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Verbs - The Passive Voice part 5 - Moods

      To wrap up our section on the verbs, we will be concluding with a look into the moods for the Passive Voice verb forms. Whether you’ve been following from the start or are joining in now, welcome. We will be looking into the five different moods that we can find our verbs in: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, the Participle, and the Infinitive.

      We will begin with a look into the Indicative mood as it is the most simple.

Indicative Mood:

      This is the mood that is present at any given time. With the lack of any of the other mentioned moods, this is the default mood so to speak. So we use it with any tense of any verb as long as we don’t have any preceding particles or specific stem changes that would change it from this mood, and therefore does not have anything we need to keep in mind when changing.

Next we will look at the

Infinitive Mood:

      This mood has no additional way of conjugation and does not change. It is mainly used to aid in the formation of the perfect tenses. With that in mind, it is simply the verb in it’s third person singular future tense form. So when you see verbs in this form, you know that they are in the third person singular tense infinitive mood

Subjunctive Mood:

       Here we have, much like the counterpart in the active voice, a mood that is used to convey wishes, desires, commands (outside of imperative forms), expectations, hopes, possibilities, etc. Again, we see this in use with the particles να ή(or) ας. We can also see this mood used after the conjunctions αν, εάν, όταν, πριν να, μόλις. μήπως, για να, άμα και να. 

      We also can see that this mood can be broken down to the simple subjunctive and the continuous subjunctive.

      The continuous subjunctive uses the regular form of the passive verb in addition to the particle να. This will show a repetitive usage of the verb, or one that does not show a distinctive ending such as να πλένομαι (to wash ‘myself’). It can also be viewed as an open ended statement.

θέλω να ντύνομαι στα κομψά ρούχα κάθε Παρασκευή - I want to dress in elegant clothes every Friday.

      ***To review the continuous subjunctive, we can look back to the endings of the present passive:

     The simple subjunctive is used to show a hope, desire, action etc that will occur once, and then it is over. We can accomplish this by conjugating the verb in the simple future tense and putting να before the verb ( may also be used with the conjugations listed above).

ελπίζω να ντύνομαι στα κομψά ρούχα ενα μέρα - I hope to dress in elegant clothes one day

      ***To review our simple future tense endings to help us form this we can look at our charts again:

     We can also use this mood in the present perfect tense. We do this similarly to the way we form any of the present perfect tenses, by adding and conjugating the form of έχω that we need to convey our message, and then placing the intended verb in the third person singular future tense. After that is done, slap a να in front to complete this form. We can also use the participle of the passive tense verb using this method.

      ***We can use the above chart to help us in this formation as well.***

Imperative Mood:

      The imperative mood is the case/mood we use when we give direct commands/demands or wishes. This can also be broken down to the continuous imperative(found in the present tense) and the simple imperative(found in the past tense), both can be in singular or plural forms.

      As discussed before, the difference is that the continuous imperative shows an ongoing to repetitive/open ended command that will continually occur.

      The simple imperative shows a command that is pretty much requested to be done at one point and when it is completed, it is over.

      I will update a bit later with some more examples of the imperative in usage.

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      From here the only thing left to cover is a few things on negations and more in depth on the participles, but I plan on doing those in a separate post on their own to focus on those themselves. For now, we’ve been in the verbs for quite a while and I think it’s time to move on to other parts of speech and cover nouns and adjectives. Those subjects will have quite a lot more to cover on declensions, but will not be as technical as the verbs, but do keep in mind there will be some dense information on endings and changes between the person(s) mentioned/plurality, and word gender so those may be broken down by gender with some overview information(still haven’t decided yet).

      My apologies to all reading for the scattered updates, work has been pretty draining and having to learn more for job security especially during the midst of a pandemic when working with the public leaves me feeling a bit stressed and overloaded. Either way, I’m very surprised to see how many likes, reblogs and followers this blog has achieved when I started it as a little side project during lock-downs. I hope everyone reading these gets some form of help from me trying to teach myself a language. Stay safe and take care of yourselves.

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Interim Post 2 - More Terms

      Before I finish the last parts of the passive voice verbs, I have been delving heavily into the participles which I will be covering more when we get to adjectives and briefly touch on at the end of the post about the passive voice. I feel that to make sure everyone is on the same page, I should define and explain a few more grammatical terms before we get into that to give people some time to digest things as we get into a bit more complex grammar topics.

      During my research I have come across a lot of topics in regards to transitive and intransitive verbs and how some portions of the grammar correlate to their usage and can change depending on whether the verbs take on subjects or not. While some may be aware of these concepts and have no problem with understanding them, others may have lacked the access, or instruction to help them bridge this information so please bear with me as I will be describing these purely to cover and missing holes in my, or other’s lack of understanding.

      So, with Transitive Verbs, we have a verb that can take on one or more objects within a sentence. For the sake of review, an object is the person who suffers from, or is the recipient of the action that is performed by the subject. To give some examples:

The cat scratches John (here we see that the cat in bold is the subject, the action being performed is scratching, and the object is the thing who receives that action which would be John) This is showing in this example that scratches is a transitive verb as it has an object. We can do a 1:1 switch of this sentence into Greek as another example:

Η γατά γρατσουνίζει τον Γιάννη The cat scratches John. Again, here we see that the cat is the subject and in Greek is in the nominative case, the verb (which we now know is transitive as it has an object) in the third person singular as the cat is performing the action, and John, we have in the accusative case as he is the object of the verb.

      Next we will look at the Intransitive Verb. Here, directly opposite to the transitive verb, we have a verb that does not take a direct object when in use. I’m not sure about others, but with this usage, it feels a bit lacking in information to me. We will look at an example to see the point:

The dog will bite. That’s all there is to an intransitive verb use. There is a lack of an object, nothing is the recipient of the verb bite, in fact, we are not sure who or what the dog will bite, just that it will. Let’s look at it in Greek:

Ο σκύλος θα δαγκώσει - The dog will bite. Here we see the dog in the nominative case as it is the subject, with the simple future tense of the verb to bite.

      There you have it for the Transitive and Intransitive verbs and how they can appear in English, and a bit on how they can show up in Modern Greek, hopefully that will shed a little light on the next post(s) when I describe participles and some of their formation and use based on whether it is a transitive or intransitive verb usage within the sentence and that the terms won’t feel so foreign.

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Verbs - The Passive Voice part 4 - Tenses Finale

      Finally to complete our section on the Passive Voice verb form tenses before we move on to the moods. In this post we will look at the past tense forms of the Passive Voice verb forms. The Simple Past and the Imperfect(Past Continuous) will have the completely different conjugation forms between the two of them, and while it can be frustrating to have more to form and conjugate, just know we are almost out of the woods as the moods should be relying on previous methods of conjugation, save for the imperative mood. We will first begin with the most drastic change to get the most information out of the way first.

The Simple Past Tense:

      To review, this tense is used when we want to describe actions that have taken place in the past and have already been completed in the past. We form this by taking the Future Simple Tense of the Passive Voice, and then we will change the endings as follows:

***please note that this tense will always have the stress accent mark placed on the third syllable from the left***

      As shown above, we can see that there are some changes to how the verbs conjugate based off of the verb stems. It may seem like a lot to keep in mind, but fret not. We will go over some things to help us.

