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More exercises for beginners in Greek

Cifi

More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

I started putting together some writing exercises to familiarise with the Greek letters and learn the correct spelling of the words (e.g. which of η, ι, υ, ει and οι to use for an i sound) a while ago.

Coverage of Duolingo's first section is more or less complete now (it is a little less repetitive though, e.g. where Duolingo uses five examples to teach "and", I may have picked only two).

As you can filter by skill, it may be a useful tool to use along with Duolingo as an absolute beginner.

I tried to add some more pictures because I like learning with images. But obviously it is not possible to properly illustrate most sentences, or abstract nouns. This is why I included German and (partly) Spanish translations, so I don't have to stick with English all the time. It also has the side effect that both alternative languages have e.g. different forms of you so that they can translate some sentences more specifically.

Besides this, I created an illustrated and audio-supported alphabet with the letter names and words (some fruits, a lot of animals, some misc. items) that start with this letter. I created gif animations for this, but now I doubt that this was the best choice.

You can take a look here if you want:

http://cifi77.bplaced.net/

I also included my personal notes about the skills. They are absolutely not supposed to replace the tips, it is more like searching for patterns and structures in what I learn, from a beginner's perspective. I don't know if these could be helpful to anyone else at all, but anyway they are there just in case (and might be expanded in future).

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

I rewrote the alphabet exercise. It is divided into three parts now (view/read, type uppercase and lowercase). I used unicode emojis instead of images to illustrate the letters, which were hard to find for some, especially theta and ksi. I ended up with θάλασσα and ξωτικό. But overall, I like it a lot better now.

I would appreciate advice from advanced learners or native speakers concerning whether the words I chose are ok or if there would be better alternatives, and if there are other errors like mispronunciation (which would likely be because I mistyped something).

Last section I have on my mind would be an exercise with dragging symbols for different nouns to the letter they begin with.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Phil682961

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Phil682961 »

Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:39 am

I rewrote the alphabet exercise. It is divided into three parts now (view/read, type uppercase and lowercase). I used unicode emojis instead of images to illustrate the letters, which were hard to find for some, especially theta and ksi. I ended up with θάλασσα and ξωτικό. But overall, I like it a lot better now.

I would appreciate advice from advanced learners or native speakers concerning whether the words I chose are ok or if there would be better alternatives, and if there are other errors like mispronunciation (which would likely be because I mistyped something).

Last section I have on my mind would be an exercise with dragging symbols for different nouns to the letter they begin with.

The idea of doing this with emoji is cool. It's not easy to find good ones for ξ, but another possibility might be ξυράφι (razor).

One slight technical glitch: I found (on Firefox) that if I refresh with F5, the revealed letters stay on screen, but clicking "play" goes through the alphabet from the start again and adds another copy of each letter. See screenshot (here, I got as far as γ, hit F5, and started again).

Thanks and well done on taking the initiative to do this: really nice!

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Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

Thanks a lot for reviewing it, Phil!

Phil682961 wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:38 am

The idea of doing this with emoji is cool. It's not easy to find good ones for ξ, but another possibility might be ξυράφι (razor).

On windows, they chose a knife as razor icon: 🪒

Anyway, I guess this is at least as good as that elf (which I would not have recognised).

Phil682961 wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:38 am

One slight technical glitch: I found (on Firefox) that if I refresh with F5, the revealed letters stay on screen, but clicking "play" goes through the alphabet from the start again and adds another copy of each letter. See screenshot (here, I got as far as γ, hit F5, and started again).

I hope to find an easy fix for this one, thanks for reporting.

Last edited by Cifi on Sat Jul 16, 2022 6:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:53 am
Phil682961 wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 8:38 am

One slight technical glitch: I found (on Firefox) that if I refresh with F5, the revealed letters stay on screen, but clicking "play" goes through the alphabet from the start again and adds another copy of each letter. See screenshot (here, I got as far as γ, hit F5, and started again).

I hope to find an easy fix for this one, thanks for reporting.

Well, at least they don't get duplicated anymore in Firefox. Chrome and Edge reset the form on reload, while in Firefox it remains populated with the letters.

