I love you in Greek?

[xadonis_chinitox]

hi guys

How do you say "I love you" in Greek? with transliteration please thank you

[modus.irrealis]

Hi,

It's:

σ' αγαπώ
s' agapο

(The g here isn't like English g, but like the one in Spanish fuego.)

And just in case you want the Ancient Greek version:

φιλῶ σε
philo se

[xadonis_chinitox]

nice thank you very much

[angarpreveza]

I think that "φιλώ σε" is more of a dialectal expression in Greek, used mainly by the Pontioi, a specific greek race, but anyway using it for a greek person would sound weird to their ears, since it's quite old-fashioned

[KingHarvest]

That's how it would be said in Ancient Greek, as he said. He said nothing about it being used in Modern Greek.

[angarpreveza]

I know, what I meant is that you can still find that expression nowadays but it is mainly used by the specific people I mentioned earlier, this dialect that resembles ancient greek is still spoken in some parts of Greece, so if you understand ancient Greek you might get a good chance of communicating with a Pontio

[KingHarvest]

Ok, how you worded it sounded like you were criticizing him for saying that φιλῶ σε was Modern Greek.

[angarpreveza]

By no means was my intention to criticize, on the contrary, I feel very proud as a greek person that there are so many people from around the world interested in learning not only modern Greek but ancient Greek as well, which is quite as difficult to understand.It would be my pleasure to help anyone who is in the process of the Greek language acquisition and answer any questions there might arise.On the other hand, I would appreciate other people correcting me if they see any faults in my English expressions.There's just one thing I'd like to ask:How come you started learning greek?It's not the easiest language in the world to understand and use,so why would one bother learning it?Hey, I'm not trying to underestimate my language or anything, it's mere quriosity.

[KingHarvest]

Oh, I've always enjoyed everything Greek since I was little, starting with learning about Greek mythology when I was school. Once I got to college I started taking Ancient Greek and fell in love with it, and I got to study in Greece last year which was a blast . Do you use MSN messenger? If so, I'd appreciate it if we could talk in Greek over it, my Modern Greek has gone into serious decline since I haven't had anyone to talk to in almost a year

[angarpreveza]

Well, to be frank I'm not familiarized with the Msn messenger yet, but if you enlighten me on that I'll be more than happy to help you with your Greek practice

[KingHarvest]

It's just a simple download here: http://webmessenger.msn.com/

[angarpreveza]

i tried that but it said stg about my computer not being compatible.Anyhow, αν θέλεις μπορούμε να επικοινωνούμε μέσω του forum στα ελληνικά ή μέσω μηνυμάτων. Σε τι επίπεδο είσαι στα ελληνικά;

[Babelfish]

Εξέτρεψε αυτή η συζήτηση από το αρχικό θέμα
Να ικανοποιήσω την περιέργειά σου, εγώ τα νεοελληνικά άρχισα να μάθω μετά τα λατινικά και τα ρωσικά - ακόμα ένα ινδοευρωπαϊκά γλώσσα Τα διάλεξα γιατί ήξερα ήδη το αλφάβητο και λίγες λέξεις από επιστημονικούς όρους. Μ'αρέσει η γλώσσα! ... Αλλά και εγώ για πολύ καιρό δεν είχα ευκαιρία να την χρησιμοποιώ, διορθώσεις είναι ευπρόσδεκτοι

[modus.irrealis]

εγώ τα νεοελληνικά άρχισα να μάθω μαθαίνω

Just because it's an easy rule to state, you always have to use the present subjunctive with verbs like αρχίζω, συνεχίζω, σταματάω -- it makes sense because you can only start, continue, or stop processes.

[Babelfish]

10x Finally some easy rule... Though one of my problems is that I don't know the formal tense names, most of the Greek sites I've been through avoided them. Present subjunctive What would να μάθω be called, perfect subjunctive?

[modus.irrealis]

Traditionally, (να) μάθω is the aorist subjunctive (but I've seen all sorts of names for it). The traditional names come from the fact that the present subjunctive μαθαίνω is based on the stem of the present μαθαίνω and the aorist subjunctive μάθω is based on the stem of the aorist έμαθα -- they're not useful terms, though, since they don't make it explicit it that the difference between the two is one of aspect and not tense.

The perfect subjunctive would be (να) έχω μάθει.

(The modern linguistic approach, though, is to deny that Greek has a subjunctive, but that's a whole other topic.)

[KingHarvest]

Really? I'd like to read about that.

I don't really know much about the development of the subjunctive from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek, but I could see -ητε and -ωσι being formed on analogy with -ετε and -ουσι as the rest of the persons would be pronounced the same as in the indicative after the loss of distinction of vowel length, thus necessitating a periphrastic form of the subjunctive to be formed.

[modus.irrealis]

Really? I'd like to read about that.

You mean about the lack of subjunctive? To be precise, the modern treatments I've seen deny that Greek lacks the subjunctive as a formal category of verb morphology and instead speak about subjunctive contexts or something similar (which seem to basically be anywhere where negation is done using μη instead of δεν), but pretty much any finite (non-imperative) verb form can occur in these contexts.

So ήξερα is subjunctive in μακάρι να μην ήξερα even though it goes back to an Anc. Greek indicative form, but φύγεις is not subjunctive in αν δεν φύγεις τώρα,... even though it goes to back to an Anc. Greek subjunctive form.

This is basically the approach of the Routledge Greek Grammar if I understand it correctly but I've also read some linguistics papers on the issue -- I didn't understand the main linguistics parts but their quick overview of the Modern Greek system was basically "subjunctive contexts" through particles and μη -- I'll see if I can track down those references.

It seems to me the situation could be described in terms of a periphrastic subjunctive, or rather periphrastic subjunctives (at least να μάθω and ας μάθω and possibly μη μάθεις unless you want to see that as being a shortened version of να μη μάθεις), so maybe that's why they don't go that route.

I don't really know much about the development of the subjunctive from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek, but I could see -ητε and -ωσι being formed on analogy with -ετε and -ουσι as the rest of the persons would be pronounced the same as in the indicative after the loss of distinction of vowel length, thus necessitating a periphrastic form of the subjunctive to be formed.

I'd assume something like that happened.

[Balaur]

Is σ' αγαπάω just a variant of σ' αγαπώ? It's how my Greek professor taught it. He's from Thessaloniki.

Edit: Nevermind. I just looked at the questions thread, and I found the answer.

[il mare]

Both sentences have the same meaning. but i think the second one is more used.

Is σ' αγαπάω just a variant of σ' αγαπώ? It's how my Greek professor taught it. He's from Thessaloniki.

Edit: Nevermind. I just looked at the questions thread, and I found the answer.