1. When the verb in the future simple tense ends in θώ, then we can change it to θηκα and conjugate using the endings in the right hand side of the chart. On the left hand side of the chart is the word ζεσταθώ.

2. When the verb in the future simple tense ends in νθώ, then we can change it to νθηκα and conjugate using the endings in the right hand side of the chart. On the left hand side of the chart is the word αισθανθώ.

3. When the verb in the future simple tense ends in στώ, then we can change it to στηκα and conjugate using the endings in the right hand side of the chart. On the left hand side of the chart is the word ποτιστώ.

4. When the verb in the future simple tense ends in χτώ, then we can change it to χτηκα and conjugate using the endings in the right hand side of the chart. On the left hand side of the chart is the word ανοιχτώ.

5. When the verb in the future simple tense ends in ευτώ, then we can change it to εύτηκα and conjugate using the endings in the right hand side of the chart. On the left hand side of the chart is the word παντρευτώ.

6. When the verb in the future simple tense ends in φτώ, then we can change it to φτηκα and conjugate using the endings in the right hand side of the chart. On the left hand side of the chart is the word γραφτώ.

***To make this feel a little easier to digest, notice that all of the verb conjugations end the same way, by dropping the -ώ and conjugating with -ηκα, -ηκες, -ηκε, -ηκαμε, -ηκατε, -ηκαν/ηκανε.***

      Additionally, with words in group 3 such as αγαπιέμαι, λυπάμαι and κοιμάμαι/κοιμούμαι, will change their endings a bit differently from the other verbs shown above.

      Easily enough, for all of those endings, we change the ending to ήθηκα and can follow the conjugation table in the chart above on the right hand side.

The Past Continuous (Imperfect Tense):

      We use this tense when we want to describe an action that was occurring in the past for a duration of time, but no longer does. Comparative to the previous tense, this will be relatively simple, albeit more information to take in mind. We will follow the conjugations in the chart below.

1. Group 1 verbs which end in -ομαι or άμαι will change to -όμουν and follow with the verb endings in the right hand side of the chart for group 1 verbs.

2. Group 2 verbs have endings with -ούμαι  and will change to -ούμουν and follow the verb endings in the right hand side of the chart for group 2 verbs.

3. Group 3 verbs which end in ιέμαι will change to -ιόμουν and follow the verb endings in the right hand side of the chart for group 3 verbs.

Lastly, we have,

Past Perfect Tense:

      This is another conditional tense in usage. We can use it when we want to describe an action that has happened in the past before another action. We can do this similarly to how we did it with the Active Voice forms. We change the verb to the third person singular future tense form, and throw the past tense of έχω right in front of that.

κοιμάμαι -> θα κοιμηθεί -> είχα κοιμηθεί (I sleep -> he will sleep -> I had slept)

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      That’s all there is to the major conjugations of the Passive Voice Verb forms. Congratulations for navigating through all that with me, and we will begin the next post with a look into the verb moods and how they work with the passive voice verbs and after that we will begin a view into verbs and adjectives.

      If you’ve followed along so far, good job! If you haven’t and are just joining us in our journey into Modern Greek grammar, then welcome and take your time, learn and digest the information in a way that makes you feel comfortable. There isn’t a rush to learning.

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Verbs - The Passive Voice part 3 - Tenses Continued

      Continuing on from where we left off, we will be looking at the future continuous tense, as well as the future perfect tense before we move onto the rest of the present and the past tense.

The Future Continuous Tense:

      As a recap, this is used when you want to express an action that will be happening for a duration of time. Lucky for us, it is a very easy tense to form. All we need to do is take the present tense of the passive verb form and add θα to the front of it.

κοιμάμαι -> θα κοιμάμαι (I will be sleeping)

Όταν μαθαίνω να διαβάσει, θα θεωρούμαι εξυπνο. (When I learn to read, I will be considered smart.)

The Future Perfect Tense:

      In review, this is the tense is more on a conditional basis. It is used to talk about an action that will be completed in the future, but when something else happens before it. We will form it in a similar manner to how we formed it in the active voice for the same tense, by changing the word to the third person singular form of the future tense, and adding θα έχω to the front of it.

      As a reminder, we will be conjugating only the έχω portion in this tense while our intended verb will remain in third person singular future tense, as shown below:

ντύνομαι -> ντυθεί -> θα έχω ντυθεί (I will have gotten dressed)

and if we change it to

ντύνομαι -> ντυθεί -> θα έχεις ντυθεί (you will have gotten dressed)

θα έχεις ντυθεί πρίν να φτάσω (you will have got dressed before I arrive)

we also note that “I arrive” in this sentence is placed in the subjunctive case after the words πρίν να.

The Present Perfect Tense:

      To wrap up this post, we will look at and review the present perfect tense before we dedicate a post to the past tense.

      In review, we use this tense to indicate when an action has begun in the past and still persists into the present. We can do achieve this by putting έχω in front of the third person singular future tense of the verb.

Έχω κρύφτει τον θησαυρό (I have hidden the treasure)

We see here that with this use the treasure was hidden before, and to this day and to our knowledge, it is still hidden.

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      To cut this post and add an authors note here, there are additional ways to conjugate the perfect present tense and the future perfect tense using participles, but we will cover those when we cover participles in a later post.

      I hope everyone that reads these posts are staying healthy and safe during all of this and that you all can gleam some new information out of this blog and the research I try to conduct from all the books and web resources I scour. In the next post we will be reviewing all of the past tense of the passive voice, move on to the the moods and get on to the nouns and adjectives. I’m fairly excited to move on to a new grammar topic from the verbs as I think it will help all of us with variety and grammatical spice for our learning and sentences. So apologies in advance if the posts come a bit rushed, but I will try to make sure I still accurately describe the use of the tenses and moods.

      I also know that I have skipped doing an section on the alphabet as I feel it is difficult to teach without having a dedicated audio portion to it, so I may look into finding some Youtube videos I feel do a good job, but either way I want to do a section on vowel and consonant clusters to give some more in depth reason as to when αυ και ευ will make their av or af sound and ev and ef sound.

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Verbs - The Passive Voice part 2 - Tenses

      To continue where we left off, we will be looking at more tenses for the Passive Voice verb forms. I will be adding in some of the explanations for the tenses as they are used, just as was previously explained for the Active Voice forms. Apologies in advance as this will be a long post about most likely, just the simple future tense.

Future Simple Tense(Future Perfect Tense)

     This is the verb form that we will be using when an event will occur in the future, and it is an event that has an end. This tense has a lack of habitual recurrence of the action, and once it is completed it is done. Please bear with me, as we will be looking at a few different ways each group of verbs conjugates in this form.

      The difference with the Passive verb forms versus the Active verb forms here is that instead of the few groups the active form had, and the changing of the penultimate character, we will be changing a bit more and covering a bit more, and all will be discussed by their groups below the chart(s).

      As you can see, there is a lot to unpack here and a chart isn’t the best to try to explain it all on it’s own, so let’s break these down into their parts and sprinkle a few things in to augment our knowledge and understanding.

      Group A: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -νομαι or -αίνομαι. These will add the ending -θώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

χάνομαι (I lose myself) -> χά -> θα χαθώ

τρελαίνομαι (I become crazy) -> τρελα -> θα τρελαθώ

We need to take the verb down to a rough portion, and add the new ending while placing the future particle θα in front of the verb (please note that the future particle will be added in every instance of the future tense, and will not be listed in the next group lists, as it will be an assumed step).

