Mycenaean
Late Bronze Age · Linear BAn early attested form; requires a different script and specialized philology.
LANGUAGE
From written signs to everyday conversation.
Mandarin Chinese / Taiwan
Bopomofo / Zhuyin
注音符號A set of phonetic symbols used to show Mandarin pronunciation. Syllables are assembled from an initial, a medial or final, and a tone.
The first version was created in 1913 and released in 1918. It remains a practical reading, dictionary, and keyboard tool in Taiwan.
- SYMBOLS
- 37
- TONES
- 5
- ALSO CALLED
- Zhuyin / Zhuyin Fuhao
Initials
21Medials
3Finals
13Tones
5Greek across periods
Choose a period before choosing a grammar or audio model. The Ancient track currently uses Classical Attic forms; the Modern track uses contemporary Standard Modern Greek.
Archaic / Homeric
Epic and early poetryA literary mixture, not a recording of one everyday city dialect.
Classical Attic and other dialects
Classical literature, inscriptions, philosophyAttic is one ancient dialect alongside Ionic, Doric, Aeolic and others.
Koine
Hellenistic and Roman periodsUseful for New Testament and many later ancient texts; overlaps with but is not identical to Classical Attic.
Medieval / Byzantine
Many registers across centuriesDo not assume one uniform transition stage.
Modern
Contemporary languageDifferent sound system and grammar; the dative and productive infinitive of Ancient Greek do not carry over as ordinary modern paradigms.
Try it: Is Modern Greek text-to-speech a verified Classical Attic pronunciation guide?
Show the answer
No. Use a clearly named reconstruction or teaching convention for ancient reading.
References: Centre for the Greek Language ↗ Ancient Greek, UT Austin ↗
ANCIENT GREEK / FOUNDATIONS
Ἑλληνική · Ancient
Read a sentence. Notice the endings.
Meet the ancient language.
Read it. Say it. Understand it.
Reading and classroom conversation, with historical context and modern limits made explicit.
Pronunciation & how to use these phrases
Ancient Greek pronunciation is reconstructed and varies by period and teaching tradition. These lessons use Classical Attic forms. Modern Greek device speech is not a Classical pronunciation model.
These short sentences are teaching examples, not quotations from an ancient author. Ancient Greek is not a substitute for Modern Greek on a trip. Learning path: recognise words and phrases → build simple sentences → practise questions and replies → expand tense and connected speech → read and discuss longer texts. These foundation lessons are available now; later stages will grow with the collection.
10 phrases
Reading & conversation
Further reading & cultural sources
ANCIENT GREEK / GRAMMAR REFERENCE
9 chaptersForms, rules & structure
Classical Attic foundation. Homeric, Ionic, Koine and later Greek have additional forms and different distributions.
Grammar terminology
- Noun
- A word used to name or classify an entity: person, place, object, substance, idea.
- Adjective
- A word that describes a property; its form and position depend on the language.
- Pronoun
- A form used to refer to a participant or entity without repeating a full noun phrase.
- Determiner
- A word such as an article, demonstrative or possessive that helps specify a noun phrase.
- Verb
- A word heading a predicate, often describing an action, event or state.
- Conjugation
- A pattern of verb forms expressing grammatical distinctions such as person, tense or mood.
- Declension
- A pattern of noun, pronoun or adjective forms, often marking case, number and gender.
- Case
- A distinction marking a noun phrase’s grammatical role or its relationship to a governing word.
- Gender
- A grammatical classification of nouns; it need not match sex or have a transparent meaning.
- Agreement
- A form changes to match features of another expression, such as person, number, gender or case.
- Tense
- A grammatical way of locating a situation relative to a time of reference.
- Aspect
- How a situation is viewed: for example ongoing, habitual, completed or prior to a reference point.
- Mood
- A grammatical distinction associated with assertion, possibility, commands, wishes or other clause functions.
- Finite form
- A verb form that can serve as a clause’s main inflected verb, contrasting with infinitives and participles. The precise criteria vary by language.
- Participle
- A verb-derived form used in constructions such as modifiers, compound tenses or passives; its roles vary by language.
- Infinitive
- A nonfinite verb form in languages that have one; it is not automatically equivalent to English “to + verb”.
- Subject / object
- Grammatical relations in a clause, not universal synonyms for “doer” and “receiver”.
- Clitic
- A short grammatical form that depends phonologically on a neighboring word.
- Transitive
- Describes a verb construction that takes a direct object.
- Register
- A variety of expression associated with context, relationship or level of formality.
Gender, number & the article
- Nouns have masculine, feminine or neuter gender and singular, plural and a less frequent dual number. Learn nominative, genitive and gender to identify stems and declension.
- The definite article agrees in gender, number and case. There is no obligatory indefinite article equivalent to English a.
| Case: singular article | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | ὁ | ἡ | τό |
| genitive | τοῦ | τῆς | τοῦ |
| dative | τῷ | τῇ | τῷ |
| accusative | τόν | τήν | τό |
| plural nominative | οἱ | αἱ | τά |
Worked examples
ὁ ἄνθρωπος τὸ βιβλίον ἔχει.
The person has the book.
How it works: ὁ marks masculine nominative; τό marks neuter accusative here.
Articles and gender
ὁ, ἡ and τό mark nominative singular masculine, feminine and neuter nouns. Learn the article with the noun.
ὁ ἄνθρωπος γράφει.The person writes.
Read the model, complete the gap, then change one word and explain what changes.
Try it yourself
1 / 1 · 0 correctComplete the model using the rule.
___ ἄνθρωπος γράφει.
All words · vocabulary quiz
1 / 20 · 0 correctChoose the English meaning.
ὕδωρ
ὕδωρwater
ὕδωρwater
ἄρτοςbread
ἄρτοςbread
οἶνοςwine
οἶνοςwine
οἰκίαhouse
οἰκίαhouse
ὁδόςroad
ὁδόςroad
ἄνθρωποςperson
ἄνθρωποςperson
λόγοςword / account
λόγοςword / account
βιβλίονbook
βιβλίονbook
ἡμέραday
ἡμέραday
νύξnight
νύξnight
ἥλιοςsun
ἥλιοςsun
θάλασσαsea
θάλασσαsea
πόλιςcity
πόλιςcity
φίλοςfriend
φίλοςfriend
γράφωI write
γράφωI write
λέγωI say
λέγωI say
ἔχωI have
ἔχωI have
εἰμίI am
εἰμίI am
καλόςbeautiful / good
καλόςbeautiful / good
μικρόςsmall
μικρόςsmall
Between the words
Begin with Classical Attic conventions, then distinguish Homeric, Ionic and Koine. Pronunciation is reconstructed and varies by teaching tradition.
χαῖρε.
Choose a periodBegin with Classical Attic conventions, then distinguish Homeric, Ionic and Koine. Pronunciation is reconstructed and varies by teaching tradition.
χαῖρε.
These short sentences are teaching examples, not quotations from an ancient author. Ancient Greek is not a substitute for Modern Greek on a trip.
Read the situation
1 / 1 · 0 correctRecall the opening greeting from this collection.
Practice scores last for this visit.Ancient Greek audio is unavailable on this device. All exercises work without audio.