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Look. I was raised in a Greek household. I just want to learn a little more so I can communicate with my family. 'δ' is pronounced with a 'th' sound and not a hard 'd' sound. Please fix this, nothing bothers me more than mispronunciation, even if I don't know the language too well.
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thank you, but can't it be both right ? lamtha or lamda ? on wipkidda it's lamda .. and my teacher said it pronunced as d or sometimes th .. i need answer please.
See here for the list of possible answers we have: >
"l or lamda or lambda or lamtha or λ"<
If your answer was not accepted please contribute to the course by telling us where you found it so we can correct it. Was it on the tree, a listening, a multiple choice, a strengthen skills practice etc?
Be sure to read the Tips & Hints at the top left and the Greek Forums here. Best of luck and please come back if you have any other questions we're here to help.
Listening exercises ("type what you hear") can only accept a single answer.
The exercises containing letter names are unfortunately difficult in this respect as it's not clear whether you're supposed to type just the letter or to write out its name.
Listening exercises should be disabled at least for the exercises containing just a single letter, so if you hear λάμδα you should write out λάμδα rather than just typing λ.
There are still some short phrases where it's not possible to determine whether they contain the single letter or the letter name.
The next version of the Greek lesson tree will approach teaching the alphabet a bit differently.
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Hi, thanks for your suggestion. But also, is it pronounced like lam-tha or lam-the?
Go to the Tips & notes for how to pronounce the letters in Greek.
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I agree it is pronounced with th sound noy a d sound. But I don't umderstand why you are saying this because it wasn't missedpronounced, we uaed the th sound
It could be because that post is from 11 months ago and the audio has been changed since then... ;)
perhaps you should make a difference between translate and transcribe...
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Translating a word, and transcribing the sound of a letter: very different, and very confusing in the exercises.
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You don't. If you use windows, there is a pre-installed Greek keyboard, go to control panel and languages, and add Greek.
And you can buy stckers to put on the keys that have both English and greek letters
Thank you for your idea. However, there is no need to purchase anything. Check this out https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23430853
You will see that more than half the letters are the same as in English and another third are similar....There are only 4 letters you'll need to search for. I suggest just a bit of cellophane tape (Scotch tape) at the beginning. YOu will soon get used to the keyboard.
Another fuller link which might help. https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22040507
You can also use virtual keyboard online, for example : https://www.branah.com/greek
Or use the Character Map. The translation is wrong: the English spelling has a "b": lambda.
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On another listening exercise I heard the Greek for k and wrote κάππα, which was marked wrong in favor of κ. On this one I duly wrote λ, which was marked wrong in favor of λάμδα. Some consistency please??
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Yes, there are big problems in the consistancy. I think they are working on it.
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6 months later and they STILL haven't fixed this. It should accept both forms, and if not, at least be consistent.
I can't believe they took it out of beta without fixing this issue. I waited to start this course until it was out of beta, but apparently that did me no good.
(Sorry, I'm ranting; I'm getting so frustrated with this ridiculous bug on EVERY letter. I work in quality assurance; six months to fix such a major bug—one that would be easy enough to fix—is appalling. I guess I'm quitting the course until they fix it. sigh)
It's not the course maintainers' decision when a course leaves beta -- Duolingo HQ does that, based in part (I believe) on the volume of problem reports (once they drop below a certain level).
I apologise for the alphabet section.
I've disabled the audio for single letters (e.g. λ, σ) so if you get one and hear "sigma" it should be σίγμα.
I'm not aware of any way to get listening exercises to accept multiple possibilities -- so this problem is not as easy to fix with the tools that course maintainers have as you might think (or as we might wish).
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This is much better, thank you. Now I can concentrate on learning Greek instead of trying to guess what the computer wants! :) Much less frustration.
I'm glad it helps!
I'm not sure what can best be done with "το γράμμα σ" or "μ μαμά" and the like.
