Present Tense Conjugation of Regular Verbs (+ To Be) in Modern Greek
Hi! This is just a quick post going over the present tense conjugation of verbs in Modern Greek that have a regular form. These verbs are very to conjugate once you learn their endings. I am also adding the verb ‘to be’ to this post because it is a vital verb to learn, even if the ending isn’t regular. It is interesting to learn that the verb to be does not have the same endings as the other irregular verbs that I’ll be trying to make posts about soon.
Conjugation of Regular Verbs in the Present Tense:
In Greek verbs have a stem onto which you can add endings to change the person or people which the statement relates to.
The verb ‘to read’ in the present has the stem διαβάζ_. This means that with the endings from earlier it can be conjugated like this:
Εσύ διαβάζεις --- you read
Αυτός/Αυτή/Αυτό διαβαζει --- he/she/they/it read
Εμείς διαβάζουμε --- we read
Εσείς διαβάζετε --- you read (plural)
Αυτοί/Αυτές/Αυτά διαβάζουν --- they read (plural)
For regular verbs in the present tense you will notice that the tonic accent is never on the endings. This always the case for regular verbs, however for irregular verbs in the present, they may have the accent on the ending vowel.
It should also be noted that the use of pronouns when talking is not strictly necessary. Just like in Spanish, because of the specific verb endings pronouns are somewhat obsolete. Instead they are more used to mark insistence on who is doing the action.
A lot of verbs a regular in the present. A few of these are to see (Βλέπω), to want (Θέλω) , to have (Έχω), to know (Ξέρω), to go (Πηγαίνω) and to do (Κάνω).
Conjugating the verb ‘to be’:
Αυτός/Αυτή/Αυτό είναι --- he/she/they/it is
Εσείς είστε/είσαστε --- you are (plural)
Αυτοί/Αυτές/Αυτά είναι --- they are (plural)
The first thing you might notice is that the third person singular and plural are the same. This simply a funny quirk of the verb to be.
You might also notice that the second person plural conjugation of the verb to be has two options. This is because there are actually two ways of saying it, είστε and είσαστε. The second one was considered to not be grammatically correct when writing for a long time, therefore it was mostly used orally. However it became mostly accepted as grammatically correct in modern times and therefore the usage of both of them is interchangeable.