Learn how to use various Greek suffixes used in word formation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hello everyone and welcome back to GreekPod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, lesson 10, You’ll Never Run Out of Things To Photograph In Greece! I’m Becky. |
| Stefania: And I’m Stefania. |
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn more about word formation in Greek, with a focus on the various suffixes used. |
| Stefania: The conversation takes place at Monastiráki square, and it’s between Antonia and Vasilis. |
| Becky: The characters know each other well, so they’ll use informal Greek. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Βασίλης: Πού είναι το μαγαζί; |
| Αντωνία: Εκεί αριστερά, στην ανηφοριά. |
| Βασίλης: Ωχ! Έπρεπε να είχα πάει το μηχανάκι ως εκεί τελικά. Ο αθλητισμός με τέτοια ζέστη δεν είναι πολύ του γούστου μου! |
| Αντωνία: Σώπα μωρέ! Aθλητισμός; Ούτε διακόσια μέτρα δεν είναι! |
| Βασίλης: Βάλε και τα φωτογραφικά που είναι δέκα κιλά! |
| Αντωνία: Αυτά είναι τα καλά του επαγγελματία φωτογράφου! |
| Βασίλης: Ξέρεις, ώρες ώρες ζηλεύω τους τουρίστες και γενικά τους ταξιδιώτες. Kάνουν τη δουλειά τους με μια μηχανή που ζυγίζει όσο ένα κινητό! |
| Αντωνία: Ναι, αλλά τέτοιες φωτογραφίες δεν είναι για δημοσίευση. |
| Βασίλης: Συνήθως ναι. Αλλά αυτό δεν είναι θέμα ομορφιάς της φωτογραφίας... |
| Αντωνία: Εσένα δηλαδή σου αρέσουν οι φωτογραφίες από τις μικρές μηχανές; |
| Βασίλης: Εξαρτάται από τη μηχανή και από αυτόν που τραβάει. Πάντως τώρα πια δεν μπορείς να καταλαβαίνεις πάντα με την πρώτη ματιά, αν η φωτογραφία είναι τραβηγμένη με επαγγελματική ή ερασιτεχνική μηχανή. |
| Αντωνία: Ε βέβαια! Έτσι όπως έχει προχωρήσει η τεχνολογία! |
| Βασίλης: Αφού όλη η ανθρωπότητα τραβάει φωτογραφίες! |
| Vasilis: Where is the shop? |
| Antonia: Over there, on the left, uphill. |
| Vasilis: Argh! I should have taken the motorbike there after all. Athletics in this heat isn't exactly my thing. |
| Antonia: Oh, come on! Athletics? It's not even two hundred meters! |
| Vasilis: Add also the ten kilos of photographic equipment! |
| Antonia: That's the good thing about being a professional photographer! |
| Vasilis: You know, sometimes I envy tourists and travelers in general. They do their job with a camera that weighs as much as a mobile. |
| Antonia: Yes, but such pictures are not good for publication. |
| Vasilis: Yeah, usually. But this has nothing to do with how beautiful the picture is... |
| Antonia: So you like the pictures from small cameras? |
| Vasilis: It depends on the camera and the person who shoots. But these days, you can't always tell at first sight, whether the picture was shot with a professional or an amateur camera. |
| Antonia: Of course! The way technology has advanced! |
| Vasilis: It's because the whole of mankind is taking pictures! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Do you like taking pictures, Stefania? |
| Stefania: I do! I’m not a professional but I’m OK... I guess! |
| Becky: I’d love to see some of your pictures. |
| Stefania: Sure, are you interested in pictures from Greece? |
| Becky: Well, you do have some wonderful locations! |
| Stefania: That’s true! Especially the islands… |
| Becky: The famous Greek summer, huh? |
| Stefania: The islands are beautiful all year round! |
| Becky: So Greeks love taking pictures? |
| Stefania: Actually cameras were always really expensive in Greece. It wasn’t until after the digital cameras invaded the market that people started getting into photography more. |
| Becky: So by now they must be good at it! |
| Stefania: Well, some are and some aren’t. But truth be told, you can see some wonderful stuff even by amateur photographers. Have a look at Greek photographer groups on Facebook and you’ll see what I mean. |
| Becky: I’ll check some out! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Stefania: ζέστη [natural native speed] |
| Becky: heat |
| Stefania: ζέστη [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ζέστη [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: επαγγελματίας [natural native speed] |
| Becky: professional |
| Stefania: επαγγελματίας [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: επαγγελματίας [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: ζυγίζω [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to weigh |
| Stefania: ζυγίζω [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ζυγίζω [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: ομορφιά [natural native speed] |
| Becky: beauty |
| Stefania: ομορφιά [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ομορφιά [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: μικρός [natural native speed] |
| Becky: small |
| Stefania: μικρός [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: μικρός [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: εξαρτώμαι [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to depend |
| Stefania: εξαρτώμαι [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: εξαρτώμαι [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: τραβάω [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to pull, to take pictures |
| Stefania: τραβάω [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: τραβάω [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: ματιά [natural native speed] |
| Becky: look |
| Stefania: ματιά [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ματιά [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: ερασιτεχνικός [natural native speed] |
