Learn some irregular nouns in Greek (ανώμαλα ουσιαστικά)
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hello everyone and welcome back to GreekPod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, lesson 25, Reminiscing About Your Childhood in Greek. I’m Becky. |
| Stefania: And I’m Stefania. |
| Becky In this final lesson of the series, we will introduce some irregular Greek nouns. The conversation takes place at the office of the daily newspaper. |
| Stefania: It is between Antonia Georgiadi and the photojournalist Vasilis Antoniou. |
| Becky: The characters know each other well, so they’re using informal Greek. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Βασίλης:Τι άκουσα το πρωί; Κομμένες οι κοινές μας έξοδοι; |
| Αντωνία:Ναι, για καμιά βδομάδα θα δουλεύω μέσα. Κάνω μια έρευνα. |
| Βασίλης:Μου είπαν σχετικά με το μέλλον στον τομέα της εκπαίδευσης; |
| Αντωνία:Όχι ακριβώς. Θα είναι σχετική με την αντιμετώπιση που δέχονται τα παιδιά από τους δασκάλους τους. |
| Βασίλης:Ενδιαφέρον ακούγεται. Στα δικά μου τα σχολικά χρόνια, θυμάμαι, εμείς δεν είχαμε δασκάλους, είχαμε δεσπότες! |
| Αντωνία:Γιατί το λες αυτό; |
| Βασίλης:Είχα μια δασκάλα στην πέμπτη δημοτικού, που όποτε έκανε κανείς φασαρία, φώναζε και όποιον πάρει ο χάρος! Έβγαζε το άχτι της έτσι! |
| Αντωνία:Το ήξεραν οι γονείς σου αυτό; |
| Βασίλης:Το ήξεραν φυσικά και νομίζανε ότι έκανε καλό στην πειθαρχία ενός παιδιού. |
| Αντωνία:Θα ήθελες να το συζητήσουμε; Μπορεί να βοηθήσει στην έρευνά μου. |
| Βασίλης:Πολύ ευχαρίστως! |
| Vasilis: What did I hear this morning? No more going out together? |
| Antonia: Yes. For about a week, I'll be working indoors. I'm doing some research. |
| Vasilis: I've been told it is about the future in the field of education? |
| Antonia: Not exactly. It will be about the treatment that kids get from their teachers. |
| Vasilis: Sounds interesting. In my school years, I remember we didn't have teachers-we had despots! |
| Antonia: Why do you say that? |
| Vasilis: I had a teacher in fifth grade who, whenever someone would make noise, would scream at anyone! She was releasing all her anger like that. |
| Antonia: Did your parents know about that? |
| Vasilis: They knew it, of course, and they thought that it was good for a child's discipline. |
| Antonia: Would you like to talk about it? It might help my research. |
| Vasilis: With pleasure! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: So this guy had problems with one of his teachers? |
| Stefania: It seems like it! Many kids in Greece don’t like teachers, generally. But not because they scream like the one in our dialogue! The problem lies with the system, not the teachers. |
| Becky: Oh I see! What do you mean? |
| Stefania: Governments have changed the educational system many times, and significantly over the years. This is very challenging for the teachers, who always need to adjust quickly in order to do their job properly. |
| Becky: I see. And this, of course, affects students. |
| Stefania: It absolutely does. Not to mention that students have been focusing more and more on what they are taught in cram schools, known as “φροντιστήρια”. In fact, they are so focused on cram schools, that few of them pay attention to what is being taught at their usual school. |
| Becky: The cram schools are supposed to prepare them for their final exams? |
| Stefania: Exactly. It is a big problem, and I hope they can find a way to solve it. |
| Becky: So do I! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Becky: Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Stefania: κομμένος [natural native speed] |
| Becky: cut, no more (figurative) |
| Stefania: κομμένος [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: κομμένος [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: έξοδος [natural native speed] |
| Becky: exit/outing/the act of going out/exodus |
| Stefania: έξοδος [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: έξοδος [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: μέλλον [natural native speed] |
| Becky: future |
| Stefania: μέλλον [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: μέλλον [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: τομέας [natural native speed] |
| Becky: sector/ field |
| Stefania: τομέας [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: τομέας [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: δέχομαι [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to accept /to receive /to agree |
