Learn how to use Greek adjectives
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| 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 use verbs in their negative form. In this lesson, we will start learning about Greek adjectives and how to use them properly. For adjectives, things in Greek are not as easy as in English but I will try to make them as easy as possible. |
| The basic rule for using adjectives is that they always have to agree in gender with the subject they’re describing. Since gender is quite complicated in Greek, for now we will just deal with nouns and adjectives ending in ‘os’ in masculine, in ‘i’ in feminine and in ‘o’ in neuter. |
| This might sound confusing, so let’s start with an example: |
| “to asteio paihnidi” which means "the funny game" |
| [slowly] to asteio paihnidi |
| Here the subject paihnidi is a neuter singular word, so the article “to” and the adjective “asteio” are also in the neuter singular form. |
| Let’s see the same example with a feminine subject: |
| “i asteia kopella”, which means "the funny girl" |
| Here, to make the adjective feminine, we have to change the ending of asteio – that is, the final ‘o’ – and make it ‘a’, so it becomes ‘asteia’. In Greek the feminine adjectives usually – but not always – end in ‘a’. |
| And let’s see the same example with a masculine subject: |
| “o asteios anthropos” which means “the funny person”. |
| Here, we have changed the last ending of asteio from ‘o’ to ‘os’ to make it masculine. Masculine adjectives usually end in ‘os’, but just like the feminine adjectives, this doesn’t always apply. |
| Here are a few more examples to show the difference between masculine and feminine form. |
| Kalos is the masculine for "nice" or "kind", whereas kali is the feminine and kalo is the neuter. |
| Omorfos is the masculine for "beautiful", whereas omorfi is the feminine and omorfo is the neuter. |
| Zestos is the masculine for "warm", whereas zesti is the feminine and zesto is the neuter. |
| Nostimos is the masculine for "delicious", whereas nostimi is the feminine and nostimo is the neuter. |
| Now let’s find out how to change an adjective from singular to plural. In the previous examples, a masculine adjective ending in ‘os’ will have a plural ending in ‘oi’, a feminine ending in ‘ee’ will have a plural ending in ‘es’ and a neuter ending in ‘o’ will have a plural ending in ‘a’. |
| For example, “H kopela einai kali.” means "The girl is kind.", so if you change it to plural it becomes “Oi kopeles einai kales, which is "The girls are kind". See how the feminine definite article changed from “H” to “Oi”? The masculine article also changes from O to “Oi” in plural. As for the neuter article “to”, it will become “ta” in plural. |
| Ok! Now let’s practice this with all three genders– |
| If you want to say "My garden is big" you will say O kipos mou einai megalos, as kipos is masculine. In plural it will become Oi kipoi mou einai megaloi |
| If you want to say “My bag is big” you will say I tsanta mou einai megali and in plural it will become, Oi tsantes mou einai megales. |
| If you want to say "My room is big" you will say To domatio mou einai megalo and in plural it will be Ta domatia mou einai megala. |
| If you want to say "The men are tall" you will say Oi andres einai psiloi. |
| If you want to say "My sisters are tall” you will say Oi adelfes mou einai psiles. |
| If you want so say “The kids are tall” you will say Ta paidia einai psila. |
| Now it’s time for Chrissi’s Insights. |
| Even though adjectives come in three genders, emphasizing them can be done simply by adding the adverb poly (“very”) in front of them. So the masculine "megalos" (“big”) becomes poly megalos (“very big”), the feminine "megali" becomes poly megali, and the neuter "megalo" becomes poly megalo. |
| In this lesson, we learned how to properly use adjectives in Greek. Next time, we’ll learn the basic uses of the verb pigaino, which is "To go," so that you will be able to say sentences like "I’m going to school." |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next “Ελληνικά σε 3 λεπτά” lesson. |
| Geia sas! |
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