| Becky: amateur |
| Stefania: ερασιτεχνικός [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ερασιτεχνικός [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: ανθρωπότητα [natural native speed] |
| Becky: humanity, mankind |
| Stefania: ανθρωπότητα [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: ανθρωπότητα [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. What is our first word? |
| Stefania: The feminine noun “ματιά”. |
| Becky: Meaning a “look” |
| Stefania: Yes! As in “I take a look”. But it can also mean the way someone looks at things, their viewpoint, for example, “με τη ματιά του επαγγελματία φωτογράφου”. |
| Becky: Meaning “from the viewpoint of a professional photographer”? |
| Stefania: Yes! |
| Becky: Got it! |
| Stefania: Now something worth noting is that when used in the first sense, for example, “take a look” or “have a look” it is an idiom that is always used in combination with the verb “ρίχνω”, which means “to throw”. |
| Becky: Let’s see an example. |
| Stefania: Sure. “Ρίξε μια ματιά και πες μου αν συμφωνείς.”. |
| Becky: “Have a look and tell me if you agree”. Okay! What’s our next word? |
| Stefania: “εξαρτώμαι” and it’s a verb in passive voice. First let’s see an example. “Το αν θα βγω έξω ή όχι, εξαρτάται από τον καιρό.” |
| Becky: “Whether I go out or not, depends on the weather.” |
| Stefania: Here it was used in the third person singular. |
| Becky: OK. Is there something special about that? |
| Stefania: Yes there is. This third person singular form can be used as a standalone expression too, meaning “it depends”. |
| Becky: So for example… |
| Stefania: Let me take two lines from our dialogue and change them a bit to give you an idea. |
| Becky: OK. |
| Stefania: So Antonia asked: “Εσένα δηλαδή σου αρέσουν οι φωτογραφίες από τις μικρές μηχανές;” |
| Becky: Which means “So you like the pictures from small cameras?” |
| Stefania: Yes! And then Vasilis could reply by saying “Εξαρτάται.” |
| Becky: Meaning “It depends.” |
| Stefania: Right! Oh, we have one more word: the verb “τραβάω” which literally means “to pull” as in to pull a rope. |
| Becky: Don’t tell me! There’s an idiom here too, right? |
| Stefania: Actually there’s more than one! One of the most common is “to take pictures”. In Greek, we say “τραβάω φωτογραφίες”. But for more information, check out the lesson notes. |
| Becky: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Stefania: In this lesson, you’ll learn some more suffixes. |
| Becky: What category do we have this time? |
| Stefania: Actually, we don’t have a special category. We just have suffixes that can help us understand what the derivative word means. |
| Becky: Hmm... And what kinds of words do these suffixes create? |
| Stefania: All kinds of interesting words. For example, if we want to say that someone is a “professional”, in Greek this would be “επαγγελματίας”. |
| Becky: How is this word produced? |
| Stefania: By adding the suffix “-τίας” to the stem of the root word “επάγγελμα”. |
| Becky: Which means “profession”. |
| Stefania: Yes! So “επάγγελμα” and “-τίας” gives us “επαγγελματίας”. |
| Becky: So “-tías” shows that the word we are talking about is a person? |
| Stefania: Precisely! Generally, we could say that it means a person who does what the base word describes. |
| Becky: Could we have another example? |
| Stefania: Sure! How about “αθλητισμός”? |
| Becky: Hey, this sounds familiar... |
| Stefania: Perhaps the word “athlete” rings a bell? |
| Becky: Yeah, that’s what I had in mind! |
| Stefania: “αθλητισμός” means “athletics”. The root word is the masculine noun “αθλητής”, meaning “athlete”. We take the stem “αθλητ-”and add “-ισμός”, so we get “αθλητισμός”. |
| Becky: So, what do all words ending in “-ismós” mean? |
| Stefania: They usually express an action, a state, a condition or a doctrine. Many English nouns ending in “-ism” are loans of Greek nouns in -ισμός. For example “ρομαντισμός”. |
| Becky: Romanticism! |
| Stefania: Or “βουδισμός” |
| Becky: Buddhism! |
| Stefania: Precisely! Religions and philosophical schools have names that end in “-ism”, a loan that came from the Greek -ισμός through Latin or French. |
| Becky: Hey, this can help my English, too! |
| Stefania: And English will do wonders for your Greek too! There are many words created this way. |
| Becky: Do we have these suffixes in our lesson notes? |
| Stefania: Of course! These and many more! |
| Becky: Ok, now can we see another suffix example? |
| Stefania: Yes. How about the suffix “-ότητα”? |
| Becky: This signifies the property of what the base word denotes. Is there something special about it? |
| Stefania: It is a suffix commonly used with many types of word bases. For example adjectives, verbs, nouns. |
| Becky: I see. |
| Stefania: And also all words ending in “-ότητα”, for example, “ανθρωπότητα”, meaning “mankind” or “humanity”, are feminine. |
| Becky: Listeners, for more about these, check the lesson notes, as we’ve said. We will introduce a few more suffixes in our next lesson when we talk about adjective derivatives. |
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Outro |
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| Becky: That’s all for this lesson, everyone! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Stefania: Γεια χαρά! |
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