Learn how to write the seven vowel combinations
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| 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! |
| You should be feeling pretty confident with your Greek now. You have learned all the letters of the Greek alphabet in uppercase and lowercase, so writing Greek isn’t a problem anymore, is it? But what about reading? If you’ve tried it, you probably have noticed that there are still some things you haven’t learned yet. Over the next three lessons, you’ll put the finishing touches on your Greek alphabet knowledge! |
| This lesson’s topic will be special letter combinations. There are a few combinations which have a different sound together than they have separately. For example, even though there are three ways to write the sound “ee” (“Eeta”, “Yota” and “Ipsilon”) you can also write the same sound with a combination of letters. |
| If you combine “Epsilon” and “Yota” or “Omikron” and “Yota”, they also make an “ee” sound. Take a look at this word. |
| If you sound out the first two letters, you get “eh”-“ee”, but actually you would pronounce the whole combination simply as “ee”. The word είσοδος uses this combination and means “entrance.” Let’s write it together. |
| είσοδος |
| Another combination is “Omikron”-“Yota” –put them together and “Omikron” stops being “oh” and becomes “ee”. This is a really important combination because most Greek masculine nouns end in this “Omikron”-“Yota” combination in their nominative plural form; it’s also the article for the nominative plural! “άνθρωπος” means “man” as in “mankind” or “human being”. Its singular form is “ο άνθρωπος” but the plural form becomes “οι άνθρωποι” . Let’s write these together: |
| Ο άνθρωπος |
| Οι άνθρωποι |
| In these two examples, it’s like one vowel sound overwrites the other. But there are also combinations in which two vowels create a completely different sound! |
| Remember how “Alpha” makes an “ah” sound? But if you combine it with “Yota” -- an “ee” sound, the end result is an “eh” sound! This might take some practice so let’s look at some examples. |
| A very common word using this combination is “είμαι” meaning “am” as in “I am”. So if you want to write “I’m a student” in Greek, the sentence is “Είμαι μαθητής” and the “eh” sound in “eimai” is written with this combination: |
| Είμαι μαθητής |
| When you were learning the basic alphabet you might have wondered if there is an “oo” sound in Greek. Well there is, but you need to make it with two letters instead of one. |
| In this case, it is “Omikron” combined with “Ipsilon”. The most common example is “ouzo” the famous Greek drink! v It’s written “ούζο” and for the “oo” sound we use “Omikron”-“Ipsilon”. Let’s write this too: |
| ούζο |
| How do you feel so far? You’ve learned four vowel combinations so far, so let’s see four combinations which create consonant sounds and we will be done –I promise. These ones are even a little easier I think. |
| If you take “Alpha” and “Ipsilon”, it becomes “av”. Even though there is a “v” sound in Greek, “Veeta”, for historical reasons, some words use “Alpha”-“Ipsilon” to make this sound instead. One such word is “αυγή” which is Greek for “dawn”. Let’s see how it is written: |
| αυγή |
| Now for something really tricky: on some occasions, this exact same combination, “Alpha”-“Ipsilon” is not read “av” but “af”! I know it’s a little strange, but it is in many very common words. For example the word “αυτοκίνητο” which means “car” is said with an “af” sound. Not an “av” sound. |
| αυτοκίνητο |
| Two more and we are done. These are very similar to the last two. |
| Just like how “Alpha”-“Ipsilon” makes either “av” or “af”, the same sort of thing happens with “Epsilon”-“Ipsilon”: it can be read “ev” or “ef”. For example, two very good words in Greek are “ευγενικός” meaning “polite” and “ευχαριστώ” meaning “thank you”. These two both start from the “Epsilon”-“Ipsilon” combination, but the first makes an “ev” sound and the second makes an “ef” sound. |
| ευγενικός |
| ευχαριστώ |
| So let’s recap: besides the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet, there are also some double vowel combinations which exist because of historical reasons. These combinations are: |
| “Omikron” and “Yota”: sounds like “ee”: Οι άνθρωποι |
| “Epsilon” and “Yota”: also sounds like “ee”: Είσοδος |
| “Omikron” and “Ipsilon”: sounds like “oo: Ούζο |
| “Alpha” and “Yota”: sounds like “eh”: είμαι |
| “Alpha” and “Ipsilon”: sometimes sounds like “av”: Αυγή |
| And sometimes sounds like “af”: Αυτοκίνητο |
| “Epsilon” and “Ipsilon”: sometimes sounds like “ev”: Ευγενικός |
| And sometimes sounds like “ef”: Ευχαριστώ |
| Now it's time for Stefania’s insights. |
| While this is not a grammar lesson, here’s something that might help you better understand Greek, and remember at least one of those combinations: the combination “Epsilon-ipsilon”, which make an “ev” or “ef” sound, actually means “good” in Ancient Greek. This means that almost all words starting with this combination are “good” things; the words “evgeneekos” and “efhareestoh” we wrote here are such words. When you come across a Greek text, see if you can spot other such words and check their meanings; I think this is going to help you remember them more easily. |
| That’s it for this lesson. In our next lesson we will look at the last sounds that are formed by consonant combinations –there are only six combinations for five sounds, so they won’t be a problem either! |
| See you in the next lesson! |
| Ya hara! |
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