Talk:Modern Greek/Writing lessons plan

Alphabet and pronounciation
There are some letters which have 2, even 3, ways of pronounciation. Here are some of them with respective examples:

κ: κάτω → /ˈkato/, κενό → /ceˈno/

γ: γάτα → /ˈɣata/, γύρω → /ˈʝiro/

χ: χαρά → /xaˈra/, χέρι → /ˈçeri/

γκ: γκαράζ → /ɡa'raz/, γκέτο → /ˈɟeto/

ι: πεδίο → /peˈðio/, πόδια → /ˈpoðʝa/, πιάνο → /ˈpçano/

νι: νίκη → /ˈnici/, χιόνια → /ˈçoɲa/

λι: λύκος → /ˈlikos/, λιώνω → /ˈʎono/

These are palatalization changes. The first group's are significant for right pronounciation, while for the second group's differences there is no solid rule about when an ι is pronounced as "i" or "y" (as in: your). On the other hand, i think i could understand someone who is not aware of them, but it would seem a bit alien. How is it in English which is spoken so much by non-native users?

What should we do with these letters? Should we enter in such details?

Christos 09:03, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

There are rules for both groups of letters. For the first group it depends on the following vowel, just like the letter G in English: g and a light vowel is pronounced as in "giant" and g with a dark vowel is pronounced as in "garden". Light and dark vowels are the same in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Gaelic and probably other languages.

For the second group, it depends on a) whether another vowel is following the i and b) where the stress is. Junesun 09:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, i think light and dark vowels are the same in Greek, too. [e] and [i] are light vowels, [a],[o] and [u] are dark vowels. So, plosive and fricative consonants become always palatal before light vowels.

For the second group, if the "i" is stressed then it has always the sound of the light vowel [i]. If it is not stressed and another vowel is following, then there is no strict rule when it is pronounced as [i] and when it is palatalized. Generally, keeping it as an [i] seems more refined, therefore a lot of science and cultural words are getting pronounced with [i], while more ordinary words follow palatalization. Sometimes we cannot determine how to pronounce a word if we don't know the context. E.g. χρόνια /ˈxroɲa/ (noun pl. years) vs. χρόνια /ˈxronia/ (adj. sing.femin. or pl.neuter lasting, inveterate). So the stress can only indicate clearly when we should pronounce it as [i]. Is there any other rule which i can't guess? Christos 13:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I wasn't aware that there are two ways of pronouncing χρόνια. I thought a iota with following vowel always palatalizes, whereas if it stands alone it has to be pronounced as a full vowel in order to avoid clustering. Oh well, so Greek spelling is not quite regular. I don't think this intricacy should play a major part in the Writing lessons though.

I completely re-arranged the order and added a lot more words. Since it's hard to find enough words for the beginning when introducing them one at a time, and bcromwell justly pointed out that some letters will be familiar to students already and don't need a lot of introduction, I decided to instead try introducing all letters that are nearly identical to the English ones at once as a basis and then introduce the more unfamiliar ones one at a time. This appears to have worked, I now see lots of example words for each letter. I also introduced diphtongues separately rather than along with the main letter. I took care to include all changes you had made in the meantime.

For some letters, such as beta and gamma, we now have quite a lot of examples. On the one hand, we could introduce them earlier and thereby spread some of the example words to other letters, but on the other hand I think that introducing e. g. γ γκ and γγ in a row is not a bad idea. Maybe we should just use those for a "major revision" at the end of a chapter or at the end of the whole introduction. I'm not sure.

Junesun 13:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sometimes we cannot be sure if we should pronouncee an "i" as [i] or palatalized. There are some songs of the 40's and 50's in which the singers where not palatalizing "i" at all. They have marked the song style of those years. Generally, it depends on the importance of the word. E.g. διαγώνιος /ðiaˈɣonios/ (diagonal), διαβάζω /ðʝaˈvazo/ (i read). There are also some other differences on pronouncing some letters, but these are more or less the same in English. For example, sigma is pronounced as [z] followed by voiced consonants as in τουρισμός /turiˈzmos/. Though, generally, i agree it is not something which will play a big role on the introduction. The reader has to get convinced that he can achieve pronouncing without so many tiring information for small details.