*another case I have found in research is that occasionally there will be some of these verbs in group A that will change their ending to -στώ such as πιάνομαι, and will follow the conjugation route for Group F*

      Group B: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -φομαι, -βομαι, or -φτομαι. These will add the ending -φτώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

ανταμείβομαι* -> ανταμει -> θα ανταμειφτώ

απαλείφομαι** -> απαλει -> θα απαλειφτώ

σκέφτομαι (I am thinking) -> σκε -> θα σκεφτώ

* (I’m a bit out on the translation for this one, as some dictionaries say it means I am rewarded while others say I exchange)

**(another odd one, as this shows it can be translated as “I am deleted”)

      Group C: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -γομαι, -κομαι, -σκομαι, -χομαι or -χνομαι. These will add the ending -χτώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

ξεπετάγομαι (I pop out) -> ξεπετα -> θα ξεπεταχτώ

μπλέκομαι (I get involved/mixed up in) -> μπλε -> θα μπλεχτώ

διδάσκομαι (I am taught) -> διδα -> θα διδαχτώ

υποδέχομαι (I welcome) -> υποδε -> θα υποδεχτώ

ρίχνομαι (I throw myself into) -> ρι -> θα ριχτώ

      Group D: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -αίνομαι or -άνομαι. These will add the ending -νθώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

αισθάνομαι (I feel) -> αισθα -> θα αισθανθώ

απολυμπαίνομαι (I disinfect myself) -> απολυμπα -> θα απολυμπανθώ

      Group E: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -ευομαι or -ζομαι. These will add the ending -ευτώ, -χτώ, or -στώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

εργάζομαι (I work) -> εργα -> θα εργαστώ

ειδικεύομαι(I specialize) -> ειδικ -> θα ειδιευτώ

*occasionally there may be some verbs ending in -ζομαι that may change to the -χτώ ending*

      Group F: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -θομαι. These will add the ending -στώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

πείθομαι (I lose myself) -> χπει -> θα πειστώ

      Group G: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -ιεμαι. These will add the ending -θώ, -χτώ, or στώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

Καταριέμαι (I curse) -> καταρ -> θα καταρατώ

Ευχαριστιέμαι (I am glad) -> ευχαριστ -> θα ευχαριστηθώ

Τραβιέμαι (I am pulled/dragged) -> τραβ -> θα τραβηχτώ

*I’ve noticed with this group there is a tendency to change or add a -η- or -α- between the stem and added portion*

and finally,

      Group H: These are the passive verb forms that in the present tense had -αμαι or -ουμαι. These will add the ending -θώ, or -στώ. For the formation of the Simple Future here, is the following:

θυμάμαι (I remember) -> θυμ -> θα θυμηθώ

επικαλούμαι (I call upon) -> επικαλ -> θα επικαλεστώ

*to note, there is a trend of adding vowels when a stem is lacking one during conjugation, as always, please research a new word if you are unsure of the conjugation or usage.*

      There you have the “simple” future. It really isn’t as complicated as it may seem, there are just a lot of rules to practice, but that means you can try to speak with more people and develop new verbs and conjugation skills. Remember, learning doesn’t have to be a chore and can be a fun recreational thing to do.

      Take a breath and relax a little, for the next section I will be finishing the topic of the future tense so that we can continue using the new conjugations that we learned while they are fresh in our heads. Afterwards, I will begin covering the past tense and remainder of the present tense, as by that time we will have seen all the new rules and different forms of conjugations for the passive voice forms.

      One more thing to make note of, when I pull verbs, I am using some of the word bank from the list of verbs on Cooljugator.com and bear in mind some verbs, when I check them do not have direct translations, or are not found in some of the dictionaries I reference. The ones I DO find, may not be very commonly used or have a more modern colloquial equivalent that is used on a more frequent basis, so please, take the words with a grain of salt and know that I use them purely because they have value in showing the forms of conjugation and if you are unsure of their use in modern times and are able to, please consult a native speaker. In the future, I will potentially be editing posts with more modern or colloquially used verbs to have more relevant examples.

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Verbs - The Passive Voice part 1 - Overview and Tenses

      It may seem daunting, but don’t fret over it. This section on verbs won’t be anything you can’t already handle. Even more so after you’ve followed along with the prior section on verbs. I have faith that you can get the section on here just as well as the active voice forms. The Passive voice form of the verbs also conjugate for past and non-past, number/person and mood. It will be some more memorization on stem changes, but I believe you can do it especially after our break from verbs for a few weeks.

      So to begin, the Passive Form of the verbs have their own little rule of usage from the beginning. These verb forms are used to indicate when the subject of the statement is also the object of the verb, and, when a verb is reflexive.

      What does this mean for us? We can look at it like this:

ex: με απογοητεύτηκες απο εσείς για τελευταία φορά, Μπαρμπάδος

You have disappointed me for the last time, Barbados

Now, some apologies from jumping to a past tense from the gate, but just to prove the point in that the person who is the subject -I- is receiving the action of the verb. As I had mentioned prior, the Passive verb form can also be used to show a reflexive action where the subject and object are the same. The most basic example is:

Πλένομαι - I wash myself.

      Really self-explanatory with the above example. The things to keep in mind is that it simply a separate usage of verb forms for a different circumstance. One other thing I’d like to make mention of is that there are some verbs that have Passive forms, but are Active Voice - έρχομαι “I come” for example, and that some verbs have both an Active AND Passive forms - σκέφτω and σκέφτομαι being an equivalence of “I think and I am thinking” respectively.

      Now, before we begin with conjugation, a note. The passive voice can be made from active voice verbs and will be detailed below, some will ONLY have a passive form and will also be outlined below. One important thing to note is that occasionally the change from active to passive will come with a change in the meaning of the word.

      We will begin by looking at the Present Tense of the Passive Voice.

As before with the active voice, we have more groups.

To break them down we have:

      Group 1: These are the verbs that have their passive made from an active voice verb which has no stress on the final -ω. The chart above uses γράφω -> γράφ -ομαι -> γράφομαι this will also change the definition from “I write” to “I enroll”.

      Group 2A: These are the verbs that have their passive made from an active voice verb which has stress on the final -ώ. The chart above follows the verb θεωρώ -> θεωρ -ούμαι -> θεωρούμαι. This will also change the verb from meaning “I consider” to “I am being considered”.

      Group 2B: These are the verbs that are found ONLY in the passive form and have no active equivalent. The chart above follows the conjugation with endings in the right hand column. The verb being conjugated in the left column is φοβάμαι - I fear/ I am afraid.

      Group 3: These are the verbs that have their passive made from an active voice verb which has a stressed final -άω/-ώ. The chart above follows the verb αγαπάω -> αγαπ -ιέμαι -> αγαπιέμαι. This changes the verb meaning from “I love” to “I am being loved”.

      The next post we will continue with the tenses just as we did with the active voice verbs until those are complete and we can begin with the moods shortly afterward. I would also like that thank all of the people who are following along with our journey through Modern Greek grammar, as the combined interest is driving me to continue my reviews and posts.

