# Pronunciation Rules of χ



## chrislols

Can somebody put the rules of when 'χ' is said with a hard 'h' or a 'ch' sound.

For example my name. Χριστος is said with a hard Ch and the same with 'νύχτα'. But I know words like 'Έχω, Έχεις". When exactly do you know wether it's hard H or 'ch'


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## brian

Hi,

I think I would avoid calling the sounds "hard 'h'" and "ch"--I'm not sure what those mean, especially since "ch" in English is way different.

I think you are talking about the voiceless _palatal_ fricative, [ç] (like the _h_ sound in _human_, or the _ch_ sound in German _ich_), and the voiceless _velar_ fricative, [x] (like the _ch_ sound in German _Nacht_ or Scottish _loch_).

Anyway, χ is pronounced [ç] when it immediately precedes a front vowel (η, ι, υ, ει, α, υι, ε, and αι); it is pronounced [x] in all other positions (before any other vowels and before consonants).

So Χριστός has [x] (the "hard" sound, if you will), as does νύχτα.


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## orthophron

brian8733 said:


> χ is pronounced [ç] when it immediately precedes a front vowel (η, ι, υ, ει, α, υι, ε, and αι)


I think that α shouldn't have been included; it seems to have slipped into the text, hasn't it?


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## Stevo_Evo_22

orthophron said:


> I think that α shouldn't have been included; it seems to have slipped into the text, hasn't it?


 
I'm relieved you said that, I didn't think it was pronounce like that...


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## brian

Sorry, of course, that's not a front vowel.  Apologies.


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## chrislols

Sorry it took so long to respond, but I don't get what yous are talking about when yous say it's pronounced "[ç]" and "[x]" when blabla. If anyone could please explain this that'd be appreciated. Thanks alot I really wish to know this


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## Athanasia/Anna

There is only *one* way to pronounce the greek sound 'χ'. 
There is no hard χ and there is not any other softer χ sound either.

The name Chris which come from Christos when pronounced the english way it sounds like a 'K" (=Kristos).This is wrong though. The Greeks would not spell this name with a *'Χ'* but with a 'K' if they wanted it to be pronounced like a* 'K'*. But they didn't ,so that's that... 

And also note that all words in Greek that begin with or contain the letter 'χ' are all pronounced the same.. *Χ*ρίστος, *χ*ριστιανός, *χ*υλόπιτες, *χ*αλί, *χ*αρά, τύ*χ*η, ατυ*χ*ία... κτλ

Now the greek way to pronounce this name is hard because there is no other similar sound like this in english. 
As someone already has suggested German sounds are something you could relate this '*χ'* sound to.

I would suggest to use the english *H *sound but pronounce it strongly and it must come from the back of your throught as if you have sth stuck(perhaps a hair) there and you need to get it out
Have you ever heard a cat hissss when it's mad??? Its something like that...

So you say *HHHH-H*ristos... try to avoid turning the sound into a 'K' remember and the *"r"* has to be also very strong as in (Spanish or Italian) 

The most important thing is that it should *NOT* be pronounced as soft or slightly silent as in the english 'How are you' or 'hello' or 'hey' or 'hahahaha'!
And also the best thing is to practice it for yourself. Go on you tube and listen to Greeks speaking. Writen explanations of greek pronunciation can be confusing. Listening and speaking is the best way to pronounce any language anyway...
Hope I've helped a bit Good luck!


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## orthophron

chrislols said:


> Sorry it took so long to respond, but I don't get what yous are talking about when yous say it's pronounced "[ç]" and "[x]" when blabla. If anyone could please explain this that'd be appreciated. Thanks alot I really wish to know this


If you visit this page you can hear the difference between /x/ and the palatalized /ç/ by clicking on each. Note: /χ/ is not the same as /x/ ; it is slightly different but I think one needs to change the loudspeakers to understand the difference.


