 | I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
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I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no. Whenever I hear "ναι" in the course, it takes me two seconds to realize, that it was affirmative. Why didn't you just make that word starting with n/ν to be negative, like in many many other languages too (going back to latin)? Now I got that off my soul, perhaps I'll finally get it...  PS: In German the word for "no" is "nein" and in Germany's dialect it's spoken just like "ναι". |
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Yes you will! I think I picked it up quickly simply because 'ναι' sounds similar to 'yeah', except pronounced shorter. For the most part us Skippies shorten the smallest words anyway, so 'yeah' will often sound quite close to 'ναι'. There's been a few times when talking to other Aussies that I've accidentally spat out <<ναι>> and they haven't even noticed! … … .LOL |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
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I see. So 'ναι' is obviously easier for the english-native folks. Otoh, uttering the 'χ' is easier for german-language folks  |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
| I always assumed that ναι was just a shortened form of είναι. So when you reply "yes" you are literally saying "it is (so)". This may be the wrong etymology - but I'm sure someone will be able to correct me! |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
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Good observation, Jim, and it sounds logical to me. |
| Απάντηση: Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
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im greek myself but i havent noticed it before!! Τώρα που το λες Τζίμ, μπορεί να είναι κι έτσι! θα ρωτήσω την δασκάλα των Νεων Ελληνικών μου αύριο στο σχολείο και θα σου πω!! xD of course if you take Ancient Greek under consideration that can not be so, because είναι in ancient greek is εστί(ν), which has nothing to do with the modern day term. actually, the term "ειναι", στα Αρχαία, είναι το απαρέμφατο του "εστί" στον Ενεστώτα. |
| Απάντηση: Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
| πες μας, ω Μαϊκ, τι είπε η δασκάλα σου! |
| Απάντηση: Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
| λολ, ω ανδρέα, το ξέχασα xD im so stupid xD i was thinking about asking ALL the time, since i wasnt really paying any attention in the lesson (ancient greek - ewww xD) so i will ask tomorrow =) soz |
| Απάντηση: Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
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λοιπόν, ρώτησα σήμερα την καθηγήτρια των Αρχαίων μου, και το "ναί" ισχύει και από τα αρχαία ακόμα χρόνα (πρίν 2500 χρόνια δηλαδή) αλλά δεν έχει σχέσι με το "είναι", διότι στην αρχαία Ελληνική, το "είναι" λέγεται "εστί". π.χ: "τι εστί(ν) τούτο;" σημαίνει "τι είναι αυτο;" στα Νέα. Το "είναι", όπως προανέφερα, είναι το απαρέμφατο του "ειμί" (ειμί, εί, εστί, εσμέν, εστέ, εισί) στον χρόνο Ενεστώτα. bottom line is that nai has nothing to do with einai xD or so my teacher says :P and i searched it a bit myself but found no connection between the two... |
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Wow, I never knew that about "nai" (as in "einai"). That sounds highly probably. In Chinese, you answer "yes" by saying, literally, "is" or "it is" (mandarin=shi, cantonese=hay, etc.). (It is slightly more complicated than that because in Chinese, like Vietnamese, you don't really say "yes" and "no", but instead answer the question. So, if someone says "do you have x", you say "have" or "don't have", not "yes" or "no", for those language geeks that care...) I would also point out that the word for yes in Korean is also "ne" (prounounced exactly like the Greek "nai"). So, we are not alone!!! As a side story, I was just TODAY speaking Spanish and I slipped out "nai" for yes and then had to quickly correct myself.... |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
| Oh, and "ne" means "no" in Bulgarian, so when you cross the border you have to switch everything around ("da" means "yes") |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