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Interim Post

Συγχώρεσέ με για την απουσία μου από την εικοστή ένατη Μαΐου, με δουλειές που ανοίγουν τώρα μετά την καραντίνα, είχα πολλή δουλειά να κάνω.

      With that though, there have also been other factors playing into a lack of posting and to say the least without going out of the realm of language and grammar, please make sure dietary needs are met and make sure to get your Iodine if you don’t.

      Those aside, I have promised to include some words and grammar and I will also be posting other resources to aid in the goal of learning Modern Greek. In the time I’ve been away from the blog I’ve been going onto various apps and conversing with native Greek speakers and trying to pick up what I can here and there.

      Some of these may be posted in other Greek blogs, but without dragging on much longer, I will begin with a few findings from my conversational journeys in the world of Modern Greek and will then add in vocabulary.

Μια χαρα - Fine/Well (from the conversations I’ve had this is in response to a question asking how one is doing or how an event played out)

ex: πως ήταν η δουλειά σου σήμερα? μια χαρα ευχαριστώ.

How was your work today?

Fine, thank you.

Ενταξει - Ok (also can be used as a response to

Τι εννοείς; - What do you mean? ( I would like to add, I have seen people use εννοείς on its own with another clause, usually repeating something said previously, as a form of clarification)

Ex. έχει θερμός έξω!(It is warm outside)

εννοείς ζέστή;(You mean hot?)

      Now, a small aside for the previous example, from what I can find θερμός means more of an affectionate warmth, while Ζέστος refers more to the temperature warmth.

      One other difference I’ve seen has been between νομίζω, σκεφτώ, και σκέφτομαι.

      We will be looking at verbs forms like σκεφτομαι later, as this is a passive form of the verb σκεφτω. However, the thing to look at is that both σκεφτώ and νομίζω both mean in English: I think. The difference, as I was told, is that σκεφτώ is used when you are thinking of a person/idea and can commonly be seen in its passive voice form due to this, and νομίζω is used as I think (that it should be left). It is more of a matter of opinion and while it has a passive verb form, it is very rarely used.

Now for some Vocab:

το σήμερα - Today η μέρα - Day άποψη - Tonight το μεσημεριανό - Lunch το πρωινο - Breakfast το αύριο - Tomorrow Την Δευτέρα - Monday Την Τρίτη - Tuesday Την Τετάρτη - Wednesday Την Πέμπτη - Thursday Την Παρασκευή - Friday Το Σάββατο - Saturday Την Κυριακή - Sunday Το Σαββατοκύριακο - Weekend

η καρύδα - Coconut η φράουλα - Strawberry το μούρο - Berry το μήλο - Apple το Πορτοκάλι - Orange* το λεμόνι - Lemon το λάιμ - Lime το αβοκάντο - Avocado το άχλαδι - Pear το ροδί - Pomegranate το ροδάκινο - Peach το σμέουρο - Raspberry το κεράσι - Cherry το καρπούζι - Watermelon o χουρμάς - Date το σύκο - Fig το σταφύλι - Grape το κίβι - Kiwi το μάνγκο - Mango η παπάγια - Papaya o ανανάς - Pineapple το δαμάσκηνο - Plum η ελιά - Olive η μπανάνα Banana το βερίκοκο - Apricot

*as a note, πορτοκάλι is the fruit while πορτοκαλί is the color. The difference is the tonal emphasis placed on the final syllable vs the penultimate syllable.*

*as another note, I have included the articles for the words listed above, and will in the future. It is good practice to learn the words WITH their articles to further understand their gender for agreements later on*

      I think for now we will be revisiting the vocab again in future posts, and for now we will be resuming our section on the passive voice verbs in the next posts.

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The Verbs ( Τα Ρήματα) Part 3 The Moods Part 2

Continuing where we left off we will be reviewing the imperative, infinitive, and the participle.

The Imperative Mood:

      We would use the Imperative mood to indicate an order or a command directly given to someone. This can also be broken down into a Simple Imperative and a Continuous Imperative, and will have some differences between each of the three groups of verbs. For the sake of ease we will begin with looking at the Continuous Imperative before the Simple Imperative. *As a note, this mood is negated by the particle μη(ν)*

The Continuous Imperative:

      This mood is used as the name implies. It is when we give commands that are continuous or ongoing. There are a few different ways to form these verbs:

1. Verbs without an accent mark on the final -ω (group 1)

      We have two forms; Singular and Plural

The singular forms by taking the present tense form, removing the final -ω and replacing it with a final -ε.

The plural forms by taking the present form, removing the final -ω and replacing it with a final -ετε

*If the verbs in group one begin with a vowel, or have three syllables you must move the accent mark to the next vowel to the left, ONLY for the singular.*

ex:

Singular: αγοράζω -> αγόραζε

Plural: αγοράζω -> αγοράζετε

2. Verbs that have an accent on the final -ώ, but do not belong to group 3

The singular forms by removing the final -ώ in the present tense form and replacing it with -ει

The plural forms by removing the final -ώ in the present tense form and replacing it with -είτε

ex:

Singular: προχωρώ -> προχώρει/προχώρα

Plural: προχωρώ -> προχωρείτε

3. Verbs that have an accent on final -ώ/-άω (group 3)

The singular forms by removing the final -ώ/-άω in the present tense form and replace it with -α and moving the accent mark one vowel to the left.

The plural forms by removing the final -ώ/-άω and replacing it with -ατε

ex:

Singular: ρωτάω -> ρώτα

Plural: ρωτάω -> ρωτάτε

The Simple Imperative:     

      This mood is used to express a command that, once it has been completed it is over/completed (something done within the moment). There are a few different ways to form these verbs:

1. Verbs without an accent mark on the final -ω (group 1)

     We have again, have two forms; Singular and Plural

The singular forms by taking the future tense form, removing the final -ω and replacing it with a final -ε.

The plural forms by taking the future form, removing the final -ω and replacing it with a final -ετε

ex:

Singular: γράφω -> γράψω -> γράψε

Plural: γράφω -> γράψω -> γράψετε/γράψτε

2. Verbs that have an accent on the final -ώ, but do not belong to group 3

The singular forms by removing the final -ω in the future tense form and replacing it with -ε

The plural forms by removing the final -ώ in the future tense form and replacing it with - εστε/ειστε

ex:

Singular: κατοικώ -> κατοικήσω -> κατοικήσε

Plural:  κατοικώ -> κατοικήσω -> κατοικείστε

3. Verbs that have an accent on final -ώ/-άω (group 3)

The singular forms by removing the final -ώ/-άω in the future tense form and replace it with -ε.

The plural forms by removing the final -ώ/-άω in the future tense form and replacing it with -τε

ex:

Singular: ρωτάω -> ρώτησω -> ρώτησε

Plural: ρωτάω -> ρώτησω -> ρωτήστε

The Infinitive:

      This is the “to” form of a verb. This is when you may want to add in a “to run” or a “to swim”.

      These are formed in a relatively simple way as we have already started doing this for many other verbal forms. This will be found many times in the subjunctive mood, as they would usually be preceded with ‘να’ or other subjunctive particles/conjunctions.

