek school. 

In fairness to my younger self, learning to speak my father's birth language didn't hold much importance to me back then. My parents didn't speak each other's first languages (French and Greek), which meant that we always spoke English at our home in Toronto's North York area. And waking up early on Saturday mornings to recite the Greek alphabet over and over again wasn't as appealing as hanging around in my pyjamas, eating cereal and watching cartoons.

For the most part, not being able to speak Greek didn't bother me. I still felt connected to the culture in other ways. We ate traditional Greek food at home. My favourites included the salty fries cooked in olive oil, and the mastic spoon sweet that I called vanilla. My father played music from Crete, where he grew up, all the time — and, much to my embarrassment, even when my friends were around. We occasionally took trips to Greece for summer vacations. 

But it always felt awkward mentioning my heritage because I was worried what others would think. How Greek could I be if I couldn't even string a few sentences together?

As I became a teenager, I started spending less time with family and more time with friends. Homemade food wasn't as appealing as fast food. Instead of trips to Greece, I wanted trips to pretty much anywhere else. Later when I got married, I took my husband's last name. This was something that meant a lot to me. I didn't ask anyone's opinion about it, including my father. But without the Greek surname that had been with me my whole life as an anchor, it was only a matter of time before I drifted even further away from my heritage. 

A few years ago, a home within our budget came up in Toronto's Danforth area, also known as Greektown. It wasn't until we'd settled in a bit that I realized how connected I am to the neighbourhood, even though I'd never lived there before. I'm within a few blocks of the Greek Orthodox church where I was baptized. I regularly walk the street where I used to stand waving a Greek flag for the annual Independence Day parade. I walk home snacking on koulouri from the bakery, just like I've done during summers in Crete. 

Suddenly, the language I'd given up on was everywhere. The fact that I didn't speak Greek became impossible to ignore. The street signs are written in Greek (along with English), Greek musicians play at Alexander the Great parkette during the summer, and the local restaurants and cafes are full of people speaking Greek. I'd understand a word here and there. Half a description. Simple verbs. Colours and numbers. But still, every errand became a reminder of my failure. 

I decided to do something about it. Instead of feeling embarrassed by my beginner-level Greek, I was going to use living in Greektown to my advantage. I started taking Greek lessons and practicing reading and speaking daily, which involved spending a lot of time with my old nemesis — the alphabet. On my way to the post office or grocery store, I'd read the street signs out loud in Greek as I passed by. I became a frequent visitor to the impressive collection of Greek children's books at the local library. I listened to boisterous conversations at the bakery, picking out the words I knew and letting the ones I didn't blur together and form some sort of narrative. And, if I was ever feeling brave, I'd place my order in Greek (and hope there were absolutely zero follow-up questions).  

Recently at the library, I saw a mother and her child pick out some Greek books and I asked for their recommendations. She assumed I was getting the books for my own children. 

"Actually they're for me. I'm practicing." 

"Μπράβο!" Well done, she said in Greek, with almost the same enthusiasm and pride my father expressed when I told him what I was doing, even though she and I had only just met. Then she offered some advice: "Move to Greece for a while. You'll pick it up in no time." 

I know she's right. Complete immersion would make learning the language easier in many ways. And maybe one day, I'll do just that. But for now, I'm grateful to live near Toronto's Greektown, where, slowly but surely, I'm learning to speak Greek one street sign at a time. 

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