| Stefania: δέχομαι [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: δέχομαι [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: δεσπότης [natural native speed] |
| Becky: despot/bishop |
| Stefania: δεσπότης [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: δεσπότης [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: κάνω φασαρία [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to make noise |
| Stefania: κάνω φασαρία [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: κάνω φασαρία [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: και όποιον πάρει ο χάρος [natural native speed] |
| Becky: impending danger |
| Stefania: και όποιον πάρει ο χάρος [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: και όποιον πάρει ο χάρος [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: βγάζω το άχτι μου [natural native speed] |
| Becky: to release anger, to get revenge, to let off steam |
| Stefania: βγάζω το άχτι μου [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: βγάζω το άχτι μου [natural native speed] |
| Stefania: πειθαρχία [natural native speed] |
| Becky: discipline |
| Stefania: πειθαρχία [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Stefania: πειθαρχία [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’s the first word? |
| Stefania: The passive participle “κομμένος ”. This literally means “cut” as in “Αυτές οι πατάτες είναι ήδη κομμένες και έτοιμες για μαγείρεμα”, “These potatoes are already cut and ready for cooking”. |
| Becky: OK. This is simple. |
| Stefania: Still there is a metaphorical meaning to this passive participle. It can mean that something is being abruptly “stopped” or “discontinued”. |
| Becky: Hmmm. I think I get it… |
| Stefania: I’ll explain it better using this phrase from the dialogue: “Κομμένες οι κοινές μας έξοδοι;”. The word “έξοδοι” means “outings” as in “the act of going out”. |
| Becky: OK. |
| Stefania: “Κομμένες” in this context can be rendered as “No more”, so the whole phrase can be translated as “No more going out together?”, “Κομμένες οι κοινές μας έξοδοι;”. |
| Becky: I got it now! |
| Stefania: Good! Shall we move on to our next word? |
| Becky: Please. |
| Stefania: We have the phrase “και όποιον πάρει ο χάρος”. It’s an expression that indicates the intention to do a possibly dangerous act to anyone in sight. |
| Becky: I can’t understand how this works here! Can you explain it? |
| Stefania: Of course. This expression is very common and colloquial in Greek, but it’s one of those ones that cannot be exactly translated into English, as it always depends on the context. So let’s start with “Χάρος” meaning “death”, but not the act of dying. It’s rather a personification of death. “Όποιον” means “whomever” and “πάρει” comes from the verb “παίρνω” meaning “to take”, so what this phrase here literally means is “...and whomever gets taken by death”, “και όποιον πάρει ο χάρος”. |
| Becky: So the notion is that the actions of the person we are talking about will possibly be dangerous to anyone in sight or anyone who stands in their way. But why use the word “death”? It’s creepy! |
| Stefania: Using “death” here is of course purely figurative as it is used only to show that the consequences of that person’s actions are as inevitable as… death! |
| Becky: For example, in our dialogue, this expression is being used to refer to a teacher that screams at children who make noise. No matter who made noise in the first place, whoever is in the class will be screamed at, there is no escape! |
| Stefania: Exactly. We have another example of this in our sample sentences, but with a different context: “Πήρε το δίπλωμα οδήγησης και τώρα... όποιον πάρει ο χάρος!” meaning “He got the driver’s license so now… watch out everyone!” |
| Becky: What the speaker here insinuates is that the driving skills of someone who just got his driver’s license are not that good yet. So his driving could be potentially dangerous to other drivers and pedestrians. The translation “watch out everyone” is just a rough one. As I mentioned before, there is no way we can translate that expression exactly into English. What’s last? |
| Stefania: Another idiom: “βγάζω το άχτι μου” meaning “to release anger”, “to get revenge”, “to let off steam”. Άχτι in Greek is an indeclinable noun that means “hate” or “strong feeling of revenge”. Used in combination with βγάζω, meaning “to take out”, “to remove”, means “to release anger”, and depending on the context “to get revenge”. This is how it is used in our dialogue: “Έβγαζε το άχτι της έτσι!” meaning “She was releasing all her anger like that”. |
