"Η ημέρα"

[McDeeh]

Alright, now what's the difference between μέρα and ημέρα?
Is it like οκτό/οχτό, επτά/εφτά, αδελφός/αδερφός?
Does it have to do with katharevousa and demotic?

[troll1995]

They have no difference and both are used in demotic.

[teopap2]

Also οκτώ/οχτώ

[Diana932243]

Another alternative form that bugs me for some reason: εννέα and εννιά. In Greek school as a child (long long ago!) I learned nine as εννέα but the Pimsleur course uses εννιά. I just looked it up in Wiktionary and it actually gives a statistic on usage with εννέα being used 75% of the time and εννιά only used 25% of the time. That makes me feel better about sticking with εννέα! I like knowing about the alternate forms so that if I ever do get to go to Greece I will have a better chance of understanding people.

[Dimitra956826]

Believe me, as a native, I hear εννιά being used way more often than εννέα, for some reason. So if you ever visit Greece, I bet εννιά is something you'll hear pretty often as well. But εννέα isn't wrong, so don't worry about it! ^.^

[troll1995]

I bet wictionary gives usage percentages in written speech. I'd say that in written speech εννέα is more common, but in verbal it's εννιά.

[Diana932243]

The following confirms that it is just an alternate form. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/μέρα

[vmar33]

Greek Word of the Day (Words and Phrases)
https://www.innovativelanguage.com/word-of-the-day/greek