Shadowing Practice: Ancient Greek Lesson 1: The Greek Alphabet - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hello everyone, my name is David Lodgeford and today I'm going to teach you the first lesson of my Ancient Greek course.
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I intend for this course to take you from not knowing
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any Ancient Greek to being able to read unadapted original Ancient Greek texts.
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We're going to start with the Greek alphabet.
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Now, note that you won't be able to pronounce every word in Ancient Greek just by learning the alphabet.
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You have to learn a bit more than that and
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so I've created the first six lessons of this course to teach you how to pronounce any Ancient Greek word
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that you might come across.
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So don't just watch this lesson, watch the next five lessons as well to be able to pronounce any ancient Greek word that you come across.
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The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters.
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It consists of 17 consonants and 7 vowels.
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It is the alphabet that modern Greeks use today.
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However, the pronunciation of the letters has changed quite a lot in 2000 years.
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The pronunciation I'm about to teach you is the ancient Greek pronunciation, okay?
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So whatever you do, do not try using this pronunciation in modern Greece, because people have no idea what you're trying to say.
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Without further delay, let's look at the first letter of the alphabet, Alpha.
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You can see I've put the uppercase form of Alpha on the left and the lowercase form of Alpha on the right.
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In ancient Greek texts, uppercase forms are used much more rarely than they are in English.
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In the actual body of an ancient Greek text, an uppercase form is only used at the start of a proper name.
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So for example, Socrates would have a capital sigma at the start, Plato would have a capital pi at the start.
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Other than that, in the body of the text, lowercase forms are used everywhere else.
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However, there is one place outside of the body of the text where capitals appear,
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and that is When you see the title of the text at the top of the page and the author's name, these are entirely capitalised in Ancient Greek,
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so you do need to know the capital forms as well.
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Moreover, fun fact for you here, in manuscripts and inscriptions only capital forms are used, okay?
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They didn't have the lowercase forms in manuscripts and inscriptions.
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But in the nicely edited Greek text we have today, in the body of the text, it's all lowercase forms apart from at the start of proper names,
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and you also see capitals, like I said, in the title of the text and in the author's name at the top of the page.
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Other than that, lowercase forms are used.
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So, for instance, when they start a new sentence in ancient Greek, don't expect to see a capital.
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They don't do that like we do in English.
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Without further delay, let's talk about alpha.
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Alpha is a vowel and it can be either short, pronounced a, as in cup, or away.
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or it can be long, pronounced R as in father.
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So long alpha is R.
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Now look, I'm being brave enough to make these phonetic noises at the camera, so I hope you are practicing at home as well, you know.
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Anyway, alpha looks like our English letter A, so that is helpful, right?
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You know it's a vowel, and remember if it's short, it's pronounced R, if it's long, it's pronounced R.
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In this course, if alpha is long, I will mark it with this line here called a macron.
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Macron in ancient Greek literally means long thing, and the name of the diacritic is macron.
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It's called a macron, and it's used to indicate that valves are long.
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So I will put a macron over an alpha if it's long in this course.
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Otherwise, I will leave it without a macron like this.
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So if you see alpha like this, pronounce it as a.
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If you see it like this, pronounce it as a.
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You might be wondering what this is about here.
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This has what's called a breathe.
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A breathe is used to indicate a vowel is short.
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I will not put breathe over alphas in this course.
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However, it's good for you to be able to recognise it
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and know that the breathe is used to explicitly indicate that a vowel is short.
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Without further delay, let's look at the second letter of the Greek alphabet, beta.
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Beta is a consonant pronounced b.
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B. B.
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And it looks like our English letter b, which is helpful.
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Just note that the lowercase form has a part that goes subscript, okay?
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This part of beta goes beneath the line, so be aware of that.
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The next letter is gamma.
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Gamma is a consonant pronounced as a hard g.
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It's pronounced g, as in good.
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G. There is an exception to this.
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In fact, there are three exceptions to this, and I talk about them in lesson five.
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So make sure you check out lesson five to know when gamma is not just pronounced like , but it's pronounced in a different way.
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The next letter of the Greek alphabet is delta.