| Becky: This makes some sense to me. Another idiomatic use of this very popular and colloquial expression can mean “to let off steam”. |
| Stefania: Like in our sample sentence: “Έχω τόσο καιρό να πάω σε γιορτή, που απόψε θα βγάλω το άχτι μου στο πάρτι”, meaning “I haven’t been to a celebration for so long, that tonight at the party I am going to let off some steam”. |
| Becky: What the speaker here wants to say is that she has a deep desire for something, in this case, to celebrate, and she will satisfy this desire to the maximum. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Becky: In this lesson we will introduce some Greek irregular nouns (ανώμαλα ουσιαστικά). Since this is the last lesson of this series, we thought it would be nice to touch on irregular nouns, since these too are a big category on their own. These are nouns that break the rules and don’t follow any of the three categories of declension. Although they are irregular, they can be categorized into 6 groups. I must say I was intimidated at first, but having them categorized, will make it easier right? |
| Stefania: It will! Well, listeners, make sure you keep the lesson notes visible while you listen to the categories. |
| Becky: So let’s start! |
| Stefania: The first group is the “Indeclinable nouns”. These are some nouns that keep the same ending in all the cases (nominative, genitive etc.) so they are not inflected. |
| Becky: Their case can be seen from the article which accompanies them. These can be: a) Words of foreign origin such as… |
| Stefania: ...το ρεκόρ meaning “the record” |
| Becky: b) The letters of the alphabet |
| Stefania: such as άλφα (alpha) |
| Becky: c) The prosthetic nouns that are used before proper nouns, in other words “baptismal names”, for example... |
| Stefania: Αγια- in Αγια-Σοφία. |
| Becky: In this case, most of the prosthetic nouns are written without an accent and connect with the following word using a hyphen. That brings us to d)... |
| Stefania: Το Πάσχα (Easter) as well as some foreign names and toponyms such as Αδάμ (Adam) and Ιερουσαλήμ (Jerusalem). |
| Becky And e) Many Greek family names that resemble the genitive case… |
| Stefania: ...for example ο Παπαναστασίου |
| Becky: ….and finally f) The feminine family names that are formed from the genitive of the corresponding masculine family name… |
| Stefania: ...for example “η κυρία Μελά”, “Mrs Mela” comes from “ο κύριος Μελάς”, “Mr Melas”, which is in nominative, becoming του κυρίου Μελά in genitive. |
| Becky: So this whole thing is supposed to be one category and we still have 5 more to go?! |
| Stefania: Yes. I know it sounded like a lot, but if you review the notes carefully it will all sink in. |
| Becky: Do we have an example of an indeclinable noun from our dialogue? |
| Stefania: Yes, we have “το άχτι”, remember? |
| Becky: Oh yes, it means “hate”, or “strong feeling of revenge”. |
| Stefania: Yes. So “το άχτι”, which is in the nominative singular, no matter how we use it, will always remain “άχτι” because it is never inflected. |
| Becky: Let’s move on to the next group - the defective nouns. These are some nouns that appear in only some cases of singular or plural, usually in nominative and accusative with very few only in genitive, and often in specific expressions. |
| Stefania: An example from our dialogue is “το πρωί” meaning “morning”. When declined, we substitute the rest of the cases with the noun “το πρωινό”. |
| Becky: Can we have the full declension? |
| Stefania: Sure. So from nominative to vocative, first in singular and then in plural we have: το πρωί, του πρωινού, το πρωί, πρωινό, τα πρωινά, των πρωινών, τα πρωινά, πρωινά. |
| Becky: That group was more simple! What’s next? |
| Stefania: The idiomorphic nouns. |
| Becky: These are the ones that aren’t declined according to any of the three declensions, but instead they follow their own way. They are divided into two subcategories. |
| Stefania: The first one is a) Some masculine nouns ending in -έας. These are declined according to “ταμίας”, “cashier”, in the singular, but in the plural they follow the ancient Greek declension with endings such as -είς, -έων, -είς, -είς. |
| Becky: And an example? |
