Learn how to write zeeta and ksee
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
| 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! |
| Now this is a reason to celebrate! In this lesson we finish with the Greek alphabet; while you were practicing letters two-by-two, we managed to cover the entire Greek alphabet, one of the oldest writing systems on this planet. |
| Do you remember all of them? If you feel confident, let’s move onto your second-to-last letter! |
| This letter is called “Zeeta”, but it is sometimes called Zeta in English. The sound “Zeeta” makes is – as you’d expect – a “z” sound and as for looks, there’s a striking resemblance to the last letter of the English alphabet. |
| At first glance, the lowercase “Zeeta” looks a lot different from the uppercase. But is it really? |
| This is the uppercase “Zeeta”. |
| It is handwritten like this: Ζ |
| And this is the lowercase “Zeeta”. |
| It is handwritten like this: ζ |
| They are quite similar, I think, so pay attention to the differences: it’s very important to use curved lines in the lowercase version. |
| Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: Ζ |
| And here’s the lowercase form: ζ |
| So let’s go to our last letter –literally! This is also unique to Greek, appearance-wise but you’ll recognize the sound. In English, it is often called /sai/ but its name is “Ksee”, it sounds like “ks” and looks like this. |
| It looks strange but the uppercase is just three parallel lines. As for the lowercase, it’s like trying to write the three parallel lines in one stroke –let’s try it! |
| Here’s the uppercase “Ksee”. |
| It is handwritten like this: Ξ |
| And this is what the lowercase “Ksee” looks like. |
| It is handwritten like this: ξ |
| Again, I don’t think “Ksee” will be a problem because you already know the sound from the English “x”. So focus on the writing and see if you can make it as smooth as possible. One pitfall is confusing the lowercase “Zeeta” with the lowercase “Ksee” but I think there is a clear difference, isn’t there? |
| Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: Ξ |
| And here’s the lowercase form: ξ |
| There you go! There are all the letters! Let’s reinforce with some sample words. |
| The first word today is “ζωη” meaning “life” –an important word, don’t you think? Let’s write it! |
| ζωη |
| As for “Ksee”, an easy word that begins with it is “ξυλο” meaning “wood” –it also means “a beating” as in the phrase “Έφαγα ξυλο”, “I got beaten up!” Shall we write it together? |
| ξυλο |
| It’s time for our final recap. This time, though, I will put the letters in the order they appear in the Greek alphabet. Please, remember them in this order! |
| “Alpha”, “Veeta”, “Gama”, “Delta”, “Epseelon”, “Zeeta”, “Eeta”, “Theeta”, “Yota”, “Kappa”, “Lamda”, “Mee”, “Nee”, “Ksee”, “Omikron”, “Pee”, “Ro”, “Sigma”, “Taf”, “Ipsilon”, “Fee”, “Hee”, “Psee” and “Omega”. |
| Now it's time for Stefania’s insights. |
| So. We’ve finished with the alphabet –but there’s still more to learn. As you might have noticed there are some sounds which haven’t been covered yet and which are formed by combining some of the letters you already know. It might sound complicated, but it isn’t! |
| Also, I’ll tell you a couple of things about punctuation and accents. Until our next lesson, please practice the alphabet as a whole, in the order I taught you in this lesson, in both uppercase and lowercase –but be careful not to forget the ending “Seegma”! |
| Do you want to see what these combined letters look like? You’ll have to check the next lesson for the first set of those combinations, so check it out as soon as possible! |
| See you in the next Alfaveeto made easy lesson! |
| Ya hara! |
Comments
Hide