Learn about the past tense of the Greek verb echo, meaning "to have"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Fay: Hello, and welcome back to GreekPod101.com - the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Greek. Fay here! Beginner Season 1, Lesson 18 - Not Even for an E-mail from Your Greek Friend? |
| Chrissi: And I’m Chrissi. |
| Fay: What are we learning in this lesson? |
| Chrissi: We are looking at the past tense of echo ("to have"). |
| Fay: The conversation takes place at the software company in Athens. |
| Chrissi: It’s between Petra Gordon and her co-worker, Vaggelis Thomaidis. |
| Fay: The characters are co-workers so the conversation is in informal language. |
| Chrissi: Let’s listen. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Ευαγγελία Θωμαΐδη: Πέτρα, είχες χρόνο να διαβάσεις το email που σου έστειλα; |
| Πέτρα Γκόρντον: Δυστυχώς, δεν είχα καθόλου χρόνο. Είχα πολλή δουλειά με το άλλο πρότζεκτ. |
| Ευαγγελία Θωμαΐδη: Α, ναι, σωστά. Είχατε το μίτινγκ εχτές. Πώς πήγε; |
| Πέτρα Γκόρντον: Ναι, πολύ καλά. Η Δανάη είχε μερικές πολύ καλές ιδέες. |
| Fay: Now let’s listen to the slow version. |
| Ευαγγελία Θωμαΐδη: Πέτρα, είχες χρόνο να διαβάσεις το email που σου έστειλα; |
| Πέτρα Γκόρντον: Δυστυχώς, δεν είχα καθόλου χρόνο. Είχα πολλή δουλειά με το άλλο πρότζεκτ. |
| Ευαγγελία Θωμαΐδη: Α, ναι, σωστά. Είχατε το μίτινγκ εχτές. Πώς πήγε; |
| Πέτρα Γκόρντον: Ναι, πολύ καλά. Η Δανάη είχε μερικές πολύ καλές ιδέες. |
| Fay: Now with the English translation. |
| Ευαγγελία Θωμαΐδη: Πέτρα, είχες χρόνο να διαβάσεις το email που σου έστειλα; |
| Fay: Petra, did you have time to read the email I sent you? |
| Πέτρα Γκόρντον: Δυστυχώς, δεν είχα καθόλου χρόνο. Είχα πολλή δουλειά με το άλλο πρότζεκτ. |
| Fay: I'm afraid I didn't have any time at all. I had a lot of work with the other project. |
| Ευαγγελία Θωμαΐδη: Α, ναι, σωστά. Είχατε το μίτινγκ εχτές. Πώς πήγε; |
| Fay: Oh, yes, right. You had the meeting yesterday. How did it go? |
| Πέτρα Γκόρντον: Ναι, πολύ καλά. Η Δανάη είχε μερικές πολύ καλές ιδέες. |
| Fay: Very well. Danai had some very good ideas. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Fay: You do use email, don’t you? |
| Chrissi: I use it extensively. But this is not the case with most Greeks. |
| Fay: But we said in a previous lesson that most people under 45 are online! |
| Chrissi: Yes, they are. Still, most prefer texting. |
| Fay: Don’t people use the internet with their phones? |
| Chrissi: Very few—the cost is too high for non-corporate users. But SMSes are cheap, so… |
| Fay: SMSes? |
| Chrissi: Yes. This is what text messages are called in Greece. By the way, that’s the official name for the technology. It stands for “Short Message Service.” |
| Fay: Really? I didn’t know that. Anyway, how about communication through social networks? |
| Chrissi: Oh, these are huge in Greece! Most internet users are on Facebook; actually, there are many people who got internet connections just to get on Facebook. |
| Fay: So I can make Facebook friends from Greece? |
| Chrissi: Sure. But you have to make your Greek better, so let’s go to our vocabulary! |
| Fay: Okay! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Fay: First, we have… |
| Chrissi: είχες [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: You had (singular). |
| Chrissi: είχες [slowly - broken down by syllable]. είχες [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: διαβάζω [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: To read. |
| Chrissi: διαβάζω [slowly - broken down by syllable]. διαβάζω [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: στέλνω [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: To send. |
