The breaths and combinations of breath with accent are written over initial vowels, but in the case of initial diphthongs, over the second vowel. They are not written over capital letters, but to the left in the upper part of the rule. Examples: ἀνήρ, Ἀνήρ, αἰτῶ, Αἰτῶ, ἄνω, Ἄνω.

 Accentuation [most starters' courses ignore the accent as being of insufficient importance, but I prefer not to leave the reader with too many questions and therefore give a very brief treatment of it here]:

the principle is that every word (even a monosyllabic word) has one accented syllable, with not more than one long or two short vowels between the accented syllable and the end of the word. [ The verbal endings in -αι, except the A inf. in -ναι, although diphthongs, count for short]. Some (mostly monosyllabic) words are incorporated with the preceding word as regards the accent (so-called enclitics); also there are words that are incorporated with the following word (so-called proclitics).

An acute accent on a last syllable changes into a grave accent, except when the word immediately precedes a pause (which is mostly marked by a punctuation mark).

[In the following many abbreviations are used with which a starter will not be familiar; you are referred to the list of abbreviations for enlightenment.]

Enclitics: words that for accentuation purposes form one entity with the preceding word. They are: the oblique forms of the personal pronouns singular, all forms of the         indefinite pronoun τις, A pr-ind (except 2^nd sg) of the verbs εἰμί and φημί, που, ποι, ποθεν, πως, πῃ, ποτε, γε, τε, τοι, περ, πω. The presence of these words will account for some anomalous accenting, such as ἄνθρωπός τις: the combination counts for one word, but then the accent is too far from the end of the word, so an accent is simply added.   Proclitics: words that for accentuation purposes form one entity with the following word. They are  ὁ, ἡ, οἱ, αἱ, εἰ, εἰς (ἐς), ἐκ (ἐξ), ἐν, οὐ, ὡς (not always in Homer). The matter of pro- & enclitics is not of sufficient importance to merit full treatment in a work of this scope; the curious can always consult a more detailed grammar, of which there is an abundance, even on the internet.                                                                                                                                           

Different accent, different meaning: there is quite a lot of this in Greek, but again this is more for conoisseurs than for starters:

τι: >Ne sg  N+Ac  indefinite pronoun, as against τί: >Ne  sg  N+Ac interrogative pronoun;  που (=somewhere), ποῦ (where?) in general every indefinite pronoun (unaccented) becomes interrogative when accented on the first syllable; βίῳ: D sg of βίος (=life) as opposed to βιῷ: A aor subj 3^rd sg of βιόω; βούλῃ: P pr-ind+subj 2^nd sg of βούλομαι (=to want to), while βουλῇ  is D sg of βουλή. One could go on almost indefinitely producing such examples; some day everyone stubs his or her toe on such matters, but to engender adequate forewarning would entail getting bogged down in such detail that no one would read to the end of it.

PUNCTUATION MARKS.

The full stop and the komma are the same as in modern languages. The question mark is the same as our semi-colon ; and our semi-colon is a dot on the upper part of the rule · This sign is also used as :

The rules for placing these marks are similar to those in all modern languages, but individual differences between editors abound.

For reading practice get hold of any ancient Greek text you can find and wade in. Don’t forget the capital letters,or they will leap out at you when you least expect them.