Χαίρο πολύ (kehro poly) nice to meet you (always a good start!)
αυτός είναι ο αδελφός μου (aftos eeneh oh adelfos moo) this is my brother
αυτη είναι η αδελφή μου (aftee eneeh ee adelfee moo) this is my sister
Πόσο κρονών είναι ο πατέρας σού (poso chronon eeneh oh patehras) How old is your father?
έχω και εγώ έναν αδελφό (ehro kay enan adelfoh) I also have a brother
η ματέρα είναν δέκα χρονών (Ee matehra eenan dehka chronon) my mother is 10 years old(!)
Some points to note. You'll see that where you expect αυ to sound like ah-ee in the He and She (αυτός and αυτη) it actually sounds like "af", which isn't very intuitive. Also to bear in mind is when you are talking about someone that belongs to you (i.e. "this is my sister") the words are actually ordered as "this is sister my" or in Greek: αυτη είναι η αδελφή μου. Something more peculiar though which I am still none the wiser about is how the spelling of αδελφος turns into αδελφό when I say "I also have a brother" (please advise why έχο και εγώ έναν αδελφόσ is wrong).
To break this up a bit, it helped me to look at the interrogative words. These are the 5 W's (and 1 H) which I'm replicating below for your entertainment:
| Who | Ποιος | pooios |
| Where | Ποu | poo |
| What | Τι | tee |
| Why | Υιατί | Yeeatee |
| When | πότε | poteh |
| How | πως | pos |
OK, before I get picked up on this you'll notice that the "How" in the above table is different from that used in the "How old is your..." sentance earlier on. This is because there are two different types of "How". One for a quantitative translation (how many years, how much money etc) which will be articulated as πόσο (at the top of this post) but when you are asking how someone is for example, it is is read as just πως (for example: ποσ εισαι;). This complication aside these 6 words can be used as sentances in themselves (Who? What? When? you get the jist), but more importantly understand the point of the sentance being asked!
Thats enough for tonight, Καληνύχτα!
Written by JuiceSoup.com
2 comments:
Hi Andy. When you get to the part of your studies that covers declension and case of nouns you’ll learn about the changes at the end of nouns. Your question about αδελφός deals with the “cases”...nominative (subject of the sentence), accusative (object of the sentence), genitive (showing possession), and vocative which is used when you’re calling out to someone. In your example, αδελφός drops the “ς” because it’s the object of the sentence.
Nominative: ο αδελφός μου είναι έδω. My brother is here.
Accusative: αυτός είναι ο αδελφό μου. This is my brother.
Genitive: αύτο είναι το σπίτι του αδελφού μου. This is my brother’s house.
Vocative: γεια σου, αδελφέ! Hello, brother!
These examples are for masculine nouns that end in “ος”
Keep in mind, Andy, that I’m just learning, too, and I have a long way to go. If this information is not correct, I hope someone will correct me.
Something I noticed... you wrote “ματέρα” ...the correct word for mother is “μητέρα” And, be careful about using σ at the end of words when it should be ς.
Hope this helps,
Brenda
Thank you Brenda for this. I have included this in the next post to help others learn from it! Much appreciated (very helpful stuff).
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