The new order of words and letters is very good and we could use the extra vocabulary either for a revision or even for some exercises. Nice work! Christos 22:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree 100% on convincing the reader that he can pronounce Greek well. I believe that he will automatically absorb these details and exceptions at some point - for example I was always taught that the s in English always sounds as in "sing", yet in "rose" it's clearly a [z] sound and I never pronounced it [s] - without anybody mentioning that exception. Some things just come intuitively, at least if you listen to native speakers a lot, and you're not even aware that it's an exception to what you were taught until you think about it.

Thanks for the spelling corrections. I will start writing the writing lessons shortly. I definitely intend to include a lot of opportunities to practise - otherwise I could have used Greek words all the way. These foreign words and recognisable Greek words have the purpose of enabling the student to read some Greek on his own, even before he does his first lesson. He can focus on learning the alphabet now and Greek words later. Forcing him to learn both at the same time would complicate the matter.

Junesun 11:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Handwriting
I believe that we should also show students how to draw the Greek letters by hand, rather than just teaching them to read and write them on the computer. Christos, could you make a neat drawing of the letters with arrows indicating the direction of strokes and scan it? Cursive letters too would be nice, since reading Greek cursive writing is a major challenge to students. If possible, use one of those exercise books they have in primary school where you write letters using 3 or 2 lines rather than just 1. With those it's easier to see the proportions, e. g. how tall letters are in comparison to each other. Thank you! Junesun 15:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is a nice link i've found: http://www.xanthi.ilsp.gr/filog/ch1/alphabet/alphabet.asp. I will try to create something similar.

Unfortunately, i don't know cursive letters, cause they were not teaching them to us in school, so today only some older people may use a kind of cursive letters which are i guess quite easy to understand once you know typographical letters. There is no such problem as i've seen in Cyrillic alphabets. Have you found any texts with cursive letters? Christos 22:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

This demonstration on the site you gave is really good. Maybe we could link to it? Originally, I was thinking along the lines of : show the letter in a system of lines where it's easy to make out the dimensions (e. g. gamma is taller than iota, delta goes deeper than iota) and have arrows to indicate how to draw it. Or step-by-step drawings. Or maybe a .gif animation. A video is great of course, the only disadvantage to the one on Filoglossia is that it's not that easy for the student to see how the letters would fit on/above/below a line, also because the video is shot at an angle.

As for cursive letters I mean everyday handwriting - in handwriting you normally don't write each letter separately (as we're doing for the lessons) but have them flow into each other, which means that you have to change the way you write them. I do believe that Greeks do that, too... Here's an image of handwriting taken from the old Assimil Greek book:. I find it really hard to decipher, even though I can read Greek on the computer almost as quickly as English. Btw, I really like how Assimil and also "Communicate in Greek" make use of funny little cartoons throughout the book to revise what was taught, e. g. in the lesson on asking for the way you'd see the picture of a man wearing a mask and carrying a gun asking "Υπάρχει καμία τράπεζα εδώ κοντά;" and a person pointing him in the right direction... I doubt we can find somebody to invent cartoons like that for us though and they're not actually necessary, just fun. First priority for the regular lessons are dialogues of course, since the vocabulary and grammar sections will be based on that.

Junesun 11:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, cursive script is not used any more so widely. Personally i haven't seen someone using cursive letters in ordinary writing these days, while this image from the link seems to be quite old (and maybe a bit artistic), cause polytonic symbols are used, so it might be over 25 years old. So, i guess there shouldn't be any anxiety for such texts. In my opinion they are very rare and not following exact rules.

These cartoons are really good. I see such ones very often in newspapers and magazines, but i guess they are copyright. Maybe we can't find some somewhere for free...

