Learn how to ask "What?"
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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 the verb areso. |
| Now we will jump into our lessons on question words in Greek. Our first one is the most commonly used question word which, as you will see, is used pretty much the same way as in English. So you’ll be able to use it right away! |
| You call up your Greek friend and want to ask what he's doing. How will you do it? |
| You will ask- Ti kaneis? |
| So let’s break down this question. |
| Ti is "What" |
| And kaneis is the second person present tense form of the verb kano, which we already studied. |
| So, altogether it is Ti kaneis? |
| “What are you doing?” |
| This question can be used both literally, as in “what is it that you are doing now” or as a casual greeting - the equivalent of the English “how do you do”. You may remember that we mentioned this in our lesson about greetings. If you want to use it in a more formal setting, you will still use "ti" but the verb kano will be in the second person plural, kanete. So the question will be Ti kanete. |
| So, where else can we use "ti"? One of the most common uses is in relation to time, like when you ask “what time is it?” The question in this case will be Ti ora einai? |
| The "ti" part, I already explained. Ora literally means “hour” but on some occasions, like here, it’s also used to mean “time”. And einai means “is” – the third person form of the verb eimai, “to be”. So altogether we have “What time is it?” |
| Another time you can use it is related to meals. Instead of asking “what do we have for dinner” or “what do we have for lunch”, in Greek you can simply ask "ti fagito echoume?" which means “what kind of food do we have?” |
| Now it’s time for Chrissi’s Insights. |
| If you have Greek friends, you might notice that some people will answer with ti when they’re called by name. This is like an abbreviation of ti einai? meaning “what is it?” or ti theleis?, “what do you want?” This is very common among young children when their parents call them, but adults also use it. Even though it’s not wrong, it’s extremely casual and bordering on rude. So, even though your friends might use it, I suggest avoiding it. |
| In this lesson, we learned how to translate the word ti, meaning "What". In our next lesson, we will talk about "Where" questions. |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next “Ελληνικά σε 3 λεπτά” lesson! |
| Geia sas! |
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