Modern Greek/OldLesson2

Goal

In this lesson, you will learn to introduce yourself, tell people your profession, name and nationality. The definite article is introduced as well. You need to have a basic knowledge of greetings in Greek and know είμαι, είσαι and είστε forms of the verb 'to be'.

Dialog

Αντώνης: Γεια σου!

Ανθή: Γεια σου!

Αντώνης: Πώς είσαι;

Ανθή: Είμαι καλά, εσύ πώς είσαι;

Αντώνης: Είμαι καλά.

Ανθή: Πώς σε λένε (or "Ποιο είναι το όνομά σου" (not used));

Αντώνης: Με λένε Αντώνη (answers the first question) (or "Το όνομα μου είναι Αντώνης" (answers the second question)).

Ανθή: (Εμένα) με λένε Ανθή (or "Το όνομα μου είναι Ανθή"). Χαίρω πολύ!

Αντώνης: Χαίρω πολύ επίσης.

Ανθή: Γεια σου!

Αντώνης: Γεια σου!

What is your name?

Notes

• Note 'τ'όνομά μου είναι' might also be said. Where syllables are dropped.

Examples

• Το ονομά μου είναι Μάριος.
• Με λένε Μάριο. (Note that in this case in Greek male names we drop the final -ς)

I'm Greek.

Αγγλικά	Ελληνικά
English	ο Άγγλος, η Αγγλίδα (listen)
American	o Αμερικανός, η Αμερικανίδα (listen)
French	ο Γάλλος, η Γαλλίδα (listen)
German	ο Γερμανός, η Γερμανίδα (listen)
Chinese	ο Κινέζος η Κινέζα (listen)
Spanish	ο Ισπανός, η Ισπανίδα (listen)
Greek	ο Έλληνας, η Ελληνίδα (listen)
Turkish	ο Τούρκος, η Τουρκάλα (listen)

Notes

• Note that every one of these words has ο or η in front of it this tells us that these are nouns. The ο or η also tells us the gender, ο is for masculine and η is for feminine.
• Some of the words introduced in the above table have two forms, one for males and another for females. This roughly corresponds to the actor and actress that is present in English. If the masculine ends in ος the feminine is often formed by adding ίδα after dropping the ος. But this is not always the case if we look at the words for Chinese. It is wrong to use the masculine form to describe yourself if you are female.

Examples

• Είμαι Άγγλος.
• Είσαι Ελληνίδα;
• Είμαι Γερμανίδα.

I'm a teacher

Notes Most profession do not have separate words for male and female.

Examples

Α: Ποιο είναι το επάγγελμα σου;

Β: Είμαι δάσκαλος. Ποιο είναι το επάγγελμα σου;

Α: Είμαι δικηγόρος.

He's handsome

Examples

• Η Μάρια είναι όμορφη.
• Ο Στέλιος είναι μεγάλος.
• Το όνομα σου είναι όμορφο.
• O γιατρός είναι καλός.
• O Αντώνης είναι έξυπνος.

Explanations

• Notice how there is agreement with the definite articles and the noun that is present before. In summary, 'Η', 'Ο' and 'Το' are the definite articles for feminine, masculine and neuter nouns. They all correspond to 'the' in English. In Greek, definite articles are always placed before Peoples names. This means that Η Μάρια means Maria in English. You'll find definite articles listed after nouns in Dictionaries. This tells us the gender of the word.
• You have probably noticed that there are three forms of each of the adjectives listed in the table above. If the adjective ends with ος it is masculine. Feminine if it ends with η. Finally if it ends with ο it is neuter. This is important because adjectives have to agree with the nouns that they describe. So if the noun is masculine then the adjective must also be masculine. This is called agreement. We can see this illustrated in the examples above, numbers 2, 4 and 5. 'O γιατρός' is masculine so 'καλός' must also be masculine. The same applies for feminine nouns look at the first example. Η Μάρια is feminine so the form must be όμορφη to agree with it. The same is true of neuter nouns look at the third example.
• If we look at the I'm Greek section, the second example is a question simply because of its semicolon. Recall that in speech what makes it a question is the rising intonation towards the end of the sentence. In the same way, we can form questions asking whether someone is a doctor (Είσαι γιατρός;)

Summary

• We are able to ask someone's name and give our own name. (Ποιο είναι το όνομα σου? Με λένε Μάριο.)
• We have learned the ways to what nationality you are. (Είμαι Άγγλος.)
• We can inquire if someone is a certain nationality. (Είσαι Ελληνίδα;)
• We now know how to ask what profession someone has. (Ποιο είναι το επάγγελμα σου;)
• We can tell people what we do. (Είμαι δάσκαλος)

The next step

You should now do the exercise related to each section (found here), or if you're feeling very confident go to the next lesson, lesson 3. Alternatively, return to the contents.

Extension

If you'd like to learn more words that you can use without having to study another lesson, use this section in order to find them. Feel free to learn selectively, picking out words you consider useful for your situation or interesting. If you don't have the time, you can just skip this section. You will not be required to know any of these words in the next lessons. There words in below section have a variety of different endings. We don't have to worry about this yet, to form similar sentences to above just take the appropriate word from the table use είμαι, είσαι και είναι.

This section contains additional professions and nationalities.