Hey everyone!

This post is technically an announcement and an explanation of why we no longer accept the transliteration (Greeklish) of Greek sentences.

The team had created a basic set of transliteration rules (the ‘Greeklish Alphabet’), because we thought it would be helpful back when the Greek course still hadn’t been released for Android or iOS devices. There was (and still is) no automatic keyboard, so for more than a few learners, there wasn’t any way for them to type in Greek.

We had more than one discussion posted about how to add a Greek keyboard for the web version, and had also posted way more than one comment on several sentence discussions of the first few skills, but unfortunately, the reports kept on coming.

However, since the course is now available on Android and iOS devices, our lives -as well as the learners’- have become much, much easier. We figured that Greeklish is no longer needed, and decided to drop that concept completely. This means that Greeklish translations will be permanently deleted.

Other reasons behind dropping Greeklish include:

1) Ineffective learning. Greek is definitely not the easiest language for an English speaker to learn. Different pronunciation, different rules, but also a different alphabet. We are not trying to teach learners perfect Greek, but we do want them to learn proper Greek. The only way that can probably be achieved is by getting the learners used to the Greek alphabet, so that they can easily follow and understand proper grammar, syntax and most importantly, spelling and accent rules. They will be able to read and write Greek as it is found outside Duolingo.

2) Way too many transliteration options. Due to the variety of spelling combinations in Greek, different letters produce the same sound (i.e. the letters ι, η, υ, but also the diphthongs οι and ει produce the same sound, that being “ee”.) So we would have to accept each and every possible transliterating option, because it technically wouldn’t be wrong, in terms of pronunciation (According to the Greeklish alphabet, λουλούδι should be luludi, but why not looloodi or luludee, or even looloodee?).

There would be way too many options for each word, making it almost impossible (if not really time-consuming) to include all of them. And even so, none of them would be close enough to the actual Greek spelling and pronunciation.

3) Way too many reports for alternative spellings. The reason previously mentioned is probably what actually makes learners “overlook” a fixed transliteration alphabet, and keep reporting the same sentence over and over, because their own spelling seems to also be correct.

We do hope that this is all clear and understandable. The sole purpose of our decision is to improve this course.

Lastly, please don’t forget to always check the sentence discussions, as well as the forum discussions. Any question or concern you have may have already been answered or discussed. ^.^

To get the Greek keyboard for your Android or iOS device, check the links posted here https://www.duolingo.com/comment/20607862

To get the Greek keyboard for your PC, check the links posted here https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22040507

Happy learning,

-The Greek Team