_ a t _ a _

Phoebe and I have taken to playing the occasional game of (Greek) hangman while waiting for Emily to get out of school. The reason is that her spelling is a bit haphazard and I'm hoping that this might be a way of helping her to make sense of it. The basic problem is that Greek has multiple ways of spelling the same sound, including five letters or letter combinations for the elongated "i" sound, two letters for "o" and two ways of spelling "f", for example. Greek words are also, as a rule, stuffed full of syllables, sometimes making English seem like baby-talk by comparison. So whereas we have the ever so simple "car", for example, young Greeks have to struggle with learning how to spell the somewhat more challenging aftokinito, which could theoretically (if you don't know grammar or etymology) be spelt in twenty different ways.

So anyway, that is the plan. It's early days yet and I can't claim that there has been any great progress so far.

On the other hand, I am delighted to report that she is able to spell "Batman" correctly (which may give some indication of where her priorities lie...)