7 ms·
Greek Alphabet Cards
- romeinaday 5mo agono download or buy link?
- random_quark 4mo agoHi I made these... I just put together a small page for updates while I finalise printing/manufacturing: https://www.randomquark.com/alphashapes https://www.randomquark.com/alphashapes The feedback in this thread has been incredibly useful for refining some of the design.
- epilys 5mo ago> However, I haven’t found any such cards for Greek characters, so I think mine are the first in Greek. Huh? A simple web search shows many, many, many results.
- EstanislaoStan 5mo agoI tried searching and even had Claude search in modern Greek and didn't find specifically cards with objects shaped like the letters. Can you share what you found?
- tokai 5mo agoSearch for Greek Flashcards.
- EstanislaoStan 5mo agoJust did and still not seeing exactly what OP has made where the object looks like the letter. There are a few where the letters are abused to vaguely look like (use same texture) objects. Maybe my Google foo sucks but could someone actually link what they're seeing?
- EstanislaoStan 5mo agoI read this whole article like you were going to teach them Ancient Greek, but now I'm guessing modern is more likely? Anyway, some of my strongest language class memories from college are from translating parts of the Odyssey and New Testament.
- stavros 5mo agoYeah these cards have modern Greek words on them.
- mwexler 5mo agoVery handy. My math education would have gone much better if my notes weren't full of "lambda is the half stickman; sigma is upside down Q or broken E" and other really silly things
- gobdovan 5mo agoYeah, they should mark the Greek alphabet as a mandatory prerequisite for college math. It had an unreasonable effect on how quickly I was processing notation-heavy math after learning some Greek for going on a trip over there.
- nephihaha 5mo agoAs I say above, the issue is that modern Greek pronounces some letters very differently. We use the classical pronunciation in maths etc.
- gobdovan 5mo ago[flagged]
- trvz 5mo agoModern Greek is, frankly, irrelevant. Ancient Greek is needed to get a full Western education, for reading some of our foundational literature properly.
- nephihaha 5mo agoWhy would modern Greek be "irrelevant"? Millions of Greeks and Cypriots speak the language, along with minorities in other countries and a very large and well dispersed diaspora. Greece and Cyprus are major holiday destinations for northern Europeans. There are major writers such as Nikos Kazantzakis who have used modern Greek so there are cultural reasons to. Heck, I even like some modern Greek music, and am grateful for it, since it was one of the few things which kept me happy during lockdown. You're right in saying Classical (inc. Koine) Greek is far more influential, but modern Greek is not "frankly irrelevant".
- jnmandal 5mo agoΜπράβο ρε. Πόσο όμορφο
- Avijit_Thawani 5mo agoFascinating! I assume Mandarin is one of the other two languages your kids are learning, in which case you may be interested or have already seen Chineasy app and book, for a similar experience with Hanzi.
- iandanforth 5mo agoI have similar projects in mind. How were these printed?
- ARandomerDude 5mo agoGet a decent Greek grammar book and go through the first couple chapters, even if you don’t plan to complete the book. After completing the exercises you’ll be amazed by how quickly the Greek alphabet stuck. Repeat every 10 years if necessary.
- pjmlp 5mo agoAs Portuguese that was of great help, given the amount of words with Greek roots, understanding the alphabet automatically made me available several words that I already knew. Naturally had to skill up on everything else.
- nephihaha 5mo agoThe problem is that the ancient and modern Greek alphabets are slightly different. The ancient pronunciations map more easily on to our alphabet. I find the modern ones less intuitive e.g. beta being a V sound. There is an example below, where someone writes Bravo in modern Greek, and uses "mu beta" for the "b" sound and "beta" for the "v" sound.
- ARandomerDude 5mo agoFor ancient Greek, two great books are: Greek: an Intensive Course by Hansen and Quinn. Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce Both are standard texts with solutions easily available online.
- wvbdmp 5mo agoB/V shifts or mergers are very common, notably in many Spanish variants they will, for example, write “vaca”, betraying the latin root “vacca”, but very clearly say “baca”. Coming from a language that clearly differentates between these sounds, it’s surprising how close they are.
- ck45 5mo agoFor me the most clear example (in English and other languages that borrowed from Latin) is "to move" and "mobile".
- qzgrid37 5mo ago[dead]
- NooneAtAll3 5mo agoI wish cards like these didn't stop at ONE letter a lot of reading skill is in connecting one letter to the next, syllable-grouped teaching should incorporate that
- FarmerPotato 5mo agoThere was a hilarious illustrated book "Greek to Me". It is a thorough (English) introduction to koine Greek, mainly Bible as well as classical from Herodotus, Arrian, et al. It uses the silly-picture mnemonic approach. For instance, the verb εγειρω features a fellow raising up a suction-cup arrow with an egg stuck in it. Present-indicative conjugations are in a picture of an omelet oozing in an oasis: -ω -ομεν -εις -ετε -ει -ουσιν
- russum 5mo agoAre there good sets out there for other languages: English, German, etc?
