There are two breathing marks in Greek, one or the other of which will always be placed over an initial vowel or diphthong in a word. Sometimes beginning students become confused about how to distinguish one mark from the other. Perhaps the following mnemonic tips will help.

• The smooth breathing mark looks like a raised comma or normal apostrophe (  V ). The smooth breathing curls the proper way and is therefore rather "smooth."
• The rough breathing mark looks like an opening single quotation mark (  ~ ). It looks rough, like it is "going against the grain."

Note that when transliterating Greek, an h is used to denote rough breathing (e.g., eu`ri,skw = heuriskō). Smooth breathing is not transliterated.

Here are some tips on how to identify the three types of accent marks. I have placed each of the accents over an omega.

• The acute accent (w,) looks like a normal, "cute," little accent.
• The grave accent (w.) slants the wrong way, which is a "grave" mistake.
• The circumflex accent (w/) "flexes" like a muscle.

We will not be concerned with accent rules in this course. In terms of pronunciation, we will simply stress the syllable over which any accent falls.

You will not be required to supply accents when typing Greek sentences. However, you will be required to memorize and type the breathing marks. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to memorize both the breathing marks and accents on vocabulary. This will ensure accurate pronunciation, and it will assist you in learning accent rules later, if you so choose.

There are a few cases, which will be pointed out as we move along, when accents are the only distinguishing marks between different words. In these instances you will be required to know and type the proper accents.

Here is a comparison of Greek and English punctuation marks (I have used a final sigma in the Greek column, and an s in the English, to demonstrate the size and placement of the punctuation marks relative to letters):