Asking Directions in Greek and Reading the Reply

Most people learn how to ask and stop there. Πού είναι takes about a minute to get right. The reply comes back at full speed from someone who has given these directions four hundred times, and unless you can catch five or six words out of it you are standing in the same spot you started, holding a phrase you used perfectly.

Greek directions are built out of landmarks rather than street names. You will be sent to the lights, the square, the church, the kiosk, the corner where the bakery is. Street names exist and are signposted, but very few people giving directions on foot will use one, and the number on the building is almost never mentioned. If you are listening out for a street name you will hear nothing useful at all.

The respellings below are a crutch and they have one weakness worth naming now. Greek has two different th sounds, and English spelling only has one. In δεξιά the δ is the th of this, not the th of thin. I have written both as th because there is no honest alternative, and the context will have to do the rest. The capitals in each respelling mark the stressed syllable, and Greek is generous here: the written accent on the word tells you where the stress goes, every time.

Πού with an accent means where. Που without one means that or which, and it is unstressed, a word that leans on the one after it. In speech the difference is entirely in the stress, so if you flatten πού out of nervousness you have said something closer to a relative pronoun than a question. Hit it.

The difference between the first two matters more than it looks. Πού είναι gets you a location, which may be a finger pointed at a rooftop two streets away. Πώς πάω στο gets you a route, which is what you actually need. If you are already standing in sight of the thing, ask the first. If you are not, ask the second.

Greek nouns have three genders and the preposition changes shape to match, which is why the word for to keeps appearing in different forms. Σε plus the article gives you στον for masculine, στην for feminine and στο for neuter. Masculine nouns also drop their final ς: ο σταθμός becomes στον σταθμό.

Getting the gender wrong will not stop anyone understanding you. It is worth learning the pattern anyway, because the same three forms turn up inside the answer you are given, and recognising στην as a signal that a feminine landmark is coming helps you hold on to the sentence.

There are not many of them. Six words, plus one verb form, will let you follow almost any set of spoken directions in Greece. Learn these before you learn another way to ask the question.

Πάνω and κάτω, up and down, do real work in Greek towns because so many of them are built on a slope. When someone says πάνω they usually mean uphill rather than north, and in a village that is a more precise instruction than any compass direction. The same pair is frozen into place names: Άνω means upper and Κάτω means lower, so Άνω Πόλη and Κάτω Πόλη are the top and bottom halves of the same town, and your map may list both.

This is the part that catches people who have learned the direction words and still cannot follow the answer. The turns are anchored to objects, and if you do not know the object you lose the turn.

Ask είναι μακριά and you will get an answer in minutes rather than metres, because that is how distance is normally given on foot. Take the number as a rough signal of scale and not as a timing. The useful part of the reply is the words around it: με τα πόδια means you can walk it, and if the answer involves a bus or the metro you will hear λεωφορείο or μετρό in there somewhere and know to stop walking.

Spoken directions in Greece come with a hand doing at least half the work, and the hand is often more reliable than your listening. Watch where it points, watch how far along the street it sweeps, and watch whether it chops once or twice, because two chops usually means two turns. If you got the gesture you have got the direction even if you missed every word.

The head is where visitors go wrong. A single upward tilt of the head, often with raised eyebrows and sometimes a small click of the tongue, means no. It is quick and it is easy to read as a nod, and people have walked a long way in the wrong direction on the strength of that misreading. Yes is a short downward nod. If you ask a yes or no question and see the chin come up, the answer was no.

That last one is the one to have ready. Holding out the phone turns a listening problem into a looking problem, and most people will take it, zoom in, and put a finger on the spot without breaking stride.

Do not open with γειά σου. It is the singular form, and to a stranger on the street it lands the way first-naming someone you have never met lands in English. Συγγνώμη is the right opener for stopping someone, and it carries no risk at all. The same logic applies to the verb: ξέρεις is for a friend, ξέρετε for anyone else.

Avoid framing your question so that the answer can be yes or no, at least until you can read the head tilt reliably. Είναι εκεί, is it over there, invites exactly the gesture you are most likely to misread. Πού είναι and πώς πάω both force a real answer.

One gesture to keep out of your own hands. The open palm pushed towards someone with the fingers spread is an insult in Greece, known as the μούτζα, and it is not a mild one. This matters in a directions conversation because it is the natural English way to hold up five fingers for five, or to signal stop. Say the number instead, or keep the hand turned in towards yourself.

Everything above works in Cyprus too, but one practical thing changes: Cyprus drives on the left. That reorders every δεξιά and αριστερά you are given in a car, and it changes which side of the road a bus stop serves. Cypriot Greek is a dialect rather than an accent, and people will generally shift towards standard Greek when they realise you are a learner, so the directions you get will usually be in the forms on this page.

The other regional problem is spelling, and it is not a dialect problem. Greek place names are transliterated into the Latin alphabet in more than one way, so the town your map calls Heraklion may appear on the road sign as Iraklio, and Chania, Hania and Xania are the same place. Signs in the countryside are sometimes in Greek capitals only, and capitals look nothing like the lowercase you learned from. ΔΕΞΙΑ and ΑΡΙΣΤΕΡΑ are worth twenty seconds of looking at now so that you recognise them at speed later.

On the phone the hands are gone, and with them most of what was carrying you. What replaces them is the landmark. Ask what is nearby rather than what the address is, because the person on the other end thinks in landmarks anyway, and απέναντι plus a recognisable building will get you there faster than a street number.

Written addresses in Greek run street name first and number second, so Ερμού 15 is 15 Ermou Street, which is the reverse of the English order and the reverse of what a form may be expecting from you. The postcode is five digits and is usually written with a space after the third, as in 105 63, followed by the area.

If you type the question rather than say it, remember the punctuation. A Greek question ends in a semicolon. Πού είναι το ξενοδοχείο; looks unfinished to an English eye and is perfectly correct, and if you type a question mark instead it will be understood but it will mark you out immediately.

Learn Συγγνώμη, πού είναι and Πώς πάω στο this week, and alongside them δεξιά, αριστερά and ευθεία, because those three are what the answer is made of. Keep Μπορείτε να μου το δείξετε στον χάρτη in reserve for the moment the sentence outruns you.

After that it is a matter of hearing the words attached to real corners and real traffic lights. Photograph the street signs around you, capitals and all, and let the vocabulary arrive with the place already attached to it.