| Chrissi: στέλνω [slowly - broken down by syllable]. στέλνω [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: δυστυχώς [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Unfortunately, I'm afraid that… |
| Chrissi: δυστυχώς [slowly - broken down by syllable]. δυστυχώς [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: είχα [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: I had. |
| Chrissi: είχα [slowly - broken down by syllable]. είχα [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: καθόλου [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: At all (as in "not at all"). |
| Chrissi: καθόλου [slowly - broken down by syllable]. καθόλου [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: άλλο [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Other. |
| Chrissi: άλλο [slowly - broken down by syllable]. άλλο [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: σωστά [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Correct. |
| Chrissi: σωστά [slowly - broken down by syllable]. σωστά [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: πάω / πηγαίνω [natural native speed].. |
| Fay: I go, I am going. |
| Chrissi: πάω / πηγαίνω [slowly - broken down by syllable]. πάω / πηγαίνω [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: Next… |
| Chrissi: είχε [natural native speed]. |
| Fay: He/she/it had. |
| Chrissi: είχε [slowly - broken down by syllable]. είχε [natural native speed]. |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Fay: Let's take a closer look at some of the words and phrases in this lesson. Here’s something that’s been puzzling me for a while. How do you say “I go” in Greek? |
| Chrissi: Εγώ πηγαίνω. (Ego pigaino.) |
| Fay: But I’ve heard people saying Πάω για ψώνια (Pao gia psonia) "I go shopping”. Is this πάω (pao) an idiom? |
| Chrissi: Actually, it’s another version of the verb πηγαίνω (pigaino). |
| Fay: I see! So ego pao and ego pigaino both mean “I go.” |
| Chrissi: Or “I’m going.” Remember that in Greek we don’t have separate tenses for simple present and present progressive. |
| Fay: Right. Can you give us a sentence using both versions of “I go”? |
| Chrissi: Sure. Listeners, please repeat after me. Πάω στο γραφείο με το Μετρό (Pao sto grafeio me to Metro.) |
| Fay: “I go to the office on the Metro.” |
| Chrissi: Πηγαίνω στο γραφείο με το Μετρό (Pigaino sto grafeio me to Metro.) |
| Fay: Same thing—“I go to the office on the Metro.” |
| Chrissi: Yes. |
| Fay: Okay. Now let’s look at another phrase from the dialogue. “I didn’t have any time at all.” |
| Chrissi: Δεν είχα καθόλου χρόνο. (Den eicha katholou chrono.) |
| Fay: I know that den makes things negative, but katholou looks like it’s also somehow negative—am I wrong? |
| Chrissi: Not at all. It’s a stronger negation, used as extensively in Greek as in English. |
| Fay: Can we have a couple of examples? |
| Chrissi: Sure. Δεν πήγα καθόλου διακοπές φέτος. (Den piga katholou diakopes fetos.) Listeners, repeat that. |
| Fay: Which means...? |
| Chrissi: “I didn’t go anywhere at all for my vacation this year.” See? English adds “at all” to make the negation stronger. |
| Fay: How about another example? |
| Chrissi: Δεν άκουσα καθόλου τι μου είπες. (Den akousa katholou ti mou eipes.) |
| Fay: “I didn’t hear what you said at all.” |
| Chrissi: Right! |
| Fay: What does καθόλου (katholou) literally mean? |
| Chrissi: When used with negatives, it means “any” or “at all.” It’s a quantity adverb. |
| Fay: Got it. Finally, how do we say “alone” in Greek? |
| Chrissi: Μόνος (Monos), or μόνος μου (monos mou) with the possessive form, μου (mou), meaning “my.” |