      In order to form these, we simply use the third person singular form of the future tense of the verbs:

τρέχω -> τρέξει (to run)

δουλεύω -> δουλέψει (to work)

θεωρώ -> θεωρήσει (to consider)

μισώ -> μισήσει (to hate)

The Participle (Gerund)

      The moment we’ve all been waiting for, another fun way to use verbs. This is the adverbial use of a verb, or the form with an -ing in English (Running, Falling, Loving). Basically, if we want to modify a previous verb clause or give added detail to the sentence, we would use these.

      This form is indeclinable, meaning there isn’t any methods or forms you have to stress over, except the one way that it comes packaged.

      The way we form this is pretty simple, however, there are two methods. All we need to do, though, is:

Group 1:

Take the verb in the present indicative mood and remove the final -ω

Then add on a final -οντας

Group 2/3

Take the verb in the present indicative mood and remove the final -ώ/-άω

Then add on a final -ώντας

Some examples of both:

αγαπώ -> αγαπώντας ([by] loving)

μιλάω -> μιλώντας ([by] speaking)

τρέχω -> τρέχοντας ([by] running)

γράφω -> γράφοντας ([by] writing)

*Please note, not every verb will have an adverbial form, and when in doubt ask someone who may know, or research the verbs.*

With that, this concludes our section on the verbs in the active voice, and we will shortly begin our section into the passive voice of the verbs. In the interim, There may be some posts with further examples with explanations, and words lists between hand to add some variety and vocabulary instead of pure grammar on a regular basis.

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The Verbs ( Τα Ρήματα) Part 3 The Moods Part 1

      After the long delay, we will now be looking over the active voice verb moods. In this and possibly future posts we will be looking at and covering the: Indicative mood, The Subjunctive, The Imperative, The infinitive, and The participle.

Indicative Mood:

      Let’s begin with the Indicative mood. It is the easiest of the moods you’ll encounter simply because you already have encountered it. This is the basic mood that can be found in any and every tense and is used for just about everything that isn’t what we’re going to be covering below. There is not different form of conjugation to be had with the indicative and it verbs will be found in their normal conjugations. The indicative can negate verbs by use of the particle δε(ν).

The Subjunctive Mood:

      We use this mood to express some of the more abstract concepts, things like expectations, wishes, doubts, desires, etc. From what I have read, these are used with the particles: να and ας, and it can also be used after certain conjunctions such as: αν (if, whether, should) , εάν (if, whether, should), όταν (when,once, while, upon, whenever), πριν να (before, until, previously, earlier), μόλις (just, just now, hardly, only,) μήπως (whether, if), για να (to, so that), προτού (before), άμα (if, whether, in case, when), and να (to, here, there).

From here we can break the subjunctive down into two separate forms: The Continuous Subjunctive and The Simple Subjunctive.

      The Continuous Subjunctive:

            This is what we use when we want to express a desire, wish, etc. that once it is completed it still goes on, is habitual, or (as the name implies) is continuous.

      How we form this tense is by using the present tense indicative(basic form) after the particles listed above.

An example:

Αν με μιλάς, τότε θα είναι η τελευταία σου. If you talk to me, it will be your last.

      It can be debatable whether the above sentence is a habitual one or for a one time thing, and it depends on the context, at least in English. Here we can see that it is in the continuous subjunctive and could indicate that it is more of a permanent situation or something that will be occurring indefinitely.

      The Simple Subjunctive:

            We use the simple subjunctive to indicate a dream, wish, command, desire, etc. that once it has been completed, it is over. The way we form this version of the subjunctive is when we place the verb in the simple future tense after the previously mentioned particles or conjugations.

As a refresher, here is the chart with the future tense endings again:

an example:

Όταν δεις το πρόσωπο μου, να πιείς μια μπύρα. When you see my face, drink a beer.

The above sentence(while being nonsense) shows the command aspect of the subjunctive. Here it is expressing an order to drink  a beer when you see “my” face, and being that it is in the simple subjunctive, once it happens it is over after the one time.

I will be continuing the next post to cover the imperative, the infinitive and the participle in the next post

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The Verbs ( Τα Ρήματα) Part 2 Tenses Part 2

      Hop aboard buccaneers as we continue our voyage across the wide expanse of the verbal ocean. Today we set sail for the; Future Continuous, The Future Perfect,  and then don our historian hats to look at the past tenses.

      The good thing with the next two cases, are if you are familiar with the previous cases we covered in The Verbs Part 2 Tenses Part 1, then you will have a pretty simple time with the next two tenses. Let’s jump into looking at the Future Continuous first.

The Future Continuous Tense:

      This is a very simple case when in review. It basically describes an action that will occur continually in the future.

As an example, this would be:

“θα χορεύεις όλη μέρα” You will dance all day.

      The above example broken down, shows that the action is being performed at a continuous duration.

      So, to form this tense is very simple. You take the future particle “θα“ then you take the Imperfective Non-past(Present Tense) and you’re done. This form conjugates the verbs in the same way as the present tense, just with  θα tacked on before it. Another example would be:

“δεν θα μιλάω καθε μέρα.” I will not speak every day.

      Again, we see 1st person singular of the present tense with θα in front, and so now it becomes the future continuous tense. We also have an added showing of the negation particle “δεν” which negates the verb, and is placed, in this case, before the future continuous tense. Next we will be looking at the final tense for the future.

The Future Perfect Tense:

      This tense is also relatively simple once we know the other tenses we have covered. It is used when we discuss an occurrence that will happen in the future, and will be completed once another action takes place.

      Simply, for this tense what we do is we take the particle θα again, and place that before the verb ‘εχω, and place both of those before the verb you want to use in the third person singular form of the future simple tense.

Some examples:

Mέχρι τραγουδείς, θα έχω φύγω. By the time you sing, I will have left.

Όταν φτάσεις, θα έχω καθαρίσεις τα δωματια. When you arrive, I will have cleaned the rooms.

*There are other ways to form these tenses, but they will be covered in the section about passive verb endings.*

      Now to cover the past. We will start by looking at something that might be confusing at the start. The Past Continuous which is also known as the Imperfect Tense. Please do not confuse the Imperfect Tense with the Imperfective Non-past, and if push comes to shove, go with the alternative names to help clear up any confusion.

The Past Continuous(Imperfect) Tense:

      Here we take a step into the past by learning how to mention actions that have happened in the past either habitually or continually.

      This tense also comes with some rules that are a bit different from the others we have learned, but trust me in that it won’t be too difficult for you to handle.

      So from the chart above we can see there are a few changes, so let’s go into each of the rules.

      1. Find out if the verb belongs to group 1, 2, or 3

      2a. If it belongs to group 1, then drop the final -ω and change it to a final -α.

      2b. If verb in group 1 has less than three syllables, then you must place a preceding ε-, εί-, or ή- to the verb stem(most commonly will be the ε- ), and then put the marker for emphasis on it, as shown in the left hand column in the chart above with the final word.*Note that in 1st and 2nd person plural due to the ending it makes a third syllable and can drop the preceding ε-.

      2c. If the verb already has three syllables, then shift the stress marker to the first syllable, or third syllable from the right.

      3.Follow the conjugation as listed in the left hand column.

      1.1. If the verb has a final -ώ or -άω, then it will conjugate as it would in the right hand column

Here are some examples in use:

Χόρευα όλη μέρα και μην με σταματούσες. I was dancing all day and you didn’t stop me.