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My etymological dictionary which I have never bother to use to find out "ναι"'s etymology says that it's a variation of the swearing (and by that I don't mean calling someone names) word "νή" (although there are both so old it can be the other way around). For those confused, they were both used in such exhclamations or asides as "νή μα Δία" "νή Δία" which in modern Greek would be "μα το Δία" and in English would be "by Zeus" or, when actually swearing in his name "in the name of Zeus". In other words it's not short for "it is so" but for "I swear!" :D (By the way, it goes all the way back to IE same as "no", "nein" "non" ) And Andreas no we couldn't :P As to the *never* ever, this is exactly what I still remember saying when I had to get the whole "she sells sea shells" right. And I still say it for the German (and partly the French) "r" sound but maybe I'm wrong and one day I will finally get it. Don't start me on the diphthongs 'cause then we will start a three way war (I AM going to invlove the English too) about whose pronunciation of the diphthongs is harder to memorise with ( I suspect) all conceding that English beat Greek and German hands down (just kidding guys ) |
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Thanks for looking that up! It's interesting. Wouldn't you say that the French "r" and to some extent the German "r" are variations of the sound of "gamma" in some Greek words??? I bet you pronounce it just fine. I guess I am lucky that (Eastern) Armenian is my first language and with around 40 letters, each making a different sound, we have pretty much any sound you can anticipate in other (Indo-European) languages... |
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Για σου, Ειρήνη! I rarely visit this site (it always confuses me, I need GPS finding things here!!!) I know the problems you Greeks have in pronouncing "sh" but it sounds funny when you do it. One of the most famous German words - "scheiße" - changes to "seisse" and there's nothing much better in life being called "Asloch (άσλοχ) by a Greek instead of "Arschloch" But don't ever learn German unless your family starts runnng a cheap hostel for those hordes of my country-fellowmen. But if you have to some day: Ask somebody for very good drugs that make you bear learning a terrible, archaic and unlogical language like ours (my description reminds me somehow of Greek ). Oh, you needn't change your way to pronounce the letter "r". There is no official rule! You can either speak it with your throat or your tongue, and very often you needn't pronounce it at all. Regards - m.t. |
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Hah! Yes, navigating this site is most certainly very, VERY vexing (especially if you think of how easy it is to navigate others)! I sure hope one day the owners will chnge the user unfriendly interface but I won't hold my breath and will try to help even so (that's what's keeping them from changing though methinks; people try to learn and/or help even though this site is so user-unfriendly) But German is interesting! Granted I could go for Spanish which seems less complicated and I already know some, or Turkish which everyone says has the most logical grammar around. But why not German? I mean think about it! My native language is Greek, German can hold no terrrs for me bar the pronunciation thingy (I swear, my Bavarian friends would make me read German just for the sake of laughing their heads off with the constant mistakes I made and my vocalised relief whenever the next word was something simple like "mit" or "und"). The "r" thing though is really getting to me. Nerses you are right, it IS sort of like modern Greek gamma but not enough!  |
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Yes, sure, swear words are important in any language. About Deutsch: "Deutsche Sprache - schwere Sprache" is a common proverb in German speaking countries, and we use it when some countrymen (who should know better) produce wrong grammar (btw., It's not grammatically correct itself) Pronouncing words is one of the easier aspects, (leaving aside the "s"/"sch"-business) When it comes to changes in an adjective depending on whether a definite article is present or not, ... (ein reicher Mann - der reiche Mann) (enas plousios kurios - o plousios kurios) ... I also start to scratch my head when trying to figure how anyone else could ever learn that |
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No, Ειρήνη, shouldn't be a larger problem to learn German for a lady who is well esteemed in millions of Greek forums for her abilities in cutting essentials of grammar into pieces like garlic  And - YES! - you're perfectly right! Your Bavarian friends surely will start laughing at your reading-aloud-German-attempts. But there's an easy way to stop them: Give them original Greek beer and they will immediately start crying!  But in fact they would try to help you, I'm quite sure. Don't forget: German is even a foreign language to them but some Bavarians really speak German almost fluently.Andreas, you've forgotten to mention that "reicher" is sometimes "rich" and sometimes "richer" and "richer" could be either "reicher" or "reicherer" in German  Για σας, m.t. |