| Fay: An example? |
| Chrissi: Θα πάω μόνος μου σινεμά. (Tha pao monos mou sinema.) Try to repeat that. |
| Fay: “I will go to the cinema alone.” |
| Chrissi: Yes. |
| Fay: Let’s move on to our Grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Fay: In this lesson, our focus is on the past tense of the verb έχω (echo). |
| Chrissi: Yes. I know they require a lot of grammar… |
| Fay: …but it’s very important. |
| Chrissi: Yes. The past tense of the verb έχω (echo) "to have” will be something you use all the time. |
| Fay: What does that look like? |
| Chrissi: Είχα (Eicha) "I had”. |
| Fay: That’s the simple past, right? |
| Chrissi: Yes. It’s the tense we use when we want to speak about something that happened in the past and It is over now. |
| Fay: For example? |
| Chrissi: Εχτές, έκατσα σπίτι (Echtes, ekatsa spiti) "Yesterday I stayed at home”. Listeners, repeat that. |
| Fay: Another example? |
| Chrissi: Την παρασκευή πήγα στο κλαμπ (Tin Paraskeui piga sto club) "On Friday I went to the club”. |
| Fay: So that’s what the past tense looks like. Let’s see some examples with eicha. |
| Chrissi: I’ll give one for each person. |
| Fay: Great! Listeners, repeat these sentences after Chrissi. First-person singular— |
| Chrissi: “I was busy on the weekend.” Είχα δουλειά το Σαββατοκύριακο. (Eicha douleia to Savatokyriako.) |
| Fay: Second-person singular. |
| Chrissi: “You had to go to the supermarket.” Είχες να πας στο σούπερ μάρκετ (Eiches na pas sto super market.) |
| Fay: Third-person singular, masculine. |
| Chrissi: “Yesterday, the weather was good.” Εχτές είχε καλό καιρό (Echtes eiche kalo kairo.) |
| Fay: Third-person singular, feminine. |
| Chrissi: “My teacher had the flu.” Η δασκάλα μου είχε γρίπη. (I daskala mou eiche gripi.) |
| Fay: Third-person singular, neuter. |
| Chrissi: “The car had good brakes.” Το αυτοκίνητο είχε καλά φρένα. (To autokinito eiche kala frena.) |
| Fay: First-person plural. |
| Chrissi: “We had to go to a wedding.” Είχαμε να πάμε σε έναν γάμο (Eichame na pame se enan gamo) |
| Fay: Second-person plural. |
| Chrissi: “You had problems at work.” Είχατε προβλήματα στη δουλειά. (Eichate provlimata sti douleia.) |
| Fay: Third-person plural, masculine. |
| Chrissi: “The sailors had shore leave.” Οι ναύτες είχαν άδεια. (Oi nautes eichan adeia.) |
| Fay: Third-person plural, feminine. |
| Chrissi: “The nurses had very strict orders.” Οι νοσοκόμες είχαν πολύ αυστηρές οδηγίες. (Oi nosokomes eichan poly austires odigies.) |
| Fay: Third-person plural, neuter. |
| Chrissi: “The airplanes had comfortable seats.” Τα αεροπλάνα είχαν ένατ καθίσματα. (Ta aeroplana eichan aneta kathismata.) |
| Fay: Whew! We just conjugated eicha! |
| Chrissi: At least the declarative form. |
| Fay: But the negative and interrogative forms aren’t hard, are they? |
| Chrissi: No. For the negative, we just add δεν (den) right before the verb. |
| Fay: So εγώ είχα (ego eicha) "I had” becomes… |
| Chrissi: Εγώ δεν είχα (Ego den eicha) "I hadn’t”. |
| Fay: And the interrogative? |
| Chrissi: The simplest way to turn a statement into a question is to raise the pitch on the accented syllable. |
| Fay: So Εγώ είχα (Ego eicha) becomes… |
| Chrissi: Εγώ είχα; (Ego eicha?) In writing, you just add a question mark. |
| Fay: That pretty much covers είχα (eicha) "I had”. |
| Chrissi: At least its basic usage. |
| Fay: But we have some more interesting stuff in the PDF, right? |
| Chrissi: Yes. And many examples, so please, people, don’t forget to download it! |
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| Chrissi: Γεια χαρα! (Geia chara!) |
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