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Lesson Transcript

Geia, legomai Chrissi Hi everybody! I’m Chrissi.
Welcome to GreekPod101.com’s “Ελληνικά σε 3 λεπτά”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Greek.
In the last lesson we learned how to count euros. Did you practice at home?
In this lesson, we're going to learn other useful tips to talk about your schedule - for example, if a friend asks you "What are you doing this weekend?"
Let’s start!
To ask a friend or someone you already know, you say:
Ti kaneis to Savatokyriako?
What are you doing this weekend?
[slowly] Ti kaneis to Savatokyriako?
Let’s break it down.
Ti is "what".
Kaneis is "to do" in the second person plural; there is a “you” hidden in there.
Το is like “the” in English.
And Savvatokyriako is "weekend". There isn’t a word corresponding to “this” since it is assumed that we are talking about this weekend.
If you want to ask the same question in a formal way, turn kaneis into the formal version, kanete. Actually, this is the second person plural, which is also the polite form in Greece. So now, we have:
Ti kanete to Savvatokyriako?
[slowly] Ti kanete to Savvatokyriako?
What if you’re not asking about this weekend?
Asking about a different time period is as easy as replacing “Savvatokyriako”.
“Tomorrow” is “avrio”. So you can also say Ti kaneis aurio “What are you doing tomorrow?” Or, you could also put in a weekday, like Deftera, "Monday" or “Kyriaki”, which is "Sunday".
Ti kaneis ti Deutera?
Ti kaneis tin Kyriaki?
You might have noticed that in the last two examples, the word "to" in Greek has been replaced with "ti" or "tin". All three of those little words are forms of the definite articles. “To” is a neuter article because it defines the word “Savvatokyriako” which is neuter and "ti" or "tin" are feminine, because Deftera and Kyriaki are feminine words.
The final “n” of some words, such as definite articles, is sometimes removed for the sake of easier pronunciation -- but let’s not get involved with that right now!
So now, if someone asks *you* Ti kaneis aurio? or "What are you doing tomorrow?", how can you answer?
Here's an example - Tha pao sto grafeio. "I will go to the office."
“Tha pao” means "I will go", “sto” means “to the” in neuter singular and “grafeio” means "office". Of course you can replace "office" with any other location but you have to be careful about the gender!
Now it’s time for Chrissi’s Insights.
In some situations, the question Ti kaneis? can also mean more generally "What do you do?" or "How do you do?"; like in English, the verb kano -- that is “do” -- isn’t always used literally! This is a quite common greeting so when you are in Greece, there is a good chance that you will hear it many times.
In this lesson we learned how to talk about your schedule. Next time we are going to learn how to use the verb eimai "to be". We'll also talk about how to tell people your nationality.
So, practice what we just learned and I’ll see you in the next lesson!
Tha ta ksanapoume sto epomeno mathima!

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