Learn how to write taf and yota
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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! |
| In our previous lesson, we learnt two letters, “Alpha” and “Mee”. Remember them? Good! In this lesson we’ll move on to two more letters, see how they are written, and what we can do with them! |
| Our first letter this time is “Taf” –a consonant, and its sound is “t”. You may have heard it called “tau”, which is its usual name in English. I’m sure its uppercase form will seem very familiar since it is the same as the English “T” |
| This is what Taf looks like in uppercase and lowercase: |
| Here is Taf in uppercase. You should already be an expert at this shape! |
| It is handwritten like this: T |
| And this is what the lowercase Taf looks like when it’s printed. I think it’s easier than the lowercase “t” in English since it’s just an uppercase “T” but smaller! |
| When it is handwritten, the shape looks a little different -- like this: |
| τ |
| Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: Τ |
| And here’s the lowercase form: τ |
| Did you get it? I’m sure you already knew how to write this, didn’t you? |
| Let's move on to our second letter for this lesson. This is a vowel that you may have heard called Iota. In Greek, though it is called “Yota” and it makes the sound “ee”. Again, this will look very familiar since its appearance is the same as the English “I”. Here’s what Yota looks like in uppercase and lowercase: |
| This is what the uppercase Yota looks like –as I said before, it’s exactly the same as the English “I”. |
| It is handwritten like this: I |
| And this is what the lowercase Yota looks like. Notice how the bottom curves slightly when it is handwritten. |
| ι |
| Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: I |
| And here’s the lowercase form: ι |
| All these were pretty easy, weren’t they? Let’s see what we can do with them. By themselves, Taf and Yota spell only one word in Greek: “τι”. Even though it’s a very small word, it’s very important and used all the time in Greek because it means “what”! For example the first word in the question “τι ώρα είναι;” which means “what time is it?”. Other examples of its use are “τι θα φάμε;” or “what will we eat?”. This word is also used in “τι κάνεις;” which means “how are you?” |
| [H screen] |
| So, let’s write this very important two-letter word! |
| τι |
| Since these were super-easy, let’s try something using the all four letters we know. Do you remember the first two? They were Alpha and Mee, right? Let’s see them once again! |
| And if we put these together with Taf and Yota, what do we have? “μάτι” (“mati”) which means “eye”. Easy, huh? And if we add another Alpha in the end, we get “μάτια” (“matia”) which is the plural of “eye”: “eyes”. Let’s write this together! |
| ματια |
| Now it's time for Stefania’s insights. |
| As we said in our previous lesson, the best way to master the Alfaveeto, the Greek alphabet is by writing it as much as you can. So please, don’t neglect this! |
| Another great help would be to start trying to recognize the letters you’ve learned so far in Greek texts; if you can’t find any texts, you can always check out the transcripts on GreekPod101.com’s Advanced Audio Blog lessons. Don’t worry if you can’t understand the words yet, you *will* be able to practice recognizing the letters you’re learning here! |
| That’s it for this lesson! Do you know how to write “OK” in Greek? Check our next lesson and see for yourselves (hint, it won’t be difficult). |
| See you in the next Alfaveeto made easy lesson! Ya hara! |
Comments
HideI would like to slow down the sentence about the rice. It is too fast for me even on the slow setting. Thank you.
Hi Yang,
I'm so happy you are finding value in this program already :) I think even the free 1-week trial we offer is enough for most people to get to know the lessons and help them decide whether to continue or not. Hopefully you'll be on board with us till you reach your language goals.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
All the best,
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
i had suspicious idea to register as i had bad online shopping experience before.
therefore i only submit one month trial, unbelievable , this is very helpful, most interesting lesson .
i will continue and thank you so much
Hi hany,
Thank you for the ❤️!
If you have any questions, let us know.
All the best,
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
Many thanks for the class, it's very good. ❤️
Hi José,
Thank you for reaching out.
You will often see inconsistencies in the romanization of Greek. That's because officially there's no standard system to romanize Greek, so every content creator uses their own interpretation. Some try to use the letter that best resembles the original Greek letter, and some others simplify the vowel sounds to aeiou.
Over the last years we've been making an effort to standardize the romanization, but older entries might present inconsistencies with newer ones. You can simply ignore this as the romanization is meant to be an aid and not something you need to study from or memorize. I personally don't support the use of romanization as I think it is like a crutch and slows down the speed of mastering Greek reading skills simply because many students will read the romanization and ignore the Greek script.
I hope this clarifies your question.
All the best,
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
In the Vocabulary, in the two examples for the word "rice", we have RÝZI and RÍZI. Why are they different?
Many thanks for the class, it's very good. ❤️
José Emílio
Hello Janet,
Thanks for taking the time to post. 👍
We're glad to have you here! ❤️
If you ever need any help throughout your studies with us, please feel free to message and we will get back to you asap.
Cheers,
Ali
Team GreekPod101.com
👍
Yasu Nart,
Thank you for contacting me.
Are you referring to the graphics of the video? They are all in lowercase, if they were in uppercase, the two letters would be taller. They look like they are uppercase because of how the font has been designed. You can check how the font looks like when I introduce the letters individually.
You can also install Greek on your system, download some Greek fonts and experiment with the different styles, or alternatively, you can go to Google Fonts, select a Greek script font, and compare them there. You will see many fonts use a T or and I that in their lowercase form, they look like the uppercase form, only smaller.
I hope this helps!
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
Yasas Stefania
In the word : '' Eye '' why the first two letters (Mee) and (Alpha ) where in lowercase where as (Taf ) and ( Yota) where in uppercase ?
Thank you so much in advance
Hi Harry,
No, it's Taf. It starts with its own letter.
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
Ταυ sounds like daf, is it daf?
Hi Harry,
Today it's γιώτα. Ιώτα was the ancient spelling, as you can see on the dictionary entry as well:
https://bit.ly/3iXJkbe
Here's a complete list:
https://www.greekpod101.com/lesson/all-about-2-learn-the-greek-writing-system/
I know it's confusing because the English spelling is based on the ancient spelling (see also γ, κ, λ), however, in Greek, the correct spelling is the modern one.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
Ι is Ιώτα or γιώτα?
Hi Αmy,
Thank you for your comment.👍
Check out our worksheets here:
https://www.greekpod101.com/greek-alphabet/
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Cheers,
Lena
Team GreekPod101.com
Hello,
Are there any printable pages to copy letters?
thank you
Amy
Hi Firuz,
Thank you for the ❤️️!
All the best,
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com
❤️️
Hi Meredith,
Please, no need to apologize! It's normal to ask this when starting with Greek but worry not because I have the solution for you. Simply follow the following guide to install the Greek keyboard on your device:
https://cdn.innovativelanguage.com/greekpod101/static/media/typing-in-greek.pdf
If you have any more questions, please let us know.
All the best,
Stefania
Team GreekPod101.com