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Duolingo HQ needs to get their act together. ;)
Your workaround sounds good, though. Thank you!
Please don't give up!
There are some bits of the course that are not that great in the current version (and one of them unfortunately is the alphabet section which is right at the beginning).
But once you're past that, it should get better.
Two other things to perhaps watch out for later on is ένα(ν), το(ν), τη(ν) where the choice of keeping the final letter nu or not is not always consistent, and words which should have two accents when followed by an unstressed short word often don't in the current course.
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Now that you've provided a way to predict what it's looking for in the "type what you hear" exercises, I'll give it another go. :)
So for the letter δ, is it actually pronounced THelta? Instead of delta? Can an authority clarify this? Thanks!
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It is pronounced /ð/, like "th" in the words "the" and "then". The sound /d/ in Greek is written "ντ".
Every word of two or more syllables has one of them which carries the main stress of the word.
The vowel in that stressed syllable gets a little tonos mark above it.
So you use ά (alpha with tonos) if it is the vowel of a stressed syllable.
The letter λάμδα is pronounce "LAM-tha" with stress on the first syllable, so it's written λάμδα.
If the accent had been on the second syllable, lam-THA, then it would have been λαμδά.
Leaving off the accent completely, as in λαμδα, is just wrong -- the accents are part of the spelling of the word.
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CA/US keyboard, type: lamda
Greek keyboard, type: l;amda
'Λ'(uppercase)/'λ'(lowercase)
'Λάμδα' Greek name
'Lambda' English name
'Lamda' Pronounciation
'λάμδα' is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet
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Can someone explain what this means? Is it a word or something? I have no clue, I have had 0 experience with Greek
λάμδα is the name of the letter Λ λ.
(Sort of like how "aitch" is the name of the letter H h in English.)
"λάμδα is the name of one of the letters in the Greek alphabet. It looks like this when used in a word: Λ or λ.
See here for more information about the Greek alphabet...and much more.
These links will not only show you how to get the Greek keyboard but also how to find the Greek letters on it.
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22040507
It will also help you learn the alphabet and where to find other useful links.
And here is another to help you navigate Duolingo
FAQ - General Questions, Bugs & Reports
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/23799672
Some simple rules to get you started:
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Always read the comments before posting.
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Read the Tips & notes right below the list of lessons on your Home page
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Read the drop down hints. Pass your cursor over a word and a list of words will appear.
Every word of more than one syllable has a stressed syllable (which has to be one of the last three syllables).
That stressed syllable is, as in English, pronounced a bit more loudly. (Rather than, say, at a higher pitch.)
The vowel in that stressed syllable is marked with an accent (called tonos in Greek).
For example, the words νόμος "law" and νομός "nome, prefecture" are distinguished by the fact that the first word is accented on the first syllable (NO-mos) and the second word is accented on the second syllable (no-MOS).
Thus the spelling λάμδα shows that the word is stressed on the first syllable, because the first alpha has the tonos on it.
There is no difference in pronunciation (as in vowel quality or quantity) between a vowel with tonos and one without; the vowel is not pronounced longer or slightly differently (as with English "long e" in "beet" versus "short e" in "bet", or the like); the tonos just indicates the position of the word accent.
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In school we were taught that it is lambda, β was beta, γ was gamma, ζ - dzeta, μ - myu, ν -nyu. I think, it was Old Greek pronunciation.
Yes, it seems you were taught Ancient Greek. It's not unusual.
I presume this was a listening exercise -- we can't make alternatives for those and so only one version is accepted.
The good news is that individual letters should only have listening exercises for the spelled-out version of the name, so if you hear "λάμδα" then you know that you have to type "λάμδα" and not just "λ" (which would sound like "llllll" rather than like "lamtha" after all).
For little phrases such as το κακό τ, it's still ambiguous unfortunately.
This is something we hope to improve in the next version of the course.
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How is a capital 'L' at the start of the word 'Lamda' wrong - when we're typing in English?
