Language Learning

While language is often defined as a structured system of spoken or written words, my own journey began in a very different way. At just three years old, out of what I now understand was my mother’s desperation to get me out from under her feet, I started ballet. The learning was made fun, not a chore, and became a pleasure. In that studio, I learned French through disciplined movement. My body didn’t just hear the words for first, second, third, or fifth, it knew their meaning through a series of actions, all the way to the final position of sixth. This early experience taught me that language is as much about embodied understanding and listening with your entire being as it is about speaking. Dance, much like language, has a musicality. It’s about expressing and emphasising a note through movement, much like the way we use tone and spacing to add emphasis to a written word. This all laid the foundation for an awareness that goes far beyond just vocabulary.

Fast forward to January 1991, the job was to bring my Greek up to a level of living and working there for good. When I was 20 years old and discovered a different kind of language immersion in Greece. My friends had known each other since birth and spoke Greek backwards to each other so I wouldn’t understand. Despite this, I was able to cultivate an ear for the language, picking up the swearing and understanding what gestures meant. It was a solid, street-wise language. The music and the dance were also vital teachers. The folk songs, in particular, were a different kind of language altogether. I’ll never forget one that goes, “20 years old and you cry, 20 years old, what do you want,” which in the Greek language rhymes, and goes on to say your life is waiting for you.  In anycase, they resonate with me to this day. However, what was missing was the structure, the grammar, the verb conjugations, and the correct word order. Within the first six months, I reached the required standard. The next stage would have been to go to university, but I was ready for working. I was lucky to find The Athens Centre, but the most profound teaching came from my husband, who spoke very good English but only ever spoke Greek to me. From morning to evening, Greek was all I did, speaking, writing, and homework. It was relentless, and many tears were shed. This experience taught me that real fluency comes not just from memorisation, but from deep immersion and a willingness to navigate both the easy and the difficult parts of communication. Ultimately, it gave me the ability to not take myself so seriously and to laugh at my mistakes in an extremely difficult language, as I don’t usually laugh at jokes in English but have a very hearty laugh when I understand one in a foreign language.

Christou Associates

My time with Christou Associates was defined by two things, the exhilarating pace of the shipping world and the incredible leadership of Popi Lyrintzis. A marine engineer by profession, Popi was a whirlwind of energy and ideas, and I was fortunate to learn from her. Within weeks of joining, I was promoted to the captain’s role, responsible for a key part of the business. My job was to coordinate Ukrainian seafarers of all ranks and get them to Greek vessels across the world as and when they were needed. With Popi’s guidance, I relied on the telex and my own developing skills to pull it off. I handled all the logistics, from sorting out flights and times to invoicing and collecting the money in person for our services.

This role wasn’t just about logistics. It was also about navigating complex human situations. I remember one situation where I had to arrange a seafarer’s journey home to hospital and reunite him with his family after he became ill, a task I never would have imagined for myself. This left Popi free to travel and drum up new business in the Ukraine and the US.

One such trip brought her back with a massive new project, introducing the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to the Greek market. We partnered with Marispond, a Philadelphia-based organisation, on this ambitious venture. With a vigorous set of rules for any vessel entering US waters, the project required us to get every “i” dotted and “t” crossed, with enormous repercussions if we failed. We had to invite the whole Greek shipping community to an event to help them understand what was needed. It was a huge undertaking, and a team was sent from the US to help with manpower and knowledge. I was immediately pulled into the project, responsible for recruiting and training four new employees to help with the work. The timescale for the venture was, as always, extremely tight.

Ultimately, my time at Christou Associates proved that my office background and core marketing principles worked. The core lesson was plain and simple, success comes from putting the client’s needs at the centre, planning meticulously, and communicating clearly to pull the entire team together in the same direction.