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- Topic: Greek >
- "Εσύ πίνεις γάλα."
21 Comments
The word "