If you are studying Greek in a classroom setting, ask your instructor whether breathing marks will affect pronunciation in your class. In Modern Greek these marks make no difference in pronunciation. The smooth breathing mark indicated the absence of such aspiration. Originally the rough breathing mark indicated that an aspiration (a sound like the English "h" in “house”) preceded the vowel. The rough breathing mark resembles a miniature open parenthesis "(", and the smooth breathing mark resembles a miniature closing parenthesis ")". The breathing mark is written above the vowel if it is lower case, but before it if it is upper case: ἀνά ("up"), but Ἀνά.
A vowel at the beginning of a word is always written with a breathing mark (rough: ἁ or smooth: ἀ).
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