 | male/female before noun |
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Hi, I am only up to Lesson 4 but have a question about the inroduction of "to" before a noun such as in the word pencil. In the first lesson that gender notification word was not used. Should we be saying it even in those sentences spoken in that first lesson? |
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Hello Cub! In these cases it is better if you posted in the forum set aside for the relevant question after perusing it a bit to see if your question has been asked and answered already. An example of what you mean is very welcomed too ;) The general rule is that the article (if that is what you are referring to) is used in all cases except when we list things. For instance Αγόρασα τα μολύβια και τα βιβλία χτες (I bought the pencils and the books yesterday). Αγόρασα μολύβια και βιβλία χτες (I bought pencils and books yesterday). This happens regardless of gender. |
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Hello Irene, Thank you for the reply. I am sorry I posted it in the wrong area. Please foregive any indescretions as I am new to attempting to learn a new language via the internet. I did not notice this type of question being asked in the other 1-4 lessons that I have gone through. So yes then TOV needs to be placed before the words even in that first lesson where the speakers say "this is a pencil" even though they do not say TOV until later lessons. I am assuming that is just to give us some vocabulary to start with. |
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Hi there! No worries, I just mentioned it for the future  Now I don't remember lesson 1 (I may have never listened to it) so do they use "ena" before "pencil"? Because in that case they got it right. Enas, mia, ena is the indefinite article ("a ![[[no]]](http://www.kypros.org/LearnGreek/pix/s/no.gif){kind=small} " in English) and O,H,TO is the definite one ("the" in English).Now you ALWAYS have to use either the definite or the indefinite article in Greek unless you list off things. Which of the two depends on the context. My apologies if my previous message was confusing. |
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Is it possible that you listened to lesson one, Irene mou? Why? Yes, you always need some article, either definite (like "the" in English, or O, H, To in Greek) or indefinite (like "a ", or "enas, mia, ena" in Greek), except in the example that Irene gave above.Except, I think there is another situation that warrants dropping the "ena" or the "to", which is where you are describing something to be of a certain class of things, as opposed to being something else. Let me give an example, but, correct me if I'm wrong (Irene, others, etc.). If someone asked: (1) Is this a magazine? (einai afto [ena] periodiko?) No, it's a book (as opposed to something else) (oxi, [ena]biblio einai) (2) Einai aftos [enas] antras? (is he a man?) Oxi, [mia] gynaika einai. (no, [she's] a woman) ---------------- Also NOTE: You even need the definite article when you use the word "this", so "this book" is "afto TO biblio", or possessive as in "my book", "TO biblio mou" This is not common in most languages, but does happen in one other example I can think of, Armenian: ays girk-e (this book); im girk-e (my book) [the -e being "the"] Sorry if this was too much info. |
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Whoops! I forgot this one, you are right M I've listened to many of the lessons when answering a question requires it but I don't think I ever had to listen to the first one. Sorry, should have explained! |
