LingoflyΙ ι — iota
«iota» is a vowel of the Greek script, read as “ee as in "see", the basic letter ι”. A pure ee. For example, in the word “φίλος” (fílos) — friend. The Greek alphabet has 24 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. It appears, for example, in the word “Γεια” (ya) — hi.
In short
| Character | Ι ι |
| Name | iota |
| Sound | ee as in "see", the basic letter ι |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 9th of 37: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are θ and κ, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type Ι ι
- On a phone: add the Greek keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+03B9 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 03B9.
- Unicode code points: ι — U+03B9, Ι — U+0399. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A pure ee
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| with stress | ί | — |
| capital with stress | Ί | — |
| with two dots | ϊ | read separately from the neighboring vowel |
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
The character in the “twelve letters that read as they look” group
These letters read just as they look, and they make up exactly half the alphabet. Reading starts with them: κάτι (káti), μόνο (móno), τι (ti), καλά (kalá) are assembled from these alone.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «iota» it is “ee as in "see", the basic letter ι”, as in the word “φίλος” (fílos)), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 24 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Greek character ι read?
As “ee as in "see", the basic letter ι” — it is a vowel of the Greek script. A pure ee. For example, in the word “φίλος” (fílos) — friend.
What is the letter ι called?
Iota. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Greek script: it is called “iota” and reads as “ee as in "see", the basic letter ι”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.