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- Topic: Greek >
- "το γράμμα ψι"
26 Comments
Interesting. In Greek every letter evidently has its own separate name, of up to three syllables. In English our letters hardly have names, we just use the letter itself spoken with a conventional vowel sound. (For M, we always say "em", not "am" or "om" or "mee"). I wonder why do we say "bee" like beta rather than "eb", but "ef" rather than "fee" like φ? I suppose our biggest anomolies are "aitch" for which there is no direct Greek equivalent ( it used to be just a breathing), and "Double-U", which just seems a late addition to the alphabet. We have even split up two letters into alternative versions, I/J and U/V
Fun fact about the double-u thing: in French, it is called a double-v, because it looks like two v's next to each other (w vs vv look alike.) And it is also pronounced like a v in some languages, ex. German or Polish.
Maybe w/double-u got its weird name from that? Sometimes, depending on how you might write it, it would look like two u's.
I think the English names for our letters derive from the Latin alphabet (which itself is, via Etruscan, derives from the Greek alphabet), which would explain why we have single vowel sounds for most of the letters. "Zed" for non-US English speakers is the exception, though; it derives from Latin/Greek "zeta".
If you check out this link:
you'll get a good overview of the Greek alphabet and what it sounds like. And no...Zi does not equal ψι.
If there is a glitch you can report it here...
https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/articles/204728264-How-do-I-report-a-bug-
Thank you, Jaye. I do realize that I misheard. I can clearly hear the psi sound. I just don't understand why it marked it correct when clearly ζ is not ψ.
The reason I asked is because I am new to Greek and I didn't want to ignorantly call this a glitch if there is some deeper rule at play here that I am unaware of.
If no one else has anything to say regarding this, I will report it as a glitch.
1587
That appears to be a place for discussing how pleasant the voices sound. This is not what I'm complaining about.
That is the place to report>
The Official Duolingo Link for audio PROBLEMS
This is where complaints are made.
None of those comments are about "how pleasant" the voice is.
They all refer to problems from how "unpleasant the voice is" to
mispronunciation of words etc.
Anything to do with the audio should be reported there.
798
The audio used to be MUCH better and sounded like real people. Now it sounds like a computer voice and does not pronounce many things clearly. I've been using Duolingo Greek since it was available and I'm very disappointed. This time it pronounced what should clearly be the name of the letter psi as two seperate letters.
If you contact the link I give just above yours, Greek Course Audio Update
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/38493063
which is designated for these problems you'll see that Duo has changed its audio system and there are many problems with it. However, the information we received just yesterday is that they are going to remove it and install another and much better system.
Check out this site:
Especially these:
HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE ALPHABET AND MORE:
http://www.xanthi.ilsp.gr/filog/ch1/alphabet/alphabet.asp?vletter=1
And this:
AUDIO: TO LISTEN TO ANY WORD YOU WANT. SPOKEN BY NATIVE SPEAKERS:
If you check out this link:
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/22040507
you'll get a good overview of the Greek alphabet and what it sounds like.
TIPS TO MAKE LEARNING EASIER + HOW TO REPORT A PROBLEM
These tips will show you exactly:
-
which words to use (Drop Down Hints) and the proper spelling (no guessing needed),
-
how to find the explanations for the grammar of each Skill (Tips¬es),
-
what to do if your sentence is rejected.....and much more:
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/22424028
And check out the Greek Forum here with more links. https://forum.duolingo.com/topic/936