Η γάτα περπατούσε και δεν ήξερε πού να πάει. The cat was walking and didn’t know where to go.

      The next two Tenses will be relatively easy again because they already build upon what we’ve already covered here and in the previous topic of verbs.

The Simple Past:

      Another one that shouldn’t be a problem if you’ve been following along. This is reserved for something that occurred in the past, and was completed in the past.

      The way we make this tense happen is we preform the stem change that we did for the simple future tense shown below:

      Then we take those, and use the same rules that we just learned from the Past Perfect tense for conjugation:

      and so now, we can see that it is a blend of the past continuous and the simple future. Now we can look at the changes with some words:

γράφω - γράψω - έγραψα

μπορώ - μπορέσω - μπόρεσα

      The last tense we will review for this lengthy post, will be the Past Perfect tense.

The Past Perfect Tense:

      This tense is used when we are referring to an action that had been completed before another action had taken place.

      We form this one by taking the third person singular of the future tense again, like with many other forms, then we place the past tense of the verb έχω in front of it. A chart for the conjugation below:

      that’s it. Relatively simple after all we’ve been through so far. Some examples of usage below:

Όταν κολυμπούσα, είχες φάει το φαγήτο. When I was swimming, you had eaten the food.

Όταν έγραφες, είχα τελειώσει. When you were writing, I had finished.

      The examples above show us that while the initial verb was being performed in the past, the action in bold had already been completed.

      The next post will be exploring the moods of the active voice verbs, I’ve decided to keep active voice with active voice and passive voice with passive voice.

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The Verbs ( Τα Ρήματα) Part 2 Tenses Part 1

      Continuing on with sailing the ocean of verbs and navigating to port, we will be looking at how the verbs are formed by their tenses, the situational usage of the tenses, and some examples in each tense to help us get a feel for their use.

      One thing to keep in mind before we begin, is that while there is a future tense, I’ve found a lot of things that try to break down Modern Greek verbs into Past vs. Non-past. While you can view them as this, I feel that it might be generalizing a bit much, as there is a future tense which does have it’s own set of governing rules.

      The easiest place to begin would be to look at how the verbs are formed in the Present Tense (also known as the Imperfective Non-past). The reason why this is the easiest place to start, is because it is the standard dictionary form and method of conjugation that we covered in The Verbs Part 1.

Imperfective Non-past - The Present Tense

      The present tense is mainly used to indicate when an action is currently taking place, or, it can indicate an action that began in the past which is ongoing into the present.

Again for redundancy, here is the chart with the conjugations:

Some examples of the present tense are as follows:

      Αυτή τρώει γλύκα καθε μέρα, το είναι ενα πρόβλημα. She eats sweets every day, it is a problem.

      The above example is showing that the verb is habitually occurring,and is occurring within the scope of the present time.

      From here, things will hopefully not get too murky, as we are going to be covering two tenses at the same time. This is because these tenses share similar conjugations and one is dependent on the other. These will be the Present Perfect Tense (or the Perfect Tense) and the Future Simple Tense (or the Future Perfect Tense).

Future Simple Tense(Future Perfect Tense)

      This is the verb form that we will be using when an event will occur in the future, and it is an event that has an end. This tense has a lack of habitual recurrence of the action, and once it is completed it is done. Please bear with me, as we will be looking at a few different ways each group of verbs conjugates in this form.

Let’s unpack everything for the group verbs, as there is a lot to go over.

As you can see by the charts above, there are quite a few ways to conjugate the verbs here, however there is an itemized list that you can go by:

      1. Ensure the verb is lacking the emphasis on the final ω confirming it is in group 1.

      2. Find the letter that comes before the final -ω , if it is:

            a. A -φ- or -β- before the final -ω, then it changes to a -ψ- and conjugates as shown in the right hand section.

            b. A -ευ- before the final -ω will also change to a -ψ- and conjugate in the same way as the above rule, as shown in the chart. Κeep in mind that with this change, if the stress is like so - εύ, then when conjugating you will drop the -ύ- and shift the emphasis to the epsilon to the left and follow the conjugation.

            c. A -ν- or -θ- before the final -ω will become a -σ- and follow the same trend of the conjugations as shown above in the right hand portion of the chart.

            d. A -χ-, -κ-, -γ- or -χν- before the final -ω will all become a -ξ- and follow the same conjugation pattern.

            e. Lastly, a -ζ- before the final -ω, can become either a -ξ- or a -σ-. There doesn’t appear to be a definitive rule, some a little research may be beneficial ahead of time for prior familiarization.

      3. The last thing to do it put the future particle “θα” before the verb.

Group 2 & 3:

      Just as with the previous group, these ones also have their own set of rules, although, they seem to be a little more ambiguous.

      In the chart above shows the conjugation of the verbs for groups 2 & 3. The rule isn’t exactly iron-clad, as there are some verbs that can conjugate in this way that don’t follow the rule of having emphasis placed on the final -ω. In the chart, I have also listed a few extra words in each column that they will conjugate with.

      This was a means to an end coming to our next section.

The Perfect Present Tense (Perfect Tense):

      If you have a grasp on how all the above works, then this should be a walk in the park. The perfect present is used when we want to discuss or mention an action that began in the past, and as of the present, is still in that same state. It may sound confusing, so a few examples in English would be:

      “I have cooked dinner” or in Greek “Έχω μαγειρέψει βράδινο”

The statement shows that dinner was cooked, and as of right now it still has been cooked. There hasn’t been a change in its situation as of yet.

The way that this tense is conjugated is as follows:

      1. Find out which group the verb belongs to.

      2. Conjugate the verb into the Simple Future Tense 3rd person Singular.

      3. Remove the θα and replace it with the form of the verb “έχω“ (I have) in the imperfect present tense to fit with the subject of the sentence.

      Mainly with this tense, you are conjugating less of the verb you might think needs it, and only conjugating έχω, which will conjugate as follows:

This post has been a bit of a lengthy one, in the next one I will be covering more of the future tense, and the past tense before we begin going over passive verbs and their endings and conjugations.

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The Verbs ( Τα Ρήματα) Part 1

      This will begin the long and arduous journey into the verbs, which will span; Two main voices (Active and Passive voice), 8 tenses (Present, Imperfect, Present Perfect, Past Perfect, Past, Future Simple, Future Continuous, and Future Perfect), 5 moods (Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, Infinitive, and Participle), the conjugations, and 3 groups the verbs can fall into.

      This lesson will begin with a breakdown of the verbs within their groups by endings, then go into the conjugations based on reference to the object and subject, and will then dive into the tenses, moods, and then will include information about irregular verbs and a list of verbs with definitions.

*Just a note before we begin to look at the verbs. The verbs you will find in the dictionary will be in their found in their Present tense, First person, Singular form.”

The Groups:

To start off, the verbs conjugate in different ways based off of their endings. The way to conjugate, for this particular case(we will go over further ways to conjugate and more rules in a later post) is to drop the final -ω, -ώ, -άω/-ώ and place the appropriate ending in it’s place, shown below.

      Here we have what are usually referred to as the group 1 verbs. These are words that in Greek will end with -ω without any stress on the final omega in the present tense, and will conjugate as shown in the chart with the right hand side showing the verb endings. The left hand shows an example with the word “γράφω“- I run. Here we take the stem of the verb γράφ- and then we add on the endings to indicate the person we are talking about performing the action.

