Recognising The Greek Alphabet - Alpha Beta

THE BIG GREEK LETTERS
I turned on the Greek alphabet which I had installed and now appears when I click on the English flag at the top of my screen and down drop the flags and names of the other alphabets.
I accidentally typed in Greek letters the English words:

ΤΗΕ ΒΙΓ ΓΡΕΕΚ ΛΕΤΤΕΡΣ

Here are Greek small letters for The small greek letters

Τηε σμαλλ γρεεκ λεττερσ -

There are two ways to learn the Greek alphabet. One is by recognising single letters. The other is by recognising common words.

I learned to read English as a toddler in kindergarten from a sentence starting 'John and Janet went for a walk'. It continued something like: 'They walked with a cat and a dog. They stopped under a tree. They sat down for a picnic.' Each sentence was on a different page and illustrated.

Learning Using Initial Letters
When I visited Greece for the first time on a trip for youngsters I learned to speak words which I heard repeatedly such as Kali mera (Good morning) and Kali spera (Good evening). I remembered that m for morning was m for mera, and the other word was evening.

Whilst typing this I thought of another memory aid. S for Spera and S for Stars which come out at night.

When I returned to Greece a few years later on a press trip to Thessalonika I sat on a coach coming back into Athens and saw the same word written on overhead gantries several times, a word with a big oval in it. I eventually asked the guide to tell me what the word said. The word was Athens. I looked again and realised that the word contained the letter Theta. I was so pleased that I had recognised it.

On the plane coming home I looked at a sign over the door. I recognised that it was Exodus, for exit. Exodus - the word from the bible.

So, these stories illustrate that there are three ways to learn Greek, by hearing it, by seeing whole words, and by learning the alphabet, letter by letter.

Most of the free systems on line try to teach the letters quickly or not at all, whilst then moving onto whole words and a button you can click on to get the sound.

But when it comes to typing in your answers, you need to know the letters. I have always wanted to learn the alphabet and am now devising mnemonics (memory aids).

Again there are two ways you can do it. One is by rote: Alpha beta ... Keep learning a new letter at a time until you can say the whole alphabet.

The other is to move out the letters you already know. (Such as Alpha is A.) I is Iota. K is Kappa.
Then look at the sets of new letters, work out:

1 OLD SHAPE NEW SOUND - P
Which letters you confuse with the same sign but different pronunciation in English.  Easy to recognise - but hard to remember what the new sound is.
Greek Rho or R is written as an English P. Starting with the English, I learn P is R, 'PR' as in the initials for Public Relations reminds me that when I see P in Greek writing it is R.
He is Eta like the word Heater.


2 Simple New Letters which are totally new.
The easy ones are simple combinations of two strokes. Lambda or L looks like an A missing the horizontal bar. I tried remembering it as an L turned on its side, but that memory aid didn't stick. However, when I visualised it as a pair of legs, a man standing with feet apart, I found that easily remembered.  L for Legs:

Gamma is like a signpost pointing right for GO!

3 Confusing New Letters
I confused phi or F which looks like a circle with a line through it vertically (overhanging the O) but that looks similar to the O with a horizontal sign through the middle. One if F and the other is Th. Which is which.

Theta looks like your tongue horizontal between your teeth saying TH.  Theta has the horizontal which you see across the top of the letter T and half way up the letter H.

You can start by remembering the other one is F simply by process of elimination. If it is not TH it must be f.  It looks like a fish mouth opening and trying to eat something too large to swallow. Oh (four letter word starting with F). Phi, F.

5 Weird Curves
PSI
Psi pronounced ps, looks like two snakes painting in different directions, making a threatening s sound, ps. Or, if you don't like snakes, think of two whispering human lookouts, one is looking left, the other looking right. They are whispering PS! Short for PSST.

5 Letters which you can recognise when they are capital letters but look different in small size (lower case) or handwriting.

More tomorrow.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, English teacher, language teacher, speaker.