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right ... reich - rich (no matter if m/f/n, sg/pl) reicher - richer (..."...) der reiche Mann - the rich man der reichere Mann - the richer man ein reicher Mann - a rich man ein reicherer Mann - a richer Man die reiche Frau - detto for woman die reichere Frau eine reiche Frau eine reichere Frau das reiche Kind - ... child (neuter gender) das reichere Kind ein reiches Kind ein reicheres Kind Ok, now enough of that. Afterall it's not a german course but a greek one Btw., the greek song "bas bas bas o paraskeuas" starts with a german sentence, which actually means "... eimai mia ellhnikh mana" (yes, mummy I'm not sure about the beer... I'd instantly choose most (but not all) Austrian brands over any bavarian beer. I also tried a greek "mythos"(export) in some greek restaurant edw sthn biennh: it wasn't bad. |
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Servus, Andreas! Yes, this is really no German forum - fortunately! And no contradiction from me to your beer brands: Gösser, Puntigamer, Kaiser etc. - I had it all. But I remember a terrible night at camping place Wien-West (very closed to an autobahn! noisy!!!) where we needed lots of tins of Otakringer (16er-Blech?) after we had had really enough beer before among these rotten junkies at Flex (hmmm, they have good Bosna there and lamb brats...). Ba, ba - m.t. |
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First, I know the Camping place "Wien-West" very well - from passing by - my house is only two blocks away from it! "Very close to autobahn" is not true: it's at least five to six kilometers away from that, but admittedly, at night, you can indeed hear the noice a bit (although there's even a hill inbetween) - anyway, definitly not loud. The "16er-Blech" only recently (I think this year) became a brand name by ottakringer. But already long before that, ottakringer's beer-tins were called such in slang ("ottakring", where the brewery is located, is the name of the 16th district of vienna. ) |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
ahaha lol maybe you should like write nai is yes like a thousand times on a peice of paper or somthing LOL! |
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Heh, good idea, but won't work. If I see the "ναι" written somewhere, I meanwhile instantly recognize it as "yes", but in the lessons, it still takes me one or two seconds until I recognize the "yes". At least it's already better than when I started this thread when it took me 3 or more seconds |
| Re: I will *never* ever get used to that ναι is yes and όχι is no |
| well at least it's not same as a "no" in your language.. :P (which happens for poor Lithuanians- we have "taip" for "ναι" and "ne" for "όχι"), so you should feel rather lucky :P |
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haha I totally see where you're coming from. When I was younger I never thought of it that way. However, now I've taken great interest in Scandinavian languages, and in Icelandic, what I'm studying, no is nei hehe. and yes is já |
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OK, I can understand that it must be a bit dificult. My parents didn't teach my brothers and I to speak Greek as we are Greeks living in Australia. However there were Greek words slotted here and there in conversation. Things like: -Fisa! (Blow!) (as in blow your food) -sovroko (underwear) -ne (yes) -ochi (no) -Eisai ena kako pedhi kai tha se dho to ksilo. (You're a bad child and I will give you the stick) (as in spank you) -Yaya (Grandmother) -Bapou (Grandfather) -etsi ki etsi (so-so) So the words ne and ochi as you can see have become a part of me. Once you say them a number of times it just becomes normal routine and you can swap happily between yes and no in English and ne and ochi in Greek and not get confused. |
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i've got used to it,but,the "tough situations" still happen sometimes NAI in serbian literally means NO |
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Luckily my language doesn't have words like ναι or όχι. When I was staying in Thessaloniki, I generally experienced those words in association with head movements. Sometimes, the head movements or tutting were sufficient on their own as communication. Ναι was often accompanied by a kind of squint nod of the head (similar to the practice in my own language) and όχι with a tilting of the head upwards and/or an upward raising of the eyebrows. Anyone having trouble with the meanings associated with these words might want to practice these gestures when speaking them, and imagine the gestures when the words are used by others. |
