In Greece too one used to get three years of music theory in elementary school (no lobger, sad to say...). I wwas lucky to have benefitted from that. The notation used was just like the US one - in translation of course. And no poncy words like "clef" either; it was "key of this or that". The only foreign words used referred to modes of playing and were Italian (addaggio, largo ma non tropo, latte con zuccero etc).