Now you just have to learn the remaining consonants, and you are finished!
The following letters all have
pretty close equivalents in English so you will not find them hard to learn. | |
|
Now you just have to learn the remaining consonants, and you are finished!
The following letters all have
pretty close equivalents in English so you will not find them hard to learn.
Some basic notes are provided here - but just click on the big blue letter if you want to learn more!
Tip on practicing consonant pronunciation. When you practice the vowels, put a simple "ah" sound with them: so when you practice "lambda" say "lah lah lah", and when you practice mu say "mah mah mah" and when you practice "nu" say "nah nah nah", etc. Then, after you know the letters of the alphabet, you can practice sounding out real words.
Of course you can pick any vowel sound you want to combine with the consonants, so if you prefer to say "lo lo lo" or "lu lu lu", that's fine - pick the vowel sound that is the most appealing to you.
 |
Lambda. The forms of lambda are a little bit like the English "l" - but you will definitely need to practice the forms of these letters. Lambda is pronounced like the "l" sound in "loop". |
 |
 |
Mu. The upper-case nu is easy, because it looks like the English "m" - but the lower-case mu takes some getting used to. Make sure you practice the lower-case form of this letter carefully! Nu is pronounced like the "m" sound in "moon". |
 |
 |
Nu. The upper-case nu is easy, because it looks like the English "n" - but the lower-case nu will require some practice! Make sure you get used to the lower-case form of this letter. Nu is pronounced like the "n" sound in "noon". |
 |
 |
Rho. Rho is the letter that causes the most trouble: it looks like the English "p" but it represents the "r" sound in Greek! You will need a lot of practice getting used to that. Rho is pronounced like the "r" sound in "rock". (You can roll or trill this letter if you have learned how to pronounce that kind of "r" in another language - the English "r" is actually a kind of odd sound, rather different from the "r" sound in other languages.) |
 |
 |
Sigma. The sigma looks a little bit like the English "s" and you may already know this letter from its use in math and statistics. There is a special form for sigma when it appears at the end of a word. Since it resembles the English "s" so closely, you won't have any trouble recognizing it. Here is what the final sigma looks like:
Sigma is pronounced like the "s" sound in "sum". |
 |
 |
Zeta. The zeta, especially the upper-case form, looks more or less like the English "z" - but make sure you can recognize the difference between lower-case zeta and lower-case xi! Zeta is pronounced like the "z" sound in "zoo" when it is at the beginning of a word or "dz" in "kudzu" inside a word. |
 |
Okay: now you are ready to practice these consonants! Here are some flashcards and games at QUIA that will help you to do that! (There are three different font sets used here, so you can get used to some different styles of Greek writing.)
 |
More Consonants: Set 2 | More Consonants: Set 3 | |
|
Biblical Greek Online. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You must give the original author credit. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. Page last updated: April 9, 2005 8:06 PM |
