A language learners’ forum

Here's to a meetup where we have to speak Greek and only Greek!

Seems I'll miss everyone. Unfortunate. I'm currently applying to do a term in Athens next spring. Sadly it will be all in English, but it will be better than nothing, I suppose. Although what I think doesn't really matter, since my uni is forcing me.

I recommend this book, which I just received. I don't think it is on the resources list.
https://www.amazon.com/English-Words-De ... 40&sr=8-11

I am working on a complete set of Greek cognates. I just made the first list and you can find it here. There actually are tens of thousands although many are of use only as technical vocabulary in the sciences. I'm going to list the cognates to words I already know, although I admit to being shocked at the number of cognate words I don't know.

https://quizlet.com/486440378/greek-cog ... cards/?new

There seem to be two different pronunciations of this digraph: a schwa as in English "foot," and pure "oo" as in English "you."
Has anyone seen a rule on when it changes?

bookstorecowboy wrote:There seem to be two different pronunciations of this digraph: a schwa as in English "foot," and pure "oo" as in English "you."
Has anyone seen a rule on when it changes?

First, the sound in English "foot" is not a schwa (a minor nitpick). Second, I'm not sure what sound you have in mind, Greek "ου" is always pronounced as /u/ (in Modern Greek). Modern Greek has only 5 vowels.
I see that the wiki page on Modern Greek phonology mentions some elision phenomenon:

In casual speech, unstressed /i/ and /u/ in the vicinity of voiceless consonants may become devoiced or even elided.

Could it be related to what you've heard? Can you provide examples of the pronunciation you have in mind?

Dragon27 wrote:

bookstorecowboy wrote:There seem to be two different pronunciations of this digraph: a schwa as in English "foot," and pure "oo" as in English "you."
Has anyone seen a rule on when it changes?

I see that the wiki page on Modern Greek phonology mentions some elision phenomenon:

In casual speech, unstressed /i/ and /u/ in the vicinity of voiceless consonants may become devoiced or even elided.

Another possibility is that OP is hearing, er, desyllabification (there's probably a better word for it), e.g. Τι σου άρεσε; 'What did you like?', which IIUC is normally pronounced [ti 'swarese] rather than [ti su 'arese].

Meanwhile, Canepari's description of the Greek Phonology has become available (an excerpt from it, to be exact) on Canipa's official site. He describes vowel reductions (as possible variants, not mandatory) in neutral and mediatic (i.e. spread by the media) accents, and the ones in the mediatic accent seem to be especially marked, and can resemble short English /ʊ/ and /ɪ/ (search for 'The vowels of mediatic Greek' paragraph).

Does anyone have an online tutor to recommend?
I'm a beginner.

bookstorecowboy wrote:Does anyone have an online tutor to recommend?
I'm a beginner.

This guy on iTalki is rated super high and seems to be the top tutor. There are a ton of other tutors there too.