Learn how to write eeta and psee
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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 lessons we covered 8 letters of the Greek alphabet –do you remember them? They were “Alpha”, “Mee”, “Taf”, “Yota”, “Kappa”, “Omikron”, “Pee” and “Seegma”, right? Some of these letters were very familiar to English speakers and a couple of them were new. I’m sure that you didn’t have any problem remembering and writing them so in this lesson we will learn two more, one very familiar and one rather exotic! |
| Our first letter is a vowel, which you might have heard called by its English name, Eta. In Greek, though, it is called “Eeta” which makes an “ee” sound. Like I said before, the writing will look familiar, at least in the uppercase form since it’s the same as the English “h”. |
| The uppercase Eeta is handwritten like this: |
| H |
| And this is what the lowercase “Eeta” looks like. It *kinda* looks like a lowercase “h”, but with the vertical line shortened. |
| It is handwritten like this: |
| η |
| Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: |
| And here’s the lowercase form: |
| This character is pretty easy since the similarities to the English “h” are big, aren’t they? So let’s step up the difficulty with our second letter, the strange looking “Psee”! You may have heard it in English called “psi”. There is no corresponding sound in English, it makes a “ps” sound, like “p” and “s” said at the same time. |
| Here’s the uppercase “Psee”. It looks like the trident, the symbol of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, doesn’t it? If you ever forget how to pronounce this letter, just remember “Psee” is for Poseidon and his trident! |
| It is handwritten like this: |
| Ψ |
| And this is what the lowercase “Psee” looks like. It’s the same as the uppercase “Psee” but written lower on the line with the vertical line going below it. |
| It is handwritten like this: |
| ψ |
| Let’s do it again- Here’s the uppercase form: |
| And here’s the lowercase form: |
| Did you get it? It’s not so hard, right? You just write something like a “u” and then add a vertical line! |
| We now know ten letters. That’s almost half of the Greek alphabet and the possibilities for new words increase exponentially with each new letter! Let’s try our hand in three new words, all using the exotic “Psee”. Let’s have a look at them. |
| The first is “ψητό” meaning “roast” as in “ψητό κρέας” or “roast meat”. Let’s write this together: |
| ψητό |
| Not that hard is it? And speaking of “ψητό” or “roast” what do you need to put it in the oven? A “ταψί”, or pan. Let’s write this one: |
| ταψί |
| Do you feel up for something a little more complicated? How about the word “elegant”? In Greek this is “κομψός” and even though writing it isn’t that hard, saying it is a little tricky since you have to combine the “m” and the “ps” sounds! For the moment, though, let’s concentrate on the writing part! |
| κομψός |
| One grammatical note: “kompsos” is masculine so you can use it only for masculine nouns. For feminine nouns it would be “kompsee” while for neutral nouns, “kompso”; |
| Let’s do a brief recap of everything we learned so far: We have “Alpha”, “Mee”, “Taf”, “Yota”, “Kappa”, “Omikron”, “Pee”, “Sigma”, “Eeta” and “Psee”. OK? |
| Now it's time for Stefania’s insights. |
| You might have noticed that this lesson’s “Eeta” sounds exactly like the “Yota” we learned in Lesson 2. Why is that? Well, it has to do with the complicated history of “Eeta.” At first, it is generally believed to be pronounced like a long version of “Epseelon” and sounded like “Eh”. After the Classical period, however, its sound started to change and merged with yota, as did another letter. Trust me, you don’t want me to go on! Just learn them as “ee” (like all Greeks) and you’ll be perfectly fine”! |
| So, do you want to learn how to write the name of our home planet? In this lesson you learned how to write half of it; in our next Alfaveeto made easy lesson you will learn the other half. Don’t miss it! |
| Ya hara! |
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