“I don’t really want to study grammar. I just want conversation.”
It is a request we hear quite often, including from people who are about to start learning Greek for the very first time.
And we understand what they mean. Usually, they are not saying that they never want to learn how Greek works. They are saying that their goal is practical: they want to go to Greece and talk to people. They want to speak to relatives. Order food without switching to English. Understand what someone says back to them. Have an actual conversation.
So, when can you start?
The short answer is: you should start speaking Greek from the beginning. But that doesn’t mean a complete beginner is ready for a conversation-only class.
Speaking from day one isn’t the same as having a conversation
A good beginner lesson should involve speaking. From the first few lessons, students can introduce themselves, answer simple questions, use greetings, say where they are from, talk about what they like and gradually begin putting together their own sentences.
But there is a difference between practising spoken Greek and having a conversation in Greek. Conversation requires something to work with. You need words. You need to understand at least some of what the other person is saying. You need a few basic structures that allow you to ask and answer questions.
If someone knows no Greek at all, a teacher cannot simply say “Let’s talk for an hour.” There isn’t yet a shared language in which that conversation can happen. That’s why, at the very beginning, speaking needs support.
At A1: small conversations are already possible
You don’t need to wait until you are “good at Greek” to start using it. At A1, conversations are naturally limited, but they are still real. You might be able to talk about where you live, your family, your job, what you like to eat, what you do during the week or what you did at the weekend using the language you have learned so far. You will probably need your teacher to speak slowly. You may need a question repeated. You will get things wrong. And sometimes you’ll know exactly what you want to say but simply won’t have the words yet.
That’s normal. At this stage, conversation is usually part of a broader lesson, alongside vocabulary, grammar, listening and other skills. What you learn gives you more material for the next conversation.
At A2: you have much more to work with
By A2, things begin to open up.
You have more vocabulary, more ways of expressing time, more question forms and enough familiarity with the language to move beyond rehearsed exchanges. Instead of only saying what food you like, you might talk about a restaurant you went to. Instead of simply describing your family, you might tell your teacher what you’re planning to do when they visit.
The conversation will still need support, and there will be plenty of gaps. But you can begin to keep an exchange going rather than simply responding to individual questions. This is also where many learners start noticing a frustrating gap: “I know this. Why can’t I say it quickly enough?”
That gap is exactly why speaking practice matters.
At B1: conversation becomes much more flexible
At B1, you have enough Greek to talk about a much wider range of familiar subjects and, importantly, to deal with some of the unexpected turns that happen in a real conversation. You can explain an opinion rather than simply state it. Tell a story with more detail. Compare two things. Describe a problem. Ask follow-up questions.
You will still make mistakes — sometimes quite a few — but a conversation doesn’t need perfect grammar to be successful. This is often the point at which a lesson can become much more heavily focused on conversation, because there is enough language underneath it to make that conversation productive.
So when should you start conversation classes?
There isn’t one level that suddenly makes someone “ready to speak.”
Speaking should be happening throughout the learning process.
But if by conversation class we mean a lesson primarily built around discussion rather than learning the foundations of the language, then a complete beginner needs some groundwork first.
That doesn’t mean months of grammar exercises before you’re allowed to open your mouth.
Quite the opposite.
You learn a structure, and you use it. You learn new vocabulary, and you do something with it. You hear a question, understand it and try to answer. Little by little, those short exchanges become longer ones.
Grammar and vocabulary aren’t the things you have to finish before conversation begins. They’re the tools that make conversation possible.
Don’t wait for perfect Greek
There is another extreme we see too: learners who have studied for quite some time but still don’t feel “ready” to speak.
If that’s you, waiting until your Greek is perfect won’t help.
Conversation is not the final stage of learning a language. It is one of the ways you learn it.
The aim at A1 isn’t to sound like a B1 student. The aim is to use the Greek you have. At A2, you work with a little more. At B1, you can do much more.
And from there, the conversations keep growing with you.
You don’t need perfect Greek to have a conversation. But you do need some Greek — and the only way to turn what you know into something you can actually use is to start speaking it.
I think this has exactly the balance we want: it answers the beginner asking for “conversation only” without sounding like we’re telling them they aren’t allowed to speak yet. It also naturally explains why TGOS teaches speaking alongside the foundations instead of needing a paragraph advertising your courses.