Learn the top five Greek mistakes to avoid
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| Hi everyone. |
| Welcome to The Ultimate Greek Pronunciation Guide. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn the top 5 Greek pronunciation mistakes to avoid. |
| These are common mistakes that Greek learners make. So pay close attention and make sure that you don't make these same mistakes too. |
| Are you ready? Then let's get started! |
| 1: MISPRONOUNCING GREEK VOWELS |
| Unlike English, Greek has only five vowel sounds. |
| α, ε, ι, o, oυ |
| The most common vowel sound in the English language is the schwa, which sounds like the A in the word 'about'. This is the most neutral and the easiest vowel sound you can make because it requires the least amount of effort to produce. |
| In rapid speech, many of the vowel sounds in English are often reduced to this easy-to-pronounce schwa sound. |
| In Greek however, there is no such schwa sound. All of the five vowel sounds are distinct, so if you don't pronounce them clearly, there's a high chance that you'll end up mispronouncing these vowels altogether. |
| The only way to correct this problem is to practice pronouncing the five Greek vowel sounds cleanly and limiting yourself to using just these five vowel sounds and nothing in-between. |
| But don't worry. We'll cover all five Greek vowel sounds in the next lesson. |
| 2: MISPRONOUNCING γ |
| Learners often mispronounce this letter as a G or a H, and often times making it sound too 'throaty'. |
| This letter is tricky because the pronunciation changes depending on the surrounding vowels. |
| When it precedes an I or an E vowel... It's pronounced very much like an English Y sound. For example... |
| "γη |
| γένος" |
| When it precedes an A, O or U however, it's pronounced like a loosely held G sound. |
| "γάτα |
| γόβα |
| γούνα" |
| Try to listen to as many native pronunciations of this letter as you can, and of course, make sure to practice pronouncing and memorising all of the variations! |
| We'll take an in-depth look at all of these sounds in lesson 4. |
| 3: CONFUSING θ and δ |
| θ, δ Although these are familiar sounds to English speakers, the 'th' (thin) and 'th' (they) sounds often get mixed up. |
| This is mainly a recognition issue, as both of these letters look similar in lowercase form and both are dental consonants. |
| You need to learn to recognise and pronounce the right consonant at the right time through practice, otherwise, you'll be easily misunderstood. |
| Greek learners also commonly mispronounce the "th" (they) sound as a D sound. This is likely due to the fact that many loan words in English, have their roots in Greek and were rendered as a D sound instead of a "th" sound. |
| Just remember that this letter is *never* pronounced as a D in Greek. It's *always* pronounced as a "th" sound. |
| δ |
| We'll take an in-depth look at these sounds in lesson 4. |
| 4: PRONOUNCING ρ AS AN ENGLISH P AND χ AS AN ENGLISH X |
| This mistake is apparent. Both of these Greek letters look very similar to the English letters P and X, however, the way you read them in Greek is totally different. Listen to Stefania pronounce this letter by itself and then in a few words. |
| "ρ |
| άρια |
| τρίζω |
| πρόβα" |
| "χ |
| χαρά |
| χορός |
| χούφτα" |
| Reading Greek texts out loud can help you pick up mistakes and make corrections when you misread these letters. |
| We'll take an in-depth look at all of these sounds in lesson 4. |
| 5: IGNORING ACCENTUATION |
| Accents can be daunting for many Greek learners because they seem very foreign. This is especially true if your language doesn't contain any of them. However, they're nothing to be afraid of, as Greek primarily uses just one accent. Furthermore, it's usage is very simple. |
| This accent just indicates that you need to stress the syllable. That's it! |
| Compare a few words that *do not* have an accent, with words that *do* have an accent and notice how the pronunciation changes. |
| κάλος |
| καλός |
| νόμος |
| νομός |
| θέα |
| θεά |
| Notice how the accented syllables are emphasized? It's pronounced a little bit louder and longer than the surrounding syllables. And that's all there is to it! Wasn't that easy? |
| We'll take an in-depth look at accentuation in Greek in lesson 6. |
| Now you know the top 5 Greek pronunciation mistakes to avoid. |
| Try to be careful so that you don't commit these same mistakes. Still feel a bit worried? Over the rest of this series, we'll cover all of these topics in depth. |
| In the next lesson, we'll start learning vowel sounds in Greek. |
| Have you been guilty of any of these five mistakes? Have you learned any tricks to deal with them? Let us know in the comments and share them with other students like you! |
| Stick with us and you'll overcome these quickly! |
| See you in the next Ultimate Greek Pronunciation Guide lesson! |
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