More elegant would probably be to either force a reset, or at least highlight the current one to keep track on where you are.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:39 am

Last section I have on my mind would be an exercise with dragging symbols for different nouns to the letter they begin with.

Another idea would be a memory game, either with pairs of icons and letters to match, or uppercase and lowercase letters.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

O.Zoe
Greece

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by O.Zoe »

---
On Chrome, some of the emojis are not visible. I don't have this issue on Firefox.
Image

I really like your notes. Well done! :)
In 1.06 Basics 1, you write "We have had αυτός before where it meant "he", e.g. in αυτός κάνει ρύζι ("he makes rice"). "This" would not make sense there [...]". However, "This one makes rice" is also a correct translation since "αυτός" can be either the personal pronoun "he" or the demonstrative pronoun "this (one)". Think of the sentence "This one makes rice; that one makes soup" (Αυτός κάνει ρύζι, εκείνος κάνει σούπα).

In 1.07 Basics 2, you write "So, "to drink" seems to behave a little special, possibly because the stem ends in ω?". You probably meant to write "to eat" (τρώω) instead of "to drink" (πίνω).

In 1.08 Phrases, you say "[...]so the literal translation of must be more like "How do they call you? They call me ..."". That's correct. "λένε" is the 3rd person plural of the verb "λέω".

🇬🇷 N :gb: C1 :de: B1 :it: A1

Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

Thank you, O.Zoe, I'll review and correct my notes.

O.Zoe wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 4:45 pm

---
On Chrome, some of the emojis are not visible. I don't have this issue on Firefox.

Oh, that's bad! Your emojis don't look windows-like, which operating system do you use?

And can you see the razor I included in a previous post on Chrome, or isn't that one displayed either?

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 10:14 am
Cifi wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:39 am

Last section I have on my mind would be an exercise with dragging symbols for different nouns to the letter they begin with.

Another idea would be a memory game, either with pairs of icons and letters to match, or uppercase and lowercase letters.

I have added a memory with icons and letters: http://cifi77.bplaced.net/alphabet-memory.html
I also tested letters only, but decided it looked too boring. I should spend some time now to reorganise the code where it is messy, and beautify things a little. I would also like to investigate the issue with missing emojis that [mention]O.Zoe[/mention] mentioned, but I do not have enough information about it yet.

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

Cifi

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by Cifi »

I started adding material from unit 2 to the listen and write exercises because they actually do help me. This uses emojis now, too, and I tried to illustrate some sentences with a series of emojis, like 👩 👩 🔎 📰 (οι γυναίκες διαβάζουν μια εφημερίδα) or 👨 🍽️ 🍓 (ο άντρας τρώει μια φράουλα). Some icons are hard to recognise, and might not be displayed at all on some systems, but it is just supposed to be a visual "anchor" and is not meant to replace listening.

I also noticed that I have a really hard time to tell μια and μία apart when listening. This is a little frustrating at the moment, I get it wrong at least every third time.

P.S.: An option to only practise exercise with images (i.e. emojis) can be found under "More options".

Native: :de: Intermediate: :uk: Lower intermediate: :es: Beginner: :fr: Absolute beginner: 🇬🇷
(If there are errors in what I'm writing in either language, please do correct me - I'll never take it as offense or something like that.)

O.Zoe
Greece

Re: More exercises for beginners in Greek

Post by O.Zoe »

Cifi wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 8:09 am

Your emojis don't look windows-like, which operating system do you use?

And can you see the razor I included in a previous post on Chrome, or isn't that one displayed either?

I'm using Windows 8.1, Chrome Version 103.0.5060.134. I still don't see the emojis on Chrome, but on Firefox I don't have any issues. They're all visible, including the razor. The same issue with the emojis appears in every type of exercise that includes them (memory game and sentences with images).

---

Cifi wrote:

I also noticed that I have a really hard time to tell μια and μία apart when listening.

μία is pronounced /ˈmi.a/ (two syllables) and μια is pronounced /ˈmɲa/ (one syllable). You can check μια's pronunciation on Wiktionary.

🇬🇷 N :gb: C1 :de: B1 :it: A1

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