| Stefania: In the dialogue we have “ο τομέας” meaning “sector, field”. In the same order that I declined “πρωί” before, this goes: ο τομέας, του τομέα, τον τομέα, τομέα, οι τομείς, των τομέων, τους τομείς, τομείς. |
| Becky: I like the melody of that! |
| Stefania: Well, that’s how we learn nouns in Greek schools you know! We recite them exactly like I did, students and teachers together! I think it helps us imprint it in our memory as a sound and not as a table in a book. |
| Becky: I think you are right! But go on with the other subcategory. |
| Stefania: Right. So in this subcategory, we have some neuter nouns ending in -ον, -αν, -εν, -υ such as το παρόν (present), το σύμπαν (universe), το μηδέν (zero), το οξύ (acid). An example from our dialogue is το μέλλον (future), which is abstract, therefore has no plural. It is declined like this: το μέλλον, του μέλλοντος, το μέλλον, μέλλον. |
| Becky: Ok, let’s see our next group now - dual declension nouns. These are some masculine nouns that either change their gender from masculine to neuter in the plural, |
| Stefania: ...for example “ο πλούτος”, meaning “wealth”, becomes “τα πλούτη”, literally “wealths”, or they form two plurals, for example “ο βράχος”, meaning “rock” becomes “οι βράχοι” and “τα βράχια”, “rocks”. |
| Becky: These nouns follow two declensions, thus they are called “dual declension nouns”. Sometimes the dual forms of plural may have different meanings from each other. |
| Stefania: An example from our dialogue is ο χρόνος... |
| Becky: ...meaning “year” or “time”... |
| Stefania: And it’s declined like this: ο χρόνος, του χρόνου, τον χρόνο, χρόνε, οι χρόνοι, των χρόνων, τους χρόνους, χρόνοι. Or alternatively in the plural: τα χρόνια, των χρόνων, τα χρόνια, χρόνια. |
| Becky: The next category is biform nouns. Listeners, make sure you’re reading the lesson notes now. These are nouns that have two forms. The two forms have the same meaning but with one difference. The difference is that one of them has an extra syllable at the end. |
| Stefania: There are 2 subcategories of biform nouns: The first one is a) Biform nouns in both numbers such as γέροντας and γέρος in singular, meaning “old man”, and γέροντες and γέροι in plural meaning “old men”. And the second subcategory is b) Biform nouns that appear only in singular such as “γίγαντας - γίγας” meaning “giant”. These form their plural based on the form that has more syllables. For example from the singular form “γίγαντας”, that has the most syllables, we get “οι γίγαντες” in plural, “giants”. An example from this subcategory from our dialogue is “ο χάρος”, meaning “death”, declined in two ways in singular like this: ο χάρος, του χάρου, τον χάρο, χάρε or ο χάροντας, του χάροντα, τον χάροντα, χάροντα, and in one way in plural, like this: οι χάροντες, των χαρόντων, τους χάροντες, χάροντες. |
| Becky: Ok, now let’s move on to the last category for this series! The dual ending nouns. These are some nouns that have two forms in the singular or in the plural. |
| Stefania: These can be: a) Dual ending nouns only in the singular such as το χείλι - το χείλος, “lip”, b) Dual ending nouns only in the plural such as “captain”, ο καπετάνιος - οι καπετάνιοι and οι καπεταναίοι. An example from our dialogue is ο γονιός, “parent” declined like this: ο γονιός, του γονιού, τον γονιό, γονιέ, οι γονιοί, των γονιών, τους γονιούς, γονιοί. Or alternatively in plural: οι γονείς, των γονέων, τους γονείς, γονείς. |
| Becky: Do we need to know any more about this? |
| Stefania: Yes. Some of the latter nouns might have different meanings in the plural. For example “ο δεσπότης” from our dialogue means “bishop” or “despot” in singular, however in plural the form “οι δεσποτάδες” means “bishops” and “οι δεσπότες” means “despots”. It is declined like this: ο δεσπότης, του δεσπότη, τον δεσπότη, δέσποτα, οι δεσπότες, των δεσπότων, τους δεσπότες, δεσπότες. Or alternatively in plural: οι δεσποτάδες, των δεσποτάδων, τους δεσποτάδες, δεσποτάδες. |
| Becky: Ok. Listeners, as always, remember to check the lesson notes to reinforce what you’ve learned in this lesson, and listen back to the lessons again! |
Outro |
|---|
| Becky: Okay, that’s all for this lesson and this series. We hope you’ve enjoyed it and found it useful. |
| Stefania: Remember to study the lesson notes, absorb the examples, and feel free to contact us with questions or suggestions. We’re happy to help! |
| Becky: Thanks, everyone, and we’ll see you in another series! Goodbye! |
| Stefania: Γεια χαρά! |
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