The Greek Alphabet

The Greek alphabet is used throughout Greece and in the Greek part of Cyprus. If you are going to these regions, it is worth learning the alphabet, if only to read the signs over shops.

The letters of the Greek alphabet are also used as handy symbols by mathematicians and scientists. These people pronounce the names of the letters quite differently from Greek people, being loosely based on the pronunciation of classical Greek.

There are 24 letters in the alphabet. They can be capitals or lower case. In addition, one of the lower case letters, the sigma, has two different forms.
Hover over each capital letter to find its name and pronunciation.

The Alphabet
Aalfa, spoken as 'a' in bath	Bveeta, spoken as 'v'	Γghamma, Before A or O, this is a sound that does not occur in English, like a soft g,the voiced version of the kh below. Before E, I or Y it is pronounced yas in yet.	Δdhelta, dh represents the voiced th sound in this and that	Eepsilon, spoken as 'e' as in pet	Zzeeta, spoken as 'z'	Heeta, spoken as 'ee' as in feet	Θtheeta, spoken as 'th' unvoiced as in thin and thanks	Ιyotta, spoken as 'ee' as in feet; but like 'y' in yes when before vowel	Kkappa, spoken as 'k'	Λlamdha, spoken as 'l'	Mmee, spoken as 'm'	Nnee, spoken as 'n'	Ξksee, spoken as 'ks' as x in fox, never as x in xylophone	Oomicron, spoken as 'o' as x in got	Πpee, spoken as 'p'	Pro, spoken as 'r' trilled as in Spanish or Italian	Σsighma, unvoiced as in sauce, not vase. The first lower-case form is for the start or the middle of words, the second for the last letter of words	Ttaf, spoken as 't'	Yeepsilon, spoken as 'ee' as in feet	Φfee, spoken as 'f'	Xkhee, spoken as 'kh' represents 'ch' sound in Scottish word loch	Ψpsee, spoken as 'ps' as in copse. The p is pronounced even at the start of words	Ωomegha, spoken as 'o' as in got
α	β	γ	δ	ε	ζ	η	θ	ι	κ	λ	μ	ν	ξ	ο	π	ρ	σ	τ	υ	φ	χ	ψ	ω
																	ς

Some letters are pronounced differently when they appear in combination with other letters.

Letter Combinations
AIspoken as 'e' as in pet	EIspoken as 'ee'	OIspoken as 'ee' as in pet	AYspoken as 'af or 'av' depending on next letter	EYspoken as 'ef or 'ev' depending on next letter	OYspoken as 'oo'	ΜΠspoken as 'b' at start of word, 'mb' in middle of word	NTspoken as 'd' at start of word, 'nd' in middle of word	ΓΚspoken as 'g' as in go at start of word, 'ng' in middle of word	ΓΓspoken as 'ng' as in singer
αι	ει	οι	αυ	ευ	ου	μπ	ντ	γκ	γγ
An exception to these is that if the first vowel of any of these two-vowel combinations has an accent mark on it, or if the second vowel has two dots over it, the two vowels are treated separately, and not combined as in the table. For example: κομπολόι (rosary) is pronounced "kombol-oh-ee".

Greek is a strongly stressed language, even more so than English. The stress is very important, so it is normally marked with an accent over the vowel.
For example: πατέρας (patéras) which means 'father'

Το Ελληνικό Αλφάβητο

The Greek Alphabet