You're off to Greece for a holiday of warm whitewashed terraces, fresh fish, and fragrant orange blossom, steeped in modern and ancient history. Your well-thumbed guidebook gives you a taste of what to expect in each city, but how do you say the city names properly? Most guidebooks give Anglicized spelling of Greek words, so you don't have to learn the Greek alphabet before your trip. Below is a short guide to pronouncing Greek words based on their Latin-alphabet spelling. Please note that the pronunciations are based on American English.
Reading English can be difficult because the spelling of vowel sounds changes (think 'Polish the Polish furniture'). In Greek, vowel spellings are always the same, so /a/ is 'ah' as in 'hot,' /e/ is 'eh' as in 'late,' /i/ is 'ee' as in 'heat,' /o/ is 'oh' as in 'coat,' and /u/ is 'oo' as in 'toot.'
A diphthong is a combination of two vowel sounds. Greek diphthongs are also pronounced as they're spelled, so /ai/ is the sound in 'eye,' /ei/ is the sound in 'fake,' /oi/ is the sound in 'oil,' /au/ is the sound in 'cow,' and /ou/ is the sound in 'loot.'
Two Greek diphthongs have an extra sound in them: /eu/ sounds just like 'you' and /ui/ sounds just like 'we.'
The Greek /y/ sounds like the English 'ee' as in 'deep.'
The Greek /x/ sounds like the English 'ks,' as in 'box,' but without the vowel sound.
The letter /d/ in Greek sounds different from the English 'd.' It's softer, like the 'th' sound in 'those.' /th/ in Greek sounds like the English 'th' in the word 'thick.'
Pronounce the Greek 'ch' like the English 'k.'
Before /e/ and /i/, the Greek /c/ is pronounced like 's' and /g/ is pronounced like 'j'. Before other vowels, /c/ is pronounced like 'k' and /g/ is pronounced like 'g.'
Other Greek consonant sounds are the same or similar to English consonant sounds.
Here are some examples of Greek city names with English pronunciation: Athina (ah-THEE-nah) Thessaloniki (thess-ah-LOW-nee-kee), Kalamata (call-ah-MAH-tah), Rhodos (ROW-thos), and Mykonos (MEE-koh-nohs).