Christos 10:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Vacation
I'm in the USA until August 7th, participating in conferences and visiting NYC, Harrisburg, Lancaster and Boston. Because of this, I probably won't have time to continue writing the lessons until afterwards. I'm also not sure whether, when and where I'll have internet access. Perhaps you could make a few recordings of Greek words to illustrate the sounds of the first few lessons or drawings for the letters in the meantime? Your help is invaluable and much appreciated. Junesun 12:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of a vacation period, too, so I was not active the last weeks. Soon I will continue with some recordings and drawings as well. Enjoy your vacations! I was in NYC last year and it was really great! Christos 22:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I have not forgotten about this, it's just that Unilang has chosen Korean for the next Language Learning Month and I'm working hard to get the basics of a Korean writing course similar to this one done before the month begins. A lot of people will be using the course then. After I'm done with that I'll write the remaining lessons for this course. Junesun 08:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

To contributors
First of all: thank you very much, Christos, for your relentless help and for putting up with my bad Greek spelling. Even though I found that I will need one more lesson than originally planned, the writing lessons will soon be done now that I'm back from my holidays. I believe that the students will have an abundant amount of reading practise throughout the lessons. Since I found a few more words for the rare final letters, the last lesson will contain a decent amount of exercise, too. Once I have written the last RWP lesson, we will still need to include sound files (especially of difficult letters like Γ γ and Χ χ, but having at least one sound file for every letter would be nice) and possibly images showing how to write Greek letters on paper. For the sound files I just had the following idea: how'bout looking for vital Greek words such as Καλημέρα and using these as an illustration for the sounds? Imho, this would have three advantages: 1) the student will learn genuine and typical Greek sounds, rather than learning how the Greeks mispronounce e. g. the name "George Bush"; 2) no words from the practise lists need to be used up for explanation;  3) without being aware of it, the student might already pick up on vital vocabulary, if he listens to the sound files a couple of times to perfect his pronunciation. The only disadvantage that I can see is that we'd have to make an effort to find Greek words that don't require letters which haven't been introduced yet.

Once the RWP cycle is complete, I will devote myself to the actual language lessons, as outlined at Talk:Modern Greek. However, I will definitely need help from native speakers or advanced students there. You need to write natural-sounding dialogues because I'm not yet at a level where I can presume to do so. I'm very happy if my sentences don't contain any mistakes, I can't even begin to think about writing them in such a way that they sound natural to a native speaker. I believe I can write reasonably-good grammar explanations and of course vocabulary lists though. We'll have to see about exercises, cultural notes and the like. What do you think?

Junesun 17:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, we have so far a lot of words and this gives the benefit that readers will realize that the Greek language is not so alien as some of them were probably thinking before. I am currently working on creating some kind of pictures illustrating the way of drawing greek letters. I've already created a sample about capital Alpha (picture). What do you think about it? All comments and remarkings are welcome.

About sound files, i think you are right on your 3 arguments. If we give a sound file for the Greek accent of mispronouncing e.g. "George Bush" then a possible result would be that the reader would feel that the Greek accent is funny or even wrong, so Greek words should better be prefered. I guess we have to concentrate in some way on the pronounciation of the letters and the sounds of the language, so that the reader will at the end be able to pronounce every single word he'll meet. Maybe if not all, some of the words we already have can be used for this purpose.

Though, I'm thinking a possibility that the reader might combine the common words as words and not as sounds of letters, so s/he'll lose the aim of the lessons. But surely that shouldn't be something expected by users who have the will to learn. I'm not sure whether or not this should be significant for the sound files, what do you think?

Dialogues will be very helpful and i can surely help on creating them. If you already have thought about a topic for a dialogue e.g. greetings, asking for names, etc. i can make one or if you already have a ready one i can translate it into Greek in order to make it seem native and natural. Generally what do you believe? Should we use kindness plural or just 2nd person in the first lessons?

Christos 19:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That picture looks very good! It's clear and easy to understand and if ever a different-language Wikibooks was to make lessons, they could re-use it without problems. The only thing I would change is to indicate the line below the base line, because that space will be used later by small Gamma, Rho and the like. If students then fail to notice that there is suddenly another line below where they usually started, they might draw Gamma as standing on the baseline. So I believe that having the same background of lines for each letter would make it 100% clear. Besides makes the work easier: draw that background once, then draw each letter on it.


