"ο θρόνος"
Translation:The throne
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It's a masculine word, therefore its article is ο. Words in -ος are mostly masculine, some are neuter and even fewer are feminine. See here http://www.foundalis.com/lan/grknouns.htm
Are there any tricks for guessing whether to use 'ο' or 'ω'? I wrote 'θρώνος' and I want to see if there is a way to stop making such mistakes — other than practice and rote memorization, of course!
In the stem of the word, it's basically just memorising.
It's like "ee" versus "ea" in English -- they used to be pronounced differently, which is why they are spelled differently, and then the pronunciation merged but the spelling stayed separate. And so you have to memorise that "meet" (= encounter) and "meat" (= flesh) are spelled the way they are, and similarly in Greek with nouns such as χώρος (place) versus χορός (dance).
In a grammatical ending, you can use grammar to help you; for example, the verb ending for εγώ is spelled with -ω, while the masculine (second declension) noun ending is spelled with -ος, and so on.
So while you can't guess the vowel in the θρόν- part (you simply have to memorise it), you can be pretty sure that the -ος has an omicron.
You may encounter similar difficulties with ε, αι and with η, ι, υ, ει, οι -- but there, sometimes it can help to know how English spells the appropriate loanword. (For example, knowing the κοιμητήριον is spelled "cemetery" in Greek lets you know that the first three syllables can't contain ι or υ, because otherwise English would have spelled them with "i" or "y".)
I said 'the throne' and I got it wrong, when the answer was 'The throne' Why did I get that wrong?
This is not a complete sentence, but just a phrase that could occur in the middle of a sentence, so the ο is not capitalised here.
(Though the capitalisation of individual phrases is a little bit inconsistent in the course, I'm afraid.)
Can Θρόνος also be used to mean chair, or is it just the fancy type?
A "throne" refers to "the fancy type" except when used as a joke or other form.
...https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com › english noun a ceremonial chair for a sovereign, bishop, or similar figure. "King Solomon's great ivory throne" Similar: seat of state royal seat verb...LITERARY place (someone) on a throne.
Wrote όμικρον θροόνος How is one to know that the letter o should be written instead of the word όμικρομ?