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Delta is pronounced as a clean D sound, d, as in dot.
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Some textbooks will tell you you should pronounce it like the French letter D, with your tongue on your teeth.
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However, I put my tongue behind my teeth.
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I don't care where your tongue is when you're pronouncing delta.
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As long as it's a clean D sound, that's absolutely fine.
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Okay?
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D, d.
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The textbook I used, in fact, to learn ancient Greek.
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Jack's Reading Greek textbook.
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It's fantastic.
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Highly recommend it.
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Teaches you that delta is a clean D, as in dot.
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So that's what I've stuck with.
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You know, I don't bother with this teeth pronunciation.
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But anyway, either's fine.
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Either's fine.
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Delta, D, as in dot.
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Note that the capital of delta looks like a triangle.
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You can remember that by thinking that triangles are delightful.
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Get it? because the del is similar to delta, you know.
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So, triangle is a delightful d.
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D. And the lowercase form looks like our letter D as well, which is helpful.
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Anyway, the next letter is a vowel, epsilon.
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Epsilon looks like our letter E, and this is in fact pronounced like a short E.
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E, as in get.
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Epsilon.
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E, as in get.
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E. E.
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The next letter is a consonant named zeta.
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Zeta looks like our letter Z, but it is not pronounced just like Z.
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It is pronounced Zd, as in wisdom.
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The next letter is Eta, which is a vowel pronounced Air.
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I know in the capital form it looks like H, it is not pronounced like H.
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It is pronounced Air.
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Some people call these letters zeta, eta, and you know, beta instead of beta.
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You can pronounce the names of the letters however you want in English.
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What we are learning today is the pronunciation in ancient Greek, okay?
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We're not here to quibble about English pronunciations.
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We're here to learn how to pronounce ancient Greek.
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The next letter is theta.
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Theta is pronounced as an aspirated T.
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That is to say, the letter T with lots of breath behind it.
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That's how it would have been pronounced in ancient times.
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It came to be pronounced, I think, around the 2nd or 3rd century as TH, like English TH.
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However, the classical pronunciation would have been TH.
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Although a lot of Greek teachers today do pronounce it as TH.
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So feel free to pronounce it as th or t according to your preference.
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I'm going to pronounce it as t.
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So if I'm aspirating my T, you know that it's a theta.
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The next letter is iota.
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Iota looks like our letter I, and it is in fact a vowel like I.
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And it is pronounced in one way if it's short and in another if it's long.
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If iota is short, it's pronounced i as in it.
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And if it's long, it's pronounced E as in police.
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So if short, iota is I.
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If long, iota is E.
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E or E.
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The next letter is a consonant named kappa.
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Kappa looks like our English K, which is helpful because it is in fact pronounced K as in kick.
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The next letter is lambda, another consonant pronounced L.
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So that's kappa and lambda.
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The next letter is another consonant that looks like our English letter M.
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This is Mew.
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Mew is pronounced N.
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Very helpful, very straightforward once again.
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Just note that this part of Mew on the lowercase is subscript, okay?
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It goes beneath the line.
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The next letter looks like our English N in the capital form, and it's called Mew, and is, of course, you guessed it, pronounced N.
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Just note that the lowercase form looks like an English V.
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There is no V sound in ancient Greek, so if you see what looks like a V, then pronounce it N.
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You know that it's a new, okay?
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The next letter is another consonant named Zai.
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Zai looks very strange.
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In the capital form, it looks like an I on its side, a capital I on its side between like two jaws or something.
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And in the lowercase form, it's often called the triple squiggle by Greek teachers, okay?
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So if you see the triple squiggle or the eye between the jaws, you know it's zi.
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Zi is pronounced x as in kicks or as in box x, x, x.
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The next letter is a vowel named Omicron.
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Omicron looks like our English letter O and it is in fact pronounced like a short O.
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It's pronounced O as in got.
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The next letter is Pi.
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Pi is pronounced as an unaspirated P, like P, P, P, without very much air behind it, you know?
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And you've got to watch for that because there is also an aspirated P, which we shall find out about shortly me.
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The next letter is row.
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Confusingly, row looks like an English P, but it's not.
