Archive for 'Grammar'
Quiz: Greek Tenses Posted by Ourania on Nov 11, 2015
The quiz of the month is on the tenses of the Indicative and the Subjunctive mood. The sentences are translated in English. Only one answer is correct, α, β or γ. Καλή διασκέδαση! (= have fun) Indicative Mood Tomorrow, I will be sleeping all day. Αύριο [α. θα κοιμηθώ β. θα κοιμάμαι γ…
Scary grammar Posted by Ourania on Oct 21, 2015
It’s Halloween soon. If you don’t find witches, black cats and jack o’ lanterns scary enough, this post is about one of the most frightening aspects of Greek: matching adjectives, articles and pronouns to their nouns. The adjectives taught at Level A1 are the ones ending in –ος (masculine), –η or –α (feminine) and –ο…
Examples of the accusative case Posted by Ourania on Sep 30, 2015
Greek is not one of the easiest languages to learn and most learners quit their efforts before they reach an intermediate level. In Greek, words such as articles, nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs are not invariable but they change according to their function in the sentence. One of the issues that Greek teachers have to…
About Greek numbers Posted by Ourania on Jul 22, 2015
The Greek numbers are not too hard to learn. However, beginners find it hard to use them. The reason is that the numbers one, three and four are not invariable and are declined. They have three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), cases , singular and plural. Number one has only singular and numbers three and…
Use of Greek: demonstrative pronouns Posted by Ourania on Jul 20, 2015
The pronouns τέτοιος and τόσος can be confusing. They are both translated as such but τόσος can take more definitions depending on the context. The difference is that τέτοιος is used to state quality and τόσος is used to state quantity. They are declined as adjectives (see pdf) and they agree in gender, number and…
Playing hide and seek with the final n Posted by Ourania on Feb 19, 2015
One of the most confusing topics is the maintenance of the final ν of some articles, pronouns and particles, mostly because the grammar books contain different rules about it. Below, there’s a list of the cases where the final ν is maintained or omitted. These rules apply mostly when speaking. In written speech the article…
Make it small with Greek diminutives Posted by Ourania on Feb 5, 2015
Diminutives (υποκοριστικά) are words that connote a smaller size. Their use is also related to affection and intimacy but also to contempt. There are many suffixes that form diminutives are, but the most common are –άκι, –ίτσα, –ούλης, –ούλα, -άκης. They are very commonly used with food and drink (το ούζο – το ουζάκι,ouzo, η…