I don't understand how anyone could learn Greek with Duolingo...

I know there's a lot of people who claim that the best way to learn languages is like a child. Might work for them, doesn't work for me. I don't understand the Greek articles at all. I don't know when you use mia and when ena. Until I go and check out the Greek grammar, and see that mia is the feminine article and ena the masculine/neuter. Now, I KNOW there's some grammar in Duolingo, and it would be a really smart idea to click the question mark, especially when learning, but - most people don't. And they don't always offer it in Greek either :-D

I think it's a really stupid idea to not allow transliterating. I mean, the Greek letters are pretty straightforward and easily transliterated into Roman letters.  But no... they start whining about how to PRONOUNCE the words... That there are several different letters and diphthongs that are pronounced [i].  How are you going to learn to SPELL like that? And when they accept the use of ι υ οι ει for [i] (only one of those is i), I don't understand why they cry over the FACT that one doesn't learn to spell Greek words in Duolingo. "there are surprisingly many advanced Greek learners who don't know how to spell!"

I mean, have they never heard of ghoti? Or that people learn to spell French, too, totally inspite of how it sounds? Or that in Korean, Japanese and Arabic they actually teach transliterating as part of learning the letters?  And THAT PEOPLE STILL LEARN KOREAN, JAPANESE AND ARABIC AT DUOLINGO!!! Duolingo taught me how to read Arabic. 

Seriously, the people who are responsible for the Greek course at Duolingo! Greek is not difficult to transliterate! 

α - a
β - b
γ - g
δ - d
ε - e
ζ - z
η - e/ei
θ - th
ι - i
κ - k
λ - l
μ - m
ν - n
ξ - x
ο - o
π - p
ρ - r
σ - s
τ - t
υ - u/y
φ - f/ph
χ - ch
ψ - ps
ω - o

And then just give people trick alternatives of words deliberately written wrong, and don't accept anything but the correct alternative. That's how you teach people when you write η and when ε. When to use omega and when omicron. Which letters are used to form the i-sound in this word. Not by accepting ι as typo for υ, "because it sounds the same". Idiots.

Anyway, about transliterating - you do it by exchanging a letter to a letter (or a specific letter combination) Like in Russian, С - s,Ш - sh, Ц - c,Ч - ch,З - z,Ж - zh, and Щ - shc.
This works like this: I sound the name of the letter when I write it. 
You know, cee, a, tee - cat. 
Gamma - alpha - tau - alpha - γατα - gata. 
ka - o - sha - ka - a - кошка koshka.
I mean... if I know democracy in Greek is written demokratia, it might make it harder for me to remember it's pronounced "ðimokratía", but easier to know it's spelled δημοκρατία and not διμοκρατία. That Duolingo accepts "διμοκρατία" as a correct answer - with a typo - but not demokratia, is just stupid.

I am not going to get myself a Greek keyboard. I got myself a Russian one, and then I forgot to change it back to Swedish, and closed the computer, and everything was in Russian when I opened it again... I can tell you it took some time to change it back to Swedish. And it wasn't easy. I almost cried before I got it back. I do not want to go through that with the Greek keyboard as well.

So - I'm probably not going to do much Greek in Duolingo. 

So, someone said "how are you going to learn to read and write Greek without a keyboard?"
The same way I LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE EVERY OTHER WRITING SYSTEM, you idiot! We didn't get a keyboard at first class when we taught to read and write my mothertongue, and it wouldn't have helped any with the reading. NO-ONE USES THE KEYBOARD TO READ. 

Also, when I'm learning things like "this is a woman, this is a man, I am a girl, you are a boy, cat ate fish" and so on - I'm still a beginner and will probably be for a VERY LONG TIME - I think my priority should not be to learn to touch-type yet another keyboard layout. Because that's how it's going to be. You see, the Greek keyboard layout is different from the Latin one, because they have created theirs according to the how their language works. 

Our keyboard is abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

Theirs is αβψδεφγηιξκλμνοπ;ρστθωςχυζ

You see, they don't have a c, h, j, q, u, v or w. But they do have ps, two es, th, two os and ch. Now, I think they should have put χ as h and ξ as x, but I suppose they have more use for μ and need it to be one of the most used keys in the middle... Anyway, it's different, and requires learning. (Of course it's easier than the Russian keyboard, but, alas, I have already started learning to touch type Russian, so...)

But on the other hand, I have a keyboard I can use, and then just copy and paste... though I don't like it. I'd much rather just write on Duolingo. And probably they'll remove the cut and paste option, too :-D

Anyway, I was using the word bank, but they have this vocabulary test, which doesn't give you options. You have to write it as it is. And they don't give you a Greek keyboard. So cut and paste it is. And when I was complaining about this, someone said they are pretty certain of that there's a button I can click. Yeah... I posted a screen shot and asked them to show me where the button is, because it's not there. Really easy for people to learn Greek.

And then we have the funny little fact that some countries that used to use Cyrillics to write their language, have changed to Latin alphabet - AND MANAGED TO MAKE THE CHANGE WITHOUT MUCH PROBLEMS.  

It doesn't make things better that I think the woman reading the words is hard to understand. Her Greek isn't very clear, and it's hard to hear what she says. 

So, no, Duolingo Greek is not something I would recommend.