     Just for the sake of review, first person being I/We, second person being You/You(all/plural), and third person being He,She,It/They.

Next we will look at Group 2:

      Here we can see that there are a lot of similarities to the group 1 verb endings. The main differences being that these verbs are found with stress/intonation/pronunciation emphasis placed on their final omega -ώ, which continues to be present on the second letter of the vowel cluster in the endings, and that the ending for 2nd person plural (you all) changes from -ετε to -είτε. This is all show with the example “αγνοώ“ I ignore(one of my favorite terms).

Lastly, we will review Group 3:

     With group 3 come the most drastic changes to the conjugation so far. This is for verbs that have an ending of -άω or -ώ (they can be written either way and is mainly up to the user and colloquialism surrounding the word) which have the final emphasis placed on either the final omega without the presence of the alpha, or placed on the alpha next to the omega. As an example, the example word can be written as αγαπώ or αγαπάω. As you can see with the chart above, each of the endings change, and maintain emphasis in the verb ending.

      This post will be cut a bit short, as the next post will begin reviewing the tenses through a definition of their use, and the rules of the conjugation/ their formation and will contain a large amount of information and discussion. However, to conclude, here are some verbs based off of their groups with translation attached:

Group1:

τρέχω - I run διαβάζω - I read τρώω - I eat φεύγω - I leave πηγαίνω - I go χορεύω - I dance παίζω - I play Δοκιμάζω - I try/I attempt

Group2:

απαιτώ - I demand ακολουθώ - I follow οδηγώ - I drive Μπορώ - I can Δημιουργώ - I create Προκαλώ - I challenge

Group3:

τραγουδώ - I sing πεινάω - I am hungry διψάω - I am thirsty ρωτάω - I ask πονάω - I hurt/I feel pain(physical) Απαντάω - I reply Περπατώ - I walk

In addition, a decent resource to use is:

https://cooljugator.com/

Specifically:

https://cooljugator.com/gr

but please, remember that being able to find a direct answer when you ask may not be the best way to learn, and that a struggle can sometimes make things stick, just keep at things and you’ll get it eventually.

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The Pronouns (Οι Αντωνυμίες) Part 4

This will be the final post solely dedicated to the pronouns. It will cover the Indefinite pronouns before we dive into the extremely vast sea of information that will encompass nouns, then verbs.

The pronouns with charts highlight words that have declensions over the genders and cases, and are ordered so words that do not decline are at the end of the listing.

Indefinite Pronouns: These are used mainly when referring to a nonspecific person or object, or when referring to one of those which we do not want to specifically mention, ie. referring to “your friend” vs. (for sake of example) Geoff, someone who is being defined.

1.

This is actually the same word as the indefinite article. You would use this to refer to a singular, nondescript person or object.

Η γάτα είναι ενός φίλου μου. The cat is my friend’s

περπατώ με έναν φίλο. I walk with a friend.

2.

This word can mean; Nobody, anybody, any(one), and/or no one.

This word is also used only singularly, and commonly in question sentences(interrogative), negative sentences, or clauses.

Some examples:

Δεν χτύπησε κανείς την πόρτα. No one knocked on the door.

Δεν κάνει καμία διαφορά. It doesn’t make any difference.

Υπάρχει κανένας εδώ; Is there anyone here?

*As a side note, please not the difference between κανείς and  κάνεις. One means nobody, anybody, etc. while the other is the you form of the verb “To Do”*

3.

This word is used in both singular and plural, and means someone, somebody.

κάποιος ρώτησε για 'σενα. Somebody asked about you.

Δεν ήρθε κανείς. No one came.

4.

Also used in both singular and plural, it means another or someone else, and are declined by all cases and genders.

Έλα άλλη φορά. Come another time.

Δεν θέλω άλλη γάτα. I don’t want another cat.

5.

Means some, several, a few, a quantity of. This is used solely in the plural for all cases.

Μερικοί άνθρωποι είναι κακοί. Some people are bad.

Μερικές φορές δεν σε καταλαβαίνω. Some times i don’t understand you.

6.

Means everyone, each one, every one, any. Only used in singular in all cases, can also use the pronoun κάθε for all genders.

Τρώω κάθε μέρα I eat every day.

Δεν μου αρέσει τον άγνοια κάποιων ανθρώπων. I don’t like the ignorance of some people.

7. The next words are Τίποτα or  Τίποτε(anything or nothing). Only used in singular, and can be used to respond to questions independently. Some examples include:

δεν είπα τίποτα. I didn’t say anything.

Τί είδες; Τίποτε. What did you see? Nothing.

8. Finally, we have  κάτι, κατιτί/κατιτίς, καθετί, which mean some, something, everything, whatever. These are only used for the neuter gender and are only used in the singular.

*Side note, from research,  κατιτί/κατιτίς seems to mainly be used for stylistic purposes, and I have found that  κάτι is mainly used for something while  καθετί   can be used for everything.*

Είδες κάτι;

Κάτι έγινε αλλά δεν κατάλαβα τι. Something happened, but I didn’t understand what.

From here, I will start going over verbs, tenses, moods, endings and conjugations.

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The Pronouns (Οι Αντωνυμίες) Part 3

To continue that pronouns we will look at reflexive, definite, indefinite and relative pronouns before looking into the long journey of verbs.

Reflexive Pronouns: These are used when the object of the sentence and the subject are one in the same. In Modern Greek, these are most commonly placed in the Accusative and Genitive case.

in the above chart is the breakdown between the singular and plural forms, the I vs. We, You vs. You(all), the He, She, It vs. They.

Some examples:

Δεν μίσω τον εαυτό μου. I don’t hate myself.

κοιτάζεις τον εαυτό σου. You look at yourself in the mirror.

*A side note at the time of writing this: I have not found any definitive rule towards the use of the genitive case in place of the accusative, if anyone were to know, please let me know*

Definite Pronouns: These are as follows.

The word “ο ίδιος“ is generally translated as “same, alike, yourself, your own” as per wordreference.com section for Greek to English translations. It is always joined in use with the definite article, hence the “ο” ίδιος.

κάθισε το ίδιο το παιδί κατα και εφαγε. The child sat itself down and ate.

The word “μόνος” is translated as “alone, lonely, only, sole”. These definite pronouns are used prior to the use of the weak pronouns.

Μένω μόνος μου, και μου αρέσει. I live alone, and I like it.

Please keep in mind that when referring to yourself, you can use masculine or feminine forms of the words as you would see fit to reflect gender.

The final post on the pronouns will be about the Indefinite on their own, as they encompass quite a few examples and separate words.

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The Pronouns (Οι Αντωνυμίες) Part 2

After the discussion of the Personal Pronouns, we can start looking into the Possessive Pronouns. If you need reference in regards to the Emphatic vs. Unemphatic(weak) pronoun usage, please refer back to my post about the pronouns part 1.

Possessive pronouns, we use them to show ownership of an object. Some examples:

Ο πατέρας μου (My father)

Η γάτα σου (Your cat)

These are all placed in the genitive case in the unemphatic form, showing just a general ownership. These also follow directly after the noun that they are enhancing.

