Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hi everybody, this is Stefania! Welcome to GreekPod101.com’s Alfaveeto made easy. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Greek alphabet: the alfaveeto!
Welcome to the 11th lesson of our Greek writing series; you’ll be happy to hear that we are almost done with the Greek alphabet. Actually, we will be finished with new letters in the next lesson, but we have three more lessons dealing with punctuation, accents and double letters. Don’t let that worry you, though; if you have been practicing what we have seen until now, it’s almost certain that you will go through all those very easily.
So let’s learn two more consonants in this lesson!
Our first letter is “Theeta”, often called “theta” in English. Its sound is “th” as in “thorough”.
As you can see, there is a striking similarity between uppercase and lowercase.
This is the uppercase “Theeta”.
It is handwritten like this: Θ
And this is the lowercase “Theeta”.
It is handwritten like this: θ
So they’re both circles with a line in the middle. You can write the lowercase pretty much like the uppercase –just a little more narrow.
Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: Θ
And here’s the lowercase form: θ
I’m sure this wasn’t too hard now, was it? There are many words in the Greek language that use “Theeta” so you’ll get used to it in no time. Now let’s see our next letter, another unique consonant called “Fee”. The sound is “f” and it looks like this:
It looks like a “Theeta” turned on its side, doesn’t it? Be sure to notice the ends of the line protruding from the top and the bottom though!
This is the uppercase “Fee”.
It is handwritten like this: Φ
And this is that lowercase “Fee”.
It is handwritten like this: φ
The sound is not going to be a problem since it is the same as the English “F” so you can concentrate on the writing.
Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: Φ
And here’s the lowercase form: φ
“Fee” and “Theeta” are a little hard to combine so for our words in this lesson, we will employ some of the letters we have learned already –luckily now we have lots to chose from!
The first word is something we use every day and which is particularly interesting in Greece –tasty also! Yes, we are talking about “food” and the Greek word for it is: φαγητο. Let’s write it together.
φαγητο
Got it? It isn’t a big word but it’s something you’ll hear many times in Greek so it’s good to know it! Do you feel confident with your “Fee”? Do you think we could try something a little more ambitious? How about a word with both “Fee” and “Theeta”? One very common word is “φθηνος” meaning “cheap”. Let’s write it.
φθηνος
So let’s recap. So far, we have learned 22 letters: “Alpha”, “Mee”, “Taf”, “Yota”, “Kappa”, “Omikron”, “Pee”, “Sigma”, “Eeta”, “Psee”, “Gama”, “Epseelon”, “Ro”, “Hee”, “Nee”, “Omega”, “Delta”, “Lamda”, “Veeta”, “Ipsilon”, “Theeta” and “Fee”. If you’re still hanging in there, great job! You’ve almost learned them all.
Now it's time for Stefania’s insights.
You’ve got 22 Greek letters floating around in your brain. At this point it is very important to single out which ones are easily confused and come up with a trick to remember them. Try to associate them with the Greek words we learned using them and, if possible, an English word that might relate to them. For example, this lesson’s “fageetoh” can be combined with the English word “food”; they start with the same sound so by over-pronouncing the initial Fee sound you can mentally connect the words and the letters. Try it and see if it helps!
So, what are the last two letters going to be? Don’t you want to complete your set and also learn how to write an important word like “life? Check out the next lesson and complete your collection!
See you there!
Ya hara!

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