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Written by Dina Teka-Efstathiou   

 The Greek Verb Ending with the Letter Ω

Verbs ending in γω have a “shortcut” form where you drop the γ. Below is the verb λέγω (I say) in both its forms; on the left is the full form, on the right is the short form

λέγω

Singular

Plural

Εγώ λέγω

Εμείς λέγουμε

Εσύ λέγεις

Εσείςλέγετε

Αυτός
Αυτή
Αυτό

λέγει

αυτοί
αυτές
αυτά

λέγουν

 

λέω

Singular

Plural

Εγώ λέω

εμείς λέμε

εσύλές

εσείς λέτε

αυτός
αυτή
αυτό

λέει

αυτοί
αυτές λένε
αυτά

 

The present tense in Greek does double duty as both simple present and continuous present tense. That is, if you say: Αυτός γράφει ένα γράμμα. You may translate it as either “He writes a letter” or “He is writing a letter,” depending on your meaning. There's no distinction between these forms in present tense.

Future Continuous

We're going to look at future tense first. Once you learn future tense, it becomes very easy to construct the past tense of Greek verbs; it just doesn't work as well the other direction. So be patient as we learn the future tense so that, sometime in the future, you'll be able to talk about the past.

Although Greek doesn't make any distinction between “I write” and “I am writing” in present tense, they do make the distinction in the future tense.

There's one form for “I will be writing” and another for “I will write.”

The “will be ...ing” form is called the future continuous, and is used to denote actions that take place over an extended period of time or occur repeatedly.

Here are some English examples:

I will be writing web pages for six hours.
He will be giving his wife flowers every week.
They will be doing exercises every day.

This sounds weird in English; we'd usually just use the simple form of the future, and let the words like “every day” prompt us in to the continuity. I will be using the continuous form in the following example to emphasize that we are working with future continuous.

Future continuous is the easiest tense to form; just add the word θα before the present tense, and there you have it.

γράφω

Singular

Plural

Εγώθα γράφω

Εμείς θα γράφουμε

Εσύ θα γράφεις

Εσείς θα γράφετε

αυτός
αυτή
αυτό

θα γράφει

αυτοί

αυτές
αυτά

θαγράφουν

 

βλέπω

Singular

Plural

εγώ θα βλέπω

εμείς θα βλέπουμε

εσύ θα βλέπεις

εσείς θα βλέπετε

αυτός
αυτή
αυτό

θα βλέπει

αυτοί
αυτές
αυτά

θα βλέπουν

The Greek word for future continuous is μέλλοντας εξακολουθητικός.

 

Acknowledgments www.langintro.com/greek/verbs

 


Dina Teka-Efstathiou
About the author:

Dina Teka-Efstathiou lives in Greensboro, NC with her husband Dimitrios and their twin, young sons. Dina has lived for extensive periods of time in her native country Greece, London, UK and the USA. 

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