 * The RWP lessons are about the writing and the sounds of the letters. I do not plan to change them in a major way except by adding drawings and sound files. The pronunciation of each letter will remain explained as it is now, through English equivalents and IPA, but as an addition the user will be able to listen to words (original Greek words) containing that sound, as an example. I do not think that that will make him focus on learning those example words as words, as long as the lessons make it clear that they are illustration... if you're believe that students will not learn the sound of letters this way, maybe we should just record the raw sound or the letter names.


 * As laid out in the lesson plan, the first lesson will be about greetings and "How are you?" conversation. Something along the lines of: "Hello ... ! How are you?" - "Hello ...! I'm very well, and you? Are you doing well?" - "So so." Any important phrase not mentioned in the text can be listed in the vocabulary or grammar section. The second lesson will build on what the student knows from the first lesson (eimai, eisai or eiste; how to form questions) and add regular nouns and adjective endings. That allows for a somewhat more interesting conversation, probably introductions: "Hello! I'm ... . Who are you?" - "I am ... . I'm an American. Are you the teacher?" - "No, I'm a ... ."  You could also use words like "tired", "busy" or the like, but they have to be regular adjectives. It would be nice to have a common scenario for all the lessons, with recurring characters, since that increases the student's interest. How'bout the story of an American who went to Greece to participate in a language course? I think most lessons could fit in with that. The first one would be him meeting a Greek friend after his arrival in Greece (I wonder whether a phrase like "Are you tired from the flight?" would be too complex) and the second lesson could be  the American trying to find his way around the campus. Questions like "Where is the classroom?" would even be within the scope of the grammar taught, as long as the answer isn't more complex than "it's here/there"...


 * As for the formal/informal question: I don't know. What is most common in Greece nowadays? If addressing a stranger with 2nd personal singular (because that's the danger the student is in) is not a big offense, I would go for eisai instead of eiste. (Excuse my romanised spelling, I'm using my laptop and don't have my Greek typing tool installed here)


 * Junesun 20:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You are right about the baselines. I uploaded a version of the same sample image in which the baselines above and under the letter are shown. There are 2 options of the final images, i) 24 such images, one for each letter (capital&small) ii) a large picture which will contain a bunch of lines with the whole alphabet. Or even maybe both, the first at the point of the presentation of each respective letter and the large one for the final wrapping lesson. In the first case, the letter images can be put at the start of each letter presentation and the large image can be used at the last wrapping up lesson. Maybe except the sound files of some words, we can add sound files to each letter as you said with the name of the letter or the sound of it, like the sound files in the IPA articles of Wikipedia.


 * I will think and write down some dialogues for the scenario you said. It is ok in order to cover the needed words and phrases as a start, even a "How was the trip?" («Πώς ήταν το ταξίδι;») phrase is possible without going too deep too soon. I think using formal kindness addressing (2nd person plural in Greek) would be better, cause eventhough it's not an extremely great offense to address someone in informal way, it's really better to have a formal way of speaking in order to gain the attention and interest of the other speaker, especially for this case that the reader won't be Greek. In which lessons will the dialogues be added?


 * The dilemma i had before about the sound files i guess is solved now. Giving the sounds of these common words will step-by-step make the reader understand the relation of the words and get used to the sound of the letters. So maybe we can upload sound files for all the words of those lessons.


 * Christos 17:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe the first option (having 24 images) is much better, since otherwise the student will see all letters in the first lesson already and that might scare him off. Having 24 images to use during the lessons and then one summary image for the end is even better. Additionally, I will create an exercise sheet containing each letter on a separate line (with all base lines), so that the student can print out the sheet and make his own writing attempts right next to the letter.


 * Having sound files throughout the lessons would be a great achievement and it would definitely make this course the best language course available on Wikibooks ;-) It's just a lot of work. Let's focus on including sounds in the RWP lessons first, since that's where they are needed the most, to give the student the ability to pronounce every unknown Greek word he sees.


 * Whenever you're inspired, you can put the dialogues in the lessons in the new course section I just created. If you have an idea for a dialogue that is not part of the lesson plan yet, place it in Modern Greek/For future use so that it won't get lost.


 * Thank you so much for your contributions! I couldn't do this without you.


 * Junesun 14:06, 23 August 2006 (UTC)