Greek Alphabet
 

I have NEVER been good at memorization, but I would like to memorize the Greek alphabet. Does anyone have any memorization techniques they can share so I can remember the alphabet past "theta"? Thanks in advance.
http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif HumbleBumbleBee http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif

I have a problem with memorization, too. Oh well, a little A.D.D. never hurt anyone. I think what I did way back when I memorized it was just to take it in groups of 4 letters at a time. Then just string the groups of 4 together.

Dumb technique. But it worked.

Good luck,
DeltAlum

Try remembering the greek alphabet in a song. That should be helpful.


Tinese
SGRHO

Here is a little rhyme, courtesy of From Here to Fraternity By Robert Egan:

This is Greek and how they spelt her-
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta,
Epsilon, Zeta,
Eta, Theta,
Then Iota, Kappa too,
Followed up by Lambda, Mu,
Nu, Xi,
Omicron, Pi,
After that, Rho, Sigma, Tau,
Upsilon, Phi, and still three more,
Chi, Psi, and Omega's twenty-four.


Give it and try and please post again if it works. Happy memorizing. http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif

If you can't remember the Greek Alphabet, you have a long way to go.

I hope some of you could help me out with some pronounciation of these greek letters. Most of them I've heard from campus. But these two I haven't: Xi and Chi. How do you pronounce these two?? Thanks so much.

Xi = Zi (long I)
Chi = Ki (long I)

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Steve Corbin
Lambda Chi Alpha
Theta Kappa Chapter
Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech.

Whenever I needed to memorize long lists, I had a little trick that worked the best for me. Take the first letter and say it a few times, add the second and say them together, and the next one, and continue to say them out loud, and so on. I would just read the list out loud over and over, and eventually it would just stick in my head. Give it a try or modify it to your own preference (add 3 at a time, or whatever). Have fun memorizing...

AXPAlum

http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif Wow, this brings back memories of a year-long candidate period!! I associated a universal constant from chem/physics/math classes...the association works, believe it or not!

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equeen
A Lioness has her Pride!
@>--;--
Alpha Sigma Kappa - Women in Technical Studies

Don't forget that when the letter Phi is preceded by a letter ending in 'a' (alpha, beta, etc.), it is pronounced FEE not FI (long I).

Barb

Do the webpage for the Office of Greek Life of your university. I didn't know the letters before - now I will remember them, and the way they're said, until the day I die. http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif

Pretty Poodle,

You took the words out of my mouth. I think it really may be a difference between GLOs and BGLOs (not to bring up that topic again). I heard a girl at my school refer to Alpha Phi as Alpha Phi (fee NOT fi (long "I"). I was like what? Not only do we prounounce it witha long "I" within the Fraternity/Sorority name itself (but even when saying your chapter, I haven't heard someone say "I am from Beta Phi (fee) Chapter.

I would also like to know if this is "written" someplace. Just to know, ya know?

PEACE ALL

From the history of Alpha Phi Fraternity:

A professor of Greek at Syracuse University instructed the women to pronouce the letter Phi as "Phee" since this is gramatically correct following the vowel Alpha.




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Fraternally,
Barbara
Zeta Tau Alpha Alumna

If you have to go around telling everyone you're in charge you're not much of a leader.

As far as pronounciation goes:

Our Americanized Greek alphabet uses a hybrid of Greek and English pronounciations. The Greek way to pronounce letters like Phi, Chi, Psi, Xi and Pi would be Fee, Kee, See, Zee, and Pee, respectively. Also, Beta, Zeta, Eta, and Theta are Greek and we pronounce those letters, "correctly"

For instance, Phi Beta Kappa in Greek would be Fee Bayta Kahpa. In English it would be Fie Beeta Kaypa. However, we use a hybrid which we know as Fie Bayta Kahpa.

Conversely, more often then not hybrids are the norm in GLOs. One major exception would be FIJI, aka Phi Gamma Delta. Make the connection.....

I know we've been through this whole vowel this before, but this is my take on it.

Please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm no Greek expert!

PnguinTrax, I think they mean that Alpha itself is a vowel, not that Alpha ENDS in a vowel. You used the examples Alpha and Beta. Although they both END in vowels, only Alpha is actually a vowel, hence the difference in pronunciation. Beta itself is a consonant. So the rule works not with "a letter ending in a vowel", but rather when a letter IS a vowel.

Don't need to go into this whole thing again, but I hope that clarifies things a little. http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif

Oh, and RainMan--that was very interesting! I never heard of "hybrids" when discussing Greek/English pronunciations before! http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif