The Greek Alphabet: Letters, Names and Modern Sounds

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, from alpha (Α α) to omega (Ω ω): 7 vowels and 17 consonants. You probably know many of them from math and science, but modern Greek says several of them differently from the names English speakers use: beta is vita and sounds like v, delta sounds like the th in “this”, and eta, iota and upsilon all sound like the ee in “see”. Learn the 24 letters, then the letter pairs that make one sound, then the stress mark, and you can read Greek aloud.

This guide uses the letters, names and sounds from our free Greek alphabet chart, and every practice word comes from our list of the 10,000 most common Greek words, with its rank on that list.

#What kind of script is Greek?

Greek is an alphabet in the plainest sense: vowels and consonants are equal letters, written left to right, with capitals and small letters, just like English. That’s no coincidence. The Greeks adapted their alphabet from the Phoenician script around the 8th century BC, and they turned some Phoenician consonant letters they didn’t need into vowels. The Latin alphabet was later built from a Greek alphabet by way of the Etruscans, and Cyrillic was created largely from Greek letters. Our alphabet data describes Greek as the oldest alphabet still in use that writes vowels as letters in their own right.

So an English speaker already has a head start. Α, Β, Ε, Ζ, Ι, Κ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Τ and others look familiar. The catch is that some familiar shapes stand for different sounds: Η is an ee sound, Ρ is an r, Χ is a throaty h, and small ν is an n, not a v.

#All 24 Greek letters

The table shows each letter, its name in modern Greek as our Greek alphabet chart gives it, the modern sound, and the name you may know from school or math.

Sigma is the only letter with two small forms. Write σ at the start or in the middle of a word and ς at the very end, as in σας (your, #33), which uses both.

#Modern Greek sounds versus the names you know

Most English speakers meet Greek letters in a math or physics class: π for the circle, Σ for a sum, Δ for a change, μ for micro, λ for wavelength, Ω for ohms. The names used there, and the way English says them, come from how Western scholars pronounced Ancient Greek. Modern Greek has moved on, so several letters sound different today.

The names change too. A Greek says pi as “pee”, mu as “mee”, nu as “nee”, chi as a throaty “hee” and psi as “psee”. If you ask for “the letter beta” in Athens, people will understand you, but vita is what they say.

#Greek vowels: seven letters, five sounds

Greek has seven vowel letters, α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ and ω, but modern Greek has only five vowel sounds:

This is good news for reading and bad news for spelling. When you read, every way of writing ee says ee. When you write a word you’ve only heard, you have to know which one it uses, which is why spelling Greek takes longer than reading it.

#Greek digraphs: two letters, one sound

The most useful thing to learn after the 24 letters is the list of letter pairs that make a single sound. Each example here is from our common words list.

#Vowel pairs

Note that ναι, the Greek word for “yes”, is said ne, which sounds a lot like “no” to English ears. And όχι, “no”, is said O-hee.

#Consonant pairs

Greek has no single letter for b, d or hard g, since β, δ and γ changed their sounds long ago. That’s why words borrowed from other languages use μπ, ντ and γκ: μπύρα for beer, ντομάτα for tomato.

#The stress mark: tonos

Every Greek word of two or more syllables carries one accent mark, the tonos (´), on the vowel you stress. Since 1982 Greek has used this single mark in everyday writing; the older system had several accents and breathing marks, which you’ll still see in church books and some older texts.

The tonos is not decoration. It tells you how to say the word, and some words differ only in where it falls:

Most one-syllable words have no tonos. A few carry one anyway to tell them apart from a word spelled the same way: πού (where, #104) versus που (that, #15), πώς (how, #77) versus πως (that, #45), and ή (or, #76) versus the article η.

#The diaeresis

A second mark, two dots (¨), tells you that two vowels that would normally form a pair are said separately. In μαϊμού (monkey, #3620), the αϊ is a-ee, not e: ma-ee-MOO. In φαΐ (food, #4300) the two dots sit on top of the accent: fa-EE.

One more surprise: Greek uses ; as its question mark. Τι; means “What?”

#Read your first Greek words

Put it together. Each of these is on our most common Greek words list, with its rank. Capital letters in the “say it” column show the stressed syllable.

Start with και, ναι and όχι: three everyday words, each one a small trap for English speakers. Then σπίτι and νερό, which look scary but use only the plainest sounds. By θάλασσα and ψωμί you’re reading letters that don’t exist in English.

#A learning plan for the Greek alphabet

Keep the Greek alphabet chart open while you learn the letters. Next comes vocabulary: the Greek most common words list gives each word with an English meaning, and when you can read a few hundred of them, the Greek vocabulary test estimates how many words from the list you know. For a sense of the longer road, the US Foreign Service Institute puts Greek in its “hard languages” group for English speakers; see how long it takes to learn a language.

#Practice reading and speaking with native speakers

The chart gives you the letters; a Greek speaker gives you the sounds, the stress and the rhythm. On LangX, Greek is one of the 182 languages you can pick, and matching runs both ways: you see people who speak Greek and are learning a language you speak. They can hold any of your messages to correct it, corrections are unlimited on every plan, and you can send voice messages so they hear where you put the stress. LangX also has voice and video calls in the web app, coming to the iPhone and Android apps. The free plan includes 5 new conversations a day and unlimited replies.

9:41

Lucía M. Online

Today

Hold any message to correct it — corrections are the most useful thing you can send.

¿Cómo fue tu fin de semana? Cuéntame en inglés si quieres. How was your weekend? Tell me in English if you like. 09:12

Fui a la playa con mi hermana. Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. 09:14 · Read

Correction from Lucía Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. Hacía mucho calor y no llevé agua. The «yo» isn't wrong, it just sounds emphatic — like you specifically forgot. 09:15

Message in Spanish…

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#More alphabet guides

Greek is the parent of Cyrillic, so the Russian alphabet and the Bulgarian alphabet will look half familiar once you know it. For something completely different, see the Korean alphabet, designed from scratch in the 15th century, or the abugidas in our guides to the Hindi alphabet, the Bengali alphabet and the Malayalam alphabet. Every chart is on the alphabet tools page.

#FAQ

#How many letters are in the Greek alphabet?

24: seven vowels (α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω) and 17 consonants. Sigma has an extra small form, ς, used only at the end of a word.

#Why is beta pronounced vita in Greek?

The sound changed over time. In Ancient Greek β was a b; in modern Greek it is a v, and the letter’s name changed with it. The English name “beta” comes from the older pronunciation.

#How do you write b and d in Greek?

With pairs of letters: μπ for b and ντ for d, as in μπορώ (I can) and ντομάτα (tomato). A hard g is written γκ.

#What is the accent mark in Greek called?

The tonos (´). It marks the stressed vowel in every word of more than one syllable, and it can change the meaning, as in πότε (when) and ποτέ (ever).

#Is the Greek alphabet hard to learn?

Most learners find it quick to read, because it has only 24 letters and many look like English ones. Spelling takes longer, since the ee sound alone has five common spellings.