We also have the emphatic form, which comes with a lovely new word. This would be δίκος/δίκη/δίκο and is used to represent something that is more directly yours, mine, theirs, etc. How this is used, is you must pair this with the genitive pronouns directly after them, and must agree with gender and number of objects. Some examples:

Αυτή η μπλούζα είναι δίκη της. This blouse is hers.

Αυτή είναι η δίκη της μπλούζα. This is her blouse.

You can also combine the emphatic and unemphatic for more emphasis:

Η μπλούζα της αυτής  είναι όμορφη. Her blouse is beautiful.

Demonstrative Pronouns: These are mainly used to point out an object.

From what I’ve found, as per: Χατζησαββίδης, Σωφρόνης A.  in ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΝΕΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ ΓΛΩΣΣΑΣ. 2009.

When it comes to the words Τούτος  and Αυτός, the author mentions that the difference between the two words is, in the text, the author states that the word Τούτος is used when an object or subject being spoken of is within a close proximity of the speaker and recipient in conversation, while the word Αυτός is used when in reference to an object that has been previously mentioned before.

There have been other mentions in forums related to Modern Greek that Τούτος and it’s declensions aren’t used much and most will default to Αυτός and it’s declensions.

Interrogative Pronouns: These are pronouns used to bring up questions. Usually placed at the beginning of a sentence to form a question.

*one thing to keep in mind is that the question mark used in Modern Greek is not that same question mark used in English or other languages. In Greek, the semicolon - ; - is used as a question mark/interrogative punctuation.*

These include:

Τί - What

Τί φαγητο φαω; What food do I eat?

Ποιός/Ποιά/Ποιό/Ποιόι/Ποιές/Ποιά - Who/Which

Ποιό το είναι; What is it?

Ποιού-ποιανού/ποιάς-ποιανής/ποιών-ποιανών/Ποιούς-ποιανών - Whose

Ποιανών παίδια είναι αυτά; Whose children are these?

Πόσος/πόση/πόσο/πόσοι/πόσες/πόσα - How much/How many

Πόσες γάτες έχεις; How many cats do you have?

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The Pronouns (Οι Αντωνυμίες) Part 1

In Modern Greek, there are various ways to use pronouns. These include: Personal Pronouns, Possessive Pronouns, Demonstrative, Interrogative, Reflexive, Definite, Indefinite, and Relative.

This post will only review personal pronouns, for the sake of post length, and additional posts will be added for groups of the other forms of pronouns and their use.

Personal Pronouns:

To start with, I have read a few grammar books that explain that there are Emphatic vs Unemphatic or weak pronouns, and will then either give a lengthy list of the differences or will skip much of an explanation and go straight to showing examples.

From what I can gather about the pronouns, these are the differences:

For Indirect usage of the personal pronouns, we continue to use the Genitive Case, which was outlined in the post about the cases, and are in the chart above. Likewise we would use the Accusative Case when in reference to the Direct object.

Then coming to the emphatic vs. unemphatic case, I’ll show some examples below and discuss to clarify.

Indirect Unemphatic(weak): Θα της δώσω τον σκύλο.

Indirect Emphatic: Αυτή θα της δώσω τον σκύλο.

so in the above examples, we have the same sentence, I will give her the dog. In the first example of the unemphatic, we can read it in a tone of a casual remark: I will give her the dog.

Meanwhile we can look at the emphatic case and read it as: I will give HER the dog.

Then in both cases we can see it is in the indirect case for the pronoun because the “her” in the sentence is the secondary recipient of the verb i.e. the dog is receiving the action (which is the direct object for sake of review being in the accusative case) of being given while the “her” is being receiving the dog.

The same follows suit for the direct object and the accusative case. We can look at some more examples and from there we can discuss again.

Direct Unemphatic(weak): Μας πόνησαν στο σχολείο.

Direct Emphatic: Μας πόνησαν εμάς στο σχολείο.

Again, we will look at the same sentence done two different ways.

The first sentence reads: They hurt us at school. This can be taken as a casual statement, or part of a regular statement without any kind of inflection. Meanwhile, the other sentence in the emphatic in English would read more as follows: They hurt US at school.

The basic concept as I can understand it is that they are additional words to add emphasis(hence emphatic) that English would use as a tonal variation. One last thing to keep in mind is that the emphatic personal pronoun cannot be separated from the verb it’s supposed to be attached to.

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Terms

I felt that before I continue with unraveling the grammar of the Greek language, I would delve into common grammatical terms that people may have unfortunately been the victim of missing during educational years or might be a bit foggy on.

I feel it would be important to bring this information into one concise post, as opposed to having to constantly do any searches to find something I might be lacking with a definition. Ill start with some of the more common terms that may seem more on the obvious side and go from there as they are in English, and relate when needed to Modern Greek.

Keep in mind, this list is by no means a complete or in-depth list that dives into deeper concepts like clauses and phrases, fragments etc. However, it will begin in assuming a very limited knowledge of grammatical components in the English language, that may or may not be present in other languages.

*This post will be updated with any corrections or additional information in the future, some future posts may reference the terms within this post*

Nouns: These words are some of the most commonly occurring, and include people, places, things/objects, and abstract concepts. This would be your cats, bicycle(s), John or Jeanette, and their thoughts, hopes, dreams and goals.

Adjectives: These words are modifiers to nouns. For example, these would be Red cars, gray hairs, beautiful flowers.

Verbs: These words are our actions. These are what you use when you want to say that you Run, or that you Sit for inordinate amounts of time at work.

Adverb: These mainly modify Nouns, verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. You can find out what the adverb of a sentence is by asking questions such as when, in what way, how, etc. So for an example, If we know that the dog ran quickly then we know how the dog ran, answering that question, and are able to see that it modifies the past tense verb ran. We can also find out that the shadow will swiftly dart out from the darkness, knowing that ‘swiftly’ is modifying the future tense of the verb phrase - will dart -.

Declension: This is the change in form in a noun, adjective or adverb based off of the number of an object, the case, or gender of the word; ο Σκύλος (M), η γιαγιά (F), το παιδί (Ν).

Conjugation: This is the change in a verb to reflect the change in tense, mood, or voice. Ex. Τρέχω -> Τρέχει (I run -> He, she, it runs)  Είμαι ->Ημούν (I am -> I was).

Articles: These are used with nouns mostly, and will allow you to know whether the object is definite or indefinite. What this means is, in its roughest and simplest way, that you have a difference between THE object(s) (definite, can be singular or plural) and A/AN object (indefinite, singular).

Preposition: These are words that bridge some nouns together within a sentence to give additional meaning, some of which include: For, at, in , over, on. Hen in use they could be found when The dog sits in the street (bold to show the nouns being bridged, italics to show the preposition)

Particles: These are small words that are used similarly to prepositions, but are not classified as such, these may include some prepositions such as; along, to, the.

Gerund: This is an adverbial form of a verb. Basically, in English this is when you take a verb such as Run and add -ning to make it running, or the -ing to fish to make fishing. This works the same in modern Greek, but with a different conjugation.

Direct Object: The person or object that is the recipient of the verb/action within a sentence. Ex. I pet the dog

Indirect Object: The person or object that is a second-hand recipient of an action. EX. The cat brought me a bird. (in the example the bird is the direct object being brought by the cat, and “me” would be the person or object that is receiving the action of being brought the bird.

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