Day 17 | Face

This is going to be a quick one as need to get some sleep in before work early in the morning.  On the way to Seven Sisters in Sussex on the train I thought a lot about my face (yep, that's right) and decided to start naming parts of it as there is no better way to call out people than by how they look.  So here are the main assets most people are likely to have in both English and Greek (I'm not aware of any major differences between the two populaces), from top to bottom:

Hair	μαλλιά	may-yah	neutral plural
Hair	τρίχα	treeha	feminine singular
Eyebrow	φρύδι	freethee	neutral singular
Eyebrows	φρύδιa	freetheeah	neutral plural
Eye	μάτι	matee	neutral singular
Eyes	μάτια	mateeah	neutral plural
Nose	μύτη	meetee	feminine singular
Ear	αυτί	aftee	neutral singular
Ears	αυτιά	afteeah	neutral plural
Mouth	στόμα	stomah	neutral singular
Tongue	γλώσσα	glossah	feminine singular
Tooth	δόντι	Thondee	neutral plural
Teeth	δόντια	Thondeah	neutral singular

To tease these out some more and their nuances, here are some exemplary sentances.  Note the "have" verb which is another aspect of Greek that I've not really concentrated on in this blog (my bad). 

You have big ears

Εσύ εχεις μεγάλα αύτιά

Esee ekhees meeyraloh afteeah

I have blue eyes

εγώ έχω μάτια μπλε

egho ekho mateeah bleh

They have small feet

Αυτοι εχουν μικρά ποδια

aftee ekhoon mikra potheeah

Another important point is the article "the" which changes when plural.  For example, when you say the girl (singular), the "the" changes for when you say the girls (plural) instead.  In the above example this will apply for when you talk about one nose (υ μύτη) to many noses (οι μύτες).  You won't hear the difference since υ and οι sound exactly the same ("ee") but it nevertheless changes in text.  Let me demonstrate the rule:

το (neutral singular) = τα (neutral plural), "ta"

η (feminine singular) = οι (feminine plural), "ee"

ο (masculine singular) = οι (masculine plural), "ee"

Apologies but have to keep this short and sweet as got to hit the hay for some sleep.  Again, please bring me up on any mistakes (it is late after all!).

καληνύχτα!


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Day 14 | Food

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am off to Rome tomorrow morning for work and not returning until the next weekend so expect a gap!  Inbetween packing and preparing for meetings I decided to concentrate on a staple of Greek culture, which is food.  Last time I looked at how you can ask for something but that's pretty pointless if you don't know what you want.   

Water	νερο	Nero
Alcohol	αλκοόλ	alkool
Potato	πατάτα	patatah
Chicken	κοτόπουλο	kotopoolah
Beef	βοδινό	votheenoh
Goat	κατσίκα	katsika
Tea	tsái	Chay
Juice	χυμός	Xheemos
Fruit	φρούτο	Frootoh
Milk	γάλα	ghala
Rice	ρύζι	reezee

I think quantity is also important when ordering or buying food, so for me I was certain to learn big or small, which for Greek is quite intuitive: μεγάλος (big) μικρό (small).  These are quite generic food types so next post (which will have to be after Rome) I will look at the Greek specific foods (like Souvlaki and Keftedes).  With the list above you will have to apply the article to them (a or the) which will alter based upon the gender.  If you can remember the rule based on gender, look at Day 6 in my posts.  The good news however is that the majority are neutral and so when ordering anything from above you put, for example:

Θέλω το κοτόπουλο

I want the chicken

The only caveats are Potato and Goat (f) and Juice (m), so instead of το just replace with η and ο respectively.  απολαύσετε! (enjoy)

  Written by JuiceSoup.com

Day 6 | Gender & Family

As is always the case, work has a tendency of getting in the way of things you think are more important and hence a few days have passed since the last posting (one day I might get round to uploading a personal profile with this Blog to explain what I do & why I'm learning Greek!).  So today I'm looking at the use of Gender by using the simple example of family to tease out its special nuances.

It has already been mentioned that in the Greek language they use the dreaded gender system which means multiplying the learning process by 2 (or as you will find out, 3!).  If you are not familiar with this (Old English or Anglo-Saxon used to have this but now modern English has done away with it), it is simply that words have embedded within them a specific male or female type and based on this all of the other words that surround it (adjectives and articles etc) are changed as a consequence.  This can be show when calling out members of your own family.

Father is known as Πατέρας (pahtehras) and no prizes for what gender this belongs to.  Mother is known as Μιτέρα (Meetehrah) and is of the female persuasion.  What gender would you apply to the word "child" (or Παιδι, Peethee - remember "αι" make "ee") though since there is an equal chance of it being either a boy or girl.  That is where the third gender comes in which is called the "neuter".  So we have three words with three different genders, but what does that mean for those other words that surround it.  We can tease this out using the definite and indefinite articles (the former being "the" and the latter "a"):

Father (m)	Mother (f)	Child (n)
A father, ένας πατέρας     "enas patehras"	A mother, μία μητέρα   "meeah meetehra"	A child, ένα παιδί "ehna peethee"
The father, Ο πατέρας "oh patehras"	The mother, η μητέρα "ee meetehra"	The child, το παιδί "toh peethee"

So the bad news is that we're having to learn genders as well as words.  The good news is that there are clues in which we can get just from looking at the way the word is spelt.  Masculine words for example normally end with ς.  Female nouns end in η and α.  Whilst the neuter words close off using ι or ο.  As I said these are clues and not hard and fast rules to abide by but they should nevertheless give you a hint.  

So in summary there is no one word for "the" or "a" but changes depending on the gender of the noun it is applied to.  To make sure this sinks in, I'm going to put down the following words in English & Greek and want to see whether people can pick up whether they are Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.

Sister αδελφή (adelfee)

Baby μωρό (moroh)

Boy αγόρι (aghoree)

This αυτός (avtos)

This αυτή (avtee)

One of these is a "trick" question (as in what I expected it to be isn't what it is in reality!).  Please leave your attempts in the comments, I'd be interested if other people get the same responses as I did.



Written by JuiceSoup.com