I never understood what was supposed to be so hard about Greek letters.
Greek Alphabet Cards
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#32While 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.
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
… 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.
The 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.
"We live abroad in China, and Greek is one of three languages my kids are learning."
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, 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.
As I say above, the issue is that modern Greek pronounces some letters very differently. We use the classical pronunciation in maths etc.
Modern Greek is, frankly, irrelevant.
Ancient Greek is needed to get a full Western education, for reading some of our foundational literature properly.
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#35I never understood what was supposed to be so hard about Greek letters.
Nothing 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.
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#36Very 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
Yeah, 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.
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Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I say above, the issue is that modern Greek pronounces some letters very differently. We use the classical pronunciation in maths etc.
Modern Greek is, frankly, irrelevant. Ancient Greek is needed to get a full Western education, for reading some of our foundational literature properly.
Why 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".
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#38During 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 ORe: Greek Alphabet Cards
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 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.
"We live abroad in China, and Greek is one of three languages my kids are learning."
right, 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)
Re: Greek Alphabet Cards
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, 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.
As I say above, the issue is that modern Greek pronounces some letters very differently. We use the classical pronunciation in maths etc.
What you call "classical pronunciation" is really at best an approximation of the ancient Greek pronunciation, but mixed heavily with English (after some frolicking around in Latin). As far as I know, this is limited to English speakers only.
For example, π is pronounced "πι", or probably closed to "pee" in modern and in ancient Greek. It's never pronounced like "pie". Same with all letters that end with "i", for example "φ,χ,ψ" (pronounced as phee, chee, psee, never rhyming with pie). T (τ) was never pronounced as "ta-oo", either, not in ancient nor modern Greek.
There are differences between modern and ancient Greek of course. For example "β" (beta), originally pronounced more like it's now in English, only with a longer "e", while in modern Greek it's more like "vita")