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Row is pronounced as a rolled R, like rrr, rrr, rrr, rrr.
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So if you see row, if you see the thing that looks like a P, you know it's a row, and row is pronounced rrr, rrr, rrr.
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Now, if you can't roll your R, don't worry, many Greek teachers just pronounce it as an English R like R, that's absolutely fine.
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I can roll my R, but I have to do it very emphatically, which is a bit of a problem.
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So if you hear my exaggerated rolled R, you know I'm trying to say ROW.
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The next letter is Sigma.
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Sigma is pronounced S.
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You can see Sigma has two lowercase forms.
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It has one that looks like a circle and one that looks like an S.
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The second one that looks like an S with the second half going beneath the line,
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remember, the one that looks like an S is used when sigma is used at the end of a word.
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If sigma appears anywhere else, the one that looks like a circle is used, okay?
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So, this form is for when sigma appears at the end of a word.
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This form is for when sigma appears anywhere else in a word.
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Don't forget that's very important.
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Don't forget any of this information, it's all very important.
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The next letter is a consonant named tau.
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Tau looks like our English T, and it is in fact pronounced like an unaspirated T, like te, te, te.
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The next letter is a vowel named Upsilon.
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Upsilon looks like a Y in the capital form, and it is transliterated as Y sometimes, but it's actually pronounced in two ways, depending on whether it's long or short.
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If it's short, it's pronounced yu.
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If it's long, it's pronounced yu.
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Upsilon.
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If short is pronounced yu.
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If it's long, it's pronounced yu.
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Okay?
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Like a French u in the short form and like a deeper French u in the long form.
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There are also some German equivalents you can find in textbooks.
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I don't know German though, so if you know German you can look up Upsilon in the textbooks
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and see the German equivalent of the pronunciation and that might help as well.
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But that's how I've always pronounced it, and it's served me perfectly well, that pronunciation, I mean, throughout my Greek learning journey.
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The next letter is PHI.
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PHI is pronounced as an aspirated P.
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PHI came to be pronounced as PH, as in English PH, around the 2nd or 3rd century as well.
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Like theta came to be pronounced PHI, came to be pronounced PHI rather than PHI.
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But in classical times, it was an aspirated P.
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That's how I'm going to pronounce it.
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Feel free if you want to pronounce it.
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The next letter is Kai.
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Kai looks like an X, but it's not pronounced X.
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Kai is pronounced K as in the Scottish word Loch.
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My Greek teacher, who was a Greek man himself, when I asked about Kai, did this.
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That was his illustration of Kai.
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And I think it is a good illustration.
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It is considered to be an aspirated K sound, but it's not a straightforwardly aspirated K sound.
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It's a bit more than that.
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You know, it's not just K.
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It's K.
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Okay?
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K. K.
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K. Second to last, we have got another consonant, Psi.
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Psi is pronounced Pss as in lapse.
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Pss.
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Pss.
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Pss.
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Finally, we've got a vowel.
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Omega.
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Omega is pronounced or as in saw.
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Or, or, or.
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There's not much to say about how omega looks.
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I mean, the capital kind of looks like an octopus, and the lowercase form looks like a w, but it's not.
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There's no w sound in ancient Greek.
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There used to be at one point in ancient Greek, but not in the ancient Greek we're learning.
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In the ancient Greek we are learning, if you see a thing that looks like a W, it's actually omega.
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And omega is pronounced or, or, or.
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And you see lots of omegas, okay?
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So get used to pronouncing that.
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Get used to pronouncing all of these letters.
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Okay, let's recap.
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Alpha is pronounced uh, if short, r, if long.
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Beta is pronounced B.
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Gamma is pronounced G.
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Except in three cases I tell you about in lesson five.
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Delta is pronounced D.
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Epsilon is pronounced E.
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Zeta is pronounced Z.
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Eta is pronounced R.
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Theta is pronounced T.
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Iota is pronounced I if short or E if long.
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Kappa is pronounced K.
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Lambda is pronounced L.
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Mu is pronounced M.
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Nu is pronounced N.
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Xi is pronounced X.