- unkeen 5mo agoThis is about memorizing foreign letters.
- BobAliceInATree 5mo agoNo it's not. It's about teaching letter forms to kids.
- unkeen 5mo ago… which heavily involves memorizing foreign letters. English and German mostly share the same alphabet, though, which suggests that the person asking the question hasn’t quite grasped the point. That’s what I was trying to get at in my comment.
- yorwba 5mo agoThe author is a Greek-speaking parent teaching his Greek-speaking children to read by visually pairing each letter with a Greek word that starts with that letter. If you tried to teach English-speaking children with words that start with that letter in German, you'd probably confuse them quite a bit.
- unkeen 5mo ago"We live abroad in China, and Greek is one of three languages my kids are learning."
- madcaptenor 5mo agoright, but giving English-speaking kids the following would help them: - a bear that looks like B - an orange that looks like O - a snake that looks like S - a tree that looks like T (and so on; that's just what I can think of off the top of my head)
- vazma 5mo agoVery nice, I can borrow the idea to teach also my kids :)
- random_quark 4mo agoThank you :) These originally started as something I made for my own kids while trying to teach them Greek abroad. I’ve now added a small updates/interest page linked from the original article because several people asked whether they’ll become available somewhere.
- jonathanlydall 5mo agoVery cool. With English there is Letterland which seems quite similar at a glance. https://letterland.com/ https://letterland.com/
- BigTTYGothGF 5mo agoI never understood what was supposed to be so hard about Greek letters.
- psychoslave 5mo agoNothing special, probably not even the hardest out there to learn. But that's still requiring some effort, just like learning any alphabet actually. Greek somehow kept prestigious place in academia, so it's just more likely going to show that friction in the face of those who are there to learn completely unrelated matter for which using different alphabet is superfluous. That just reminded me I have a teach yourself devanagari by practicing book waiting for me.
- FarmerPotato 5mo agoKids aren't born knowing the Roman alphabet either. These cards are for four-year olds!
- nayuki 5mo agoWhile bored in high school math class around the year 2005, I forced myself to learn the Greek alphabet. That very much came in handy in university, as Greek letters are frequently used for variables in computer science, mathematics, and physics.
- jimkleiber 5mo agoAlso plastered on frat and sorority houses all over town :-) (at least at many universities in the US)
- metaphor 5mo agoDuring undergrad years, IFC fraternity pledges had to memorize the Greek alphabet for obvious reasons. This is how the capital letters were taught amongst bros. A BRA EZ HO I KAM NEON PETY OXY O
- gschizas 5mo agoομφαλός (belly button) is quite weird for ο (omikron), but I can't think of something better! Just listing the letters below and my rating for each letter, maybe someone has a better idea for some of them: α - αχλάδι (pear) 5/5 β - βάρκα (boat) 5/5 γ - γίδα (goat) 4/5 δ - δεινόσαυρος (dinosaur) 4/5 ε - έντομο (insect, bug) 4/5 ζ - ζώνη (belt) 3/5 η - ηλιοτρόπιο (sunflower) 3/5 θ - θρόνος (throne) 4/5 ι - ιππόκαμπος (seahorse) 3/5 κ - κάκτος (cactus) 2/5 λ - λιοντάρι (lion) 4/5 μ - μάσκα (mask) 4/5 ν - νυχτερίδα (bat) 4/5 ξ - ξύλο (wood, stick of wood) 2/5 ο - ομφαλός (belly button) 1/5 π - πόρτα (door) 4/5 ρ - ρακέτα (racket) 4/5 σ - σαλιγκάρι (snail) 5/5 τ - τραπέζι (table) 5/5 υ - υποβρύχιο (submarine) 4/5 φ - φίδι (snake) 5/5 χ - χιόνι (snow) 2/5 ψ - ψάρεμα (fishing) 3/5 ω - ωκεανός (ocean) 5/5 I'm basing my rating on how common a word is, and how much the shape resembles the drawing and vice versa.
- jaharios 5mo agoFor χ - χελιδόνι (swallow) with X tail-wings is the best
- huflungdung 5mo ago[dead]
- tsoukase 5mo agoFunny thing, as a Greek I preferred Latin letters for math symbols, which I knew fluently, as this helped me focus easier on them among the Greek text. I believe this is one of the reasons Greek letters are used in Latin languages. All 24 Greek letters are used as math variables, depending on the field. Eg κ, λ, μ for arithmetic, χ, ψ for equations, graphs and differential, θ, ω for probability. Someone should definitely know to handle them easily. These cards are designed for kids, though they seem effective for adults too, as their language knowledge is similar to a small kid's. Another simple way is to print and fill pre-school charts that show repetitive large letters. It's never too late to learn Greek!
- felixthehat 5mo agoI vibecoded myself a little web app to help me learn the greek letters/numbers/colours. helped me a little! https://vibecards.blackspike.com/ https://vibecards.blackspike.com/
- random_quark 4mo ago[dead]