45 Comments This discussion is locked.
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Here's a random suggestion that should obviously be dismissed: Let an acceptable translation for θ be the Old English/Old Norse/Icelandic letter thorn (þ). It's the same sound and is only one letter instead of being a digraph. Would anyone care? No, not likely. Is it more trouble than it's worth? I imagine so, probably. But it'd be so cool to anyone who was clever enough to think of it.
Many thanks. I'm bookmarking this. I love anything to do with language.
We could use þ for the voiceless sound and ð for the voiced one, as Icelandic does. It would go one step closer to making English spelling a phonetic system :D
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We did...hundreds of years ago. Now people think þ is a "weird p".
Fun Fact: Not only did thorn fall out of favour with the English, the French refused to put up with it at all. Their closest choice on the mediæval press/typing-system was actually y. That's where we get "ye old", which is supposed to be pronounced /ði old/, and was pronounced so by English speakers.
It, unfortunately, despite my best efforts, my very persistent, best efforts, does not appear to be making a comeback anytime soon.
No, not to be dismissed by any means. I find this very interesting.
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I'd be interested in it too! Both the þ and the ð. It's technically correct and a cool little thing. :D
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I love it! Thorn is my favourite consonant! I even spell my name with it. Ash is also cool, though...
Please give us some more information. Was it Eng. to Greek, or Greek to Eng. What you have is correct but it's in Greek. Give me some time to go check the course. Sorry, for the delay.
Well, then it is certainly correct. I'll see why it was rejected.
No, problem. What you have is exactly as what's on the Incubator. I don't know why it wasn't accepted.
@amyleebell Yes, I'm not surprised. We are working hard to get the New Tree done to leave these irregularities behind. If you can proceed with the lesson try to ignore it although it si frustrating.
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Thank you so much. Yes, I am very much enjoying the course and looking forward to the update. :)
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το γράμμα θήτα is still not accepted a year later on a "type what you hear", but maybe the new tree will fix this…
@sapollalis
What was the corrected sentence that showed up?
"το γράμμα θήτα" is still marked as incorrect, listening exercise, general strengthening on web. Says that the correct answer should be "το γράμμα θ".
We certainly hope so but as you know when it is something regulated by the Duobot we can only report it. These changes will have to be done by the tech staff and I imagine will entail a major overhauling of the program because of course, they'll have lots of other things to correct.
I know this was already reported, but when I got "Type what you hear" and got it wrong by typing "το γράμμα θήτα" instead of "το γράμμα θ". It's a bit frustrating.
I am sorry about that of course either should be accepted. There seems to be a very resistant bug causing it. If you can get beyond the first skill I'm sure you'll find the other less troublesome. I'd also like to mention that we are preparing a new tree and hope to avoid all such issues as well as adding new and more useful sentence.
το γράμμα θήτα is still not accepted. Neither is το γραμμα ταυ. As the instruction is to type in Greek what you hear, I think these are the correct responses. If Doulingo just wants a single letter response, it should say so. It is reasonable to assume the student responds in Modern Greek, not Icelandic, Olde English or Ancient Greek.
Το γράμμα θήτα and το γραμμα θ are both shown as correct so either should have been accepted. "ταυ" is another letter entirely it's equivalent to the Latin Tt and looks the same....Ττ.
I had exactly the same verbal request for Το γράμμα θήτα two questions running. The first time it gave Το γράμμα θήτα as correct, the second time it gave it as incorrect as it wanted το γραμμα θ but there was no way for me to tell which it wanted?
Do you mean it was a speaking exercise? We do have two main translations for this sentence, which means that it might cause some confusion in a listening exercise (type-what-you-hear exercise), but not in a speaking one.
Hello again, thank you for getting back to me. It was listening exercise (type what you hear), which is why I didn't know which form of the letter it needed? I can see that programming this must be a nightmare! But it would be good if both answers could be right each time i.e. the letter and its name?
What you're saying is understandable, but, unfortunately, that's how the Duolingo listening exercises work. This is a problem that pretty much arises in this kind of sentences only ("the letter xxxx"). Even if we remove one of two translations, learners might still keep typing in either of the two, and they are not the ones to blame. The thing is that we have nothing to do with programing the course, but we always discuss the issues that come up with the rest of the Duolingo volunteers and staff and this problem is yet to be solved. Thank you for your comment!
Read my comment here, third bullet point (not stated explicitly, but it falls into the same category). Check out the provided link in that comment as well.
Go here and type in any word or phrase you need and hear it pronounced by native Greek speakers.
https://forvo.com/languages/el/
And here is a link which has 7 dictionaries some of them have pronunciation.
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We call the Greek θ theta in English, pronounced /θita/ in the UK and /θeta/ in the US, and it makes the sound of the English "th" or "þ", the latter being just obsolete in Modern English.
The Greek name for it is θήτα, pronounced /tʰɛːta/ in Ancient Greek, and /θita/ in Modern. It made the /tʰ/ sound in Ancient, and makes the /θ/ sound in Modern.
I hope that answers your question well enough.
i typed "the letter t" and it said that the translation was "The letter θ"!!!!!!! What the heck!!!!!
All you need to do, if you areon the web, is to look at the Alphabet shown on the Homepage right under the lessons.
OR even easier is move your cursor over the words and the right answer will appear. Τ is not the same as Θ.
This is what I thought I heard: Το νραμα ζιτα. Why does the Theeta sound so much like they are saying sita? I always thought it was such a cool letter, but now am I to find out throughout all these centuries that even Socrates may have used it for another cheap 's' sound?! I cannot believe this yet -I must blame my untrained ear! -Any help appreciated!-
