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The vowels are the absolutely most important letters to know, because every
syllable contains at least one vowel. When you are sounding out a syllable,
the vowel is the most important part. (That's why consonants are called con-sonants:
you can only pronounce a consonant by letting it hang on to a vowel!). So
learn the vowels first and do not go any farther until you feel perfectly
comfortable with the vowels.
The first set of vowels you will learn is very, very similar to the vowels you know from the Roman alphabet which we use when writing English. They will not give you a lot of trouble.
Some basic notes are provided here - but just click on the big blue letter if you want to learn more!
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Alpha. The alpha looks basically like the English "a" so you won't have any trouble recognizing it. Alpha is pronounced like the "a" sound in "father". The alpha can be long or short, but it is hard for English speakers to make a distinction between the long and short forms. You can think of the short alpha as like the first "a" in "aha!" and the long alpha is like the second "a" sound (the sound is held longer). |
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Epsilon. The epsilon looks basically like the English "e" so you won't have any trouble recognizing it. Epsilon is pronounced like the "e" sound in "bet". Epsilon is always short. |
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Iota. The iota looks basically like the English "i" so you won't have any trouble recognizing it. Notice that there is no dot on the lower-case form of the iota. Iota can be long or short. Short iota is pronounced like the "i" sound in "big". The long iota is pronounced like the "i" sound in "police". Since the difference between long and short is not usually indicated in writing, you do not need to worry about this. If you pronounce the iota like the "i" in "big", you will be fine! |
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Omicron. The omicron looks basically like the English "o" so you won't have any trouble recognizing it. Omicron is pronounced like the "o" sound in "not". Omicron is always short (in fact, it's name means "o-little" - you will learn the letter for "o-big" - omega - below). |
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Upsilon. The lower-case upsilon looks like the English "u" so you won't have any trouble recognizing it. The upper-case version is tricky, though. Make sure you learn to recognize the upper-case version too! (Don't worry, there is no Greek letter that is equivalent to the English letter "y" - so it's really not that confusing!). Upsilon represents a sound not exactly found in English (it is often compared to the French "u"). Most English speakers pronounce it like the "u" sound in "flute". Upsilon can be long or short, but since the difference between long and short is not usually indicated in writing, you do not need to worry about this. |
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The next two vowels that you need to learn about are special letters that are used to indicate long vowels. Notice that the alpha, iota, and upsilon can be long or short. But epsilon is always short and omicon is always short, because there are special letters for the long forms of these two vowels.
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Eta. This is one of the hardest letters to get used to. The upper-case form and the lower-case form do not look a lot alike. The upper-case form looks like English "h" and the lower case form looks sort of like an English "n" - so you definitely need to practice this letter a lot to get used to it in Greek! Eta is pronounced like the "ey" sound in "obey". Eta is always long. |
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Omega. This letter also takes some getting used to! The upper-case form and the lower-case form do not look a lot alike, and the lower-case form looks like the English "w", which can be confusing! so you definitely need to practice this letter a lot to get used to it in Greek! Omega is pronounced like the "o" sound in "vote". Omega is always long (it's name means "o-big", as opposed to the short vowel, omicron "o-little"). |
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Okay: now you are ready to practice the vowels! 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.)
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Vowels: Set 1 | Vowels: Set 2 | Vowels: Set 3 |
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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 |