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Omicron is pronounced O. So you
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have got seven vowels.
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alpha, epsilon, eta, iota, omicron, epsilon and omega.
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And don't forget that alpha can be long, pronounced R, iota can be long, pronounced E, and epsilon can be long, pronounced E.
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The reason you do not have a version with a macron for omicron, for instance, is because omicron is short and its long form is omega.
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Omicron is a short O, okay, O.
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Omega is its long equivalent, O.
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Likewise, epsilon is a short E, and its long equivalent is eta, E.
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So that is why they do not have a long form that is the same letter, because their long form is a separate letter in itself.
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Or, to look at it the other way, eta's short form is a separate letter in itself, okay?
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Whereas Alpha, Iota and Ypsilon do not have a separate letter for their long form.
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Their long form is marked with a Macron.
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Let's do some pronunciation practice now, very quickly.
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Remember you can pause the video and try to say it yourself before I say it.
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Bios, bios, bios meaning life, where we get biology from.
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Gyunair, gyunair, gyunair, meaning woman.
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That's where we get gynecology from and also gyneocracy and gyneophobia, fear of women as well.
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There you go.
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We've got thirdly, Thanatos, Thanatos, Thanatos.
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You can hear the difference between the aspirated t theta there and the unaspirated T, Tau, meaning death.
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I think there's a Greek god of death named Thanatos.
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Logos.
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Logos.
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Very important word with lots of meanings.
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Logos.
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It means word, speech, account, story, reason, argument.
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It can mean a lot of things.
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Let's do a few more words.
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meaning battle.
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You can always sound it out if you're having trouble.
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meaning sword.
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meaning father.
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This is where we get patriarchy from and paternal and so forth.
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And now we have got a word ending in a long alpha.
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Sopia.
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Sopia meaning wisdom or cleverness.
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It's where we get the word philosophy from.
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Philosophy is in fact a Greek word meaning the love of wisdom.
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Okay, let's finish with some proper names.
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Socrates.
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Socrates.
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I think you can guess who that is.
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Socrates.
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Platon.
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Platon.
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Platon.
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Plato.
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Lucius, Lucius, Lucius, who was an ancient speechwriter.
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Xenoporn, Xenoporn, Xenoporn, Xenoporn, Xenophorn, who was an ancient historian.
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Okay, you can now pronounce some ancient Greek words, but not all of them.
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Okay, there's some more things you have to know to be able to pronounce all ancient Greek words, so make sure you watch the next five videos to find out how to pronounce any Greek word that you come across.
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Thank you very much for watching, and I shall be back with more Greek content very soon.
What You'll Learn from This Ancient Greek Alphabet Lesson
This video isn’t just about letters—it’s a masterclass in listening for detail and mimicking pronunciation nuances, skills that boost your english speaking practice too. You’ll learn to distinguish short and long vowel sounds (like alpha’s "a" vs. "ah") and notice how diacritics change meaning—skills that translate directly to parsing English stress and intonation. Plus, you’ll practice shadow speech by repeating the instructor’s clear, deliberate sounds, a technique that sharpens your ability to replicate rhythms in any language.
Listen For These Sounds
The instructor’s speech is slow and precise, making it perfect for shadowing app practice. Listen for the contrast between short "a" (as in "cup") and long "ah" (as in "father")—this vowel length difference is key. Notice how he pauses slightly before explaining diacritics like the macron, a rhythm that helps you follow complex ideas. Even though it’s about Greek, this focus on sound distinction trains your ear to catch subtle differences in English, like "ship" vs. "sheep" or "cot" vs. "caught."
Say It Like a Native (or an Ancient Greek Expert)
To mirror the speaker’s rhythm, practice shadowspeak by pausing the video after each letter and repeating his exact tone and stress. He emphasizes the macron as a "long thing," so mimic that emphasis to build muscle memory for stress in English words. When he says, "don’t try using this pronunciation in modern Greece," notice how "don’t try" links smoothly—this connected speech is exactly what you’ll practice in english speaking practice to sound more natural. Remember: the goal isn’t just to say the letters, but to match the flow, which is how you’ll improve english pronunciation in real conversations.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.