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## Kevman

Hi chrislols,

Palatalization is when the sound of a consonant is "pulled" forward to the hard palate by an adjacent front vowel sound (see posts #2-5 for the list of front vowels--they are all pronounced with the tongue positioned in the front of the mouth).  Normally, χ has the sort of 'raspy' /h/ sound like in German _Bach_ or Scottish _loch_--almost like you're hawking a loogie.  When χ immediately precedes a front vowel, however, it gets "pulled" forward into something closer to English 'sh' (but not all the way to 'sh'!  That's where it gets tricky.  It's like 'sh' formed against the back of the roof of your mouth instead of the front, and with the middle of your tongue instead of the tip.  This is the sound represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol [ç]).

So a word like χώρα or χάρη has the normal loogie-hawking χ sound, while words like χέρι and χαίρομαι (note the vowel _sound_, not the spelling!) start with that [ç] sound.

If this issue is giving you a whole lot of trouble I would say not to worry about it _too_ much and just always pronounce χ the normal unpalatalized way.  You will always be understood, since even native Greek speakers generally don't notice their own palatalization unless they study it.  You'll just have a noticeably non-Greek accent for now, but as you have the chance to listen to more Greek and imitate the accent better I think the palatalization should come naturally.

If you want to study Greek palatalization further, there is a detailed description of it here, along with audio files of sample words.


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## DimitrisXP

chrislols said:


> For example my name. Χριστος is said with a hard Ch and the same with 'νύχτα'. But I know words like 'Έχω, Έχεις". When exactly do you know wether it's hard H or 'ch'


Please notice that 'χ' in "έχω" is hard, as opposed to 'χ' in "έχεις" which is soft.
As already stated by Brian8733, the Greek letter 'χ' does not produce a soft sound when it precedes the letter 'ω'.


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## DimitrisXP

Athanasia/Anna said:


> There is only *one* way to pronounce the greek sound 'χ'.
> There is no hard χ and there is not any other softer χ sound either.
> 
> The name Chris which come from Christos when pronounced the english way it sounds like a 'K" (=Kristos).This is wrong though. The Greeks would not spell this name with a *'Χ'* but with a 'K' if they wanted it to be pronounced like a* 'K'*. But they didn't ,so that's that...
> 
> And also note that all words in Greek that begin with or contain the letter 'χ' are all pronounced the same.. *Χ*ρίστος, *χ*ριστιανός, *χ*υλόπιτες, *χ*αλί, *χ*αρά, τύ*χ*η, ατυ*χ*ία... κτλ
> 
> Now the greek way to pronounce this name is hard because there is no other similar sound like this in english.
> As someone already has suggested German sounds are something you could relate this '*χ'* sound to.
> 
> I would suggest to use the english *H *sound but pronounce it strongly and it must come from the back of your throught as if you have sth stuck(perhaps a hair) there and you need to get it out
> Have you ever heard a cat hissss when it's mad??? Its something like that...
> 
> So you say *HHHH-H*ristos... try to avoid turning the sound into a 'K' remember and the *"r"* has to be also very strong as in (Spanish or Italian)
> 
> The most important thing is that it should *NOT* be pronounced as soft or slightly silent as in the english 'How are you' or 'hello' or 'hey' or 'hahahaha'!
> And also the best thing is to practice it for yourself. Go on you tube and listen to Greeks speaking. Writen explanations of greek pronunciation can be confusing. Listening and speaking is the best way to pronounce any language anyway...
> Hope I've helped a bit Good luck!



I disagree that there's only one way to pronounce the Greek letter 'χ'.
It is soft when it precedes any i or e vowel/diphthong (that is the ones listed by Brian8733), and hard in any other case.

If you want to hear how a hard 'χ' would sound in front of those vowels, you should find somebody who speaks *proper * Castilian Spanish and ask them to pronounce a word containing "ge" or "gi" for you. Or try to find some video of the "Savvatogennimenes" TV-series, with Kapoutzidis playing the role of the Uruguayan immigrant (he actually had a perfect Castillian accent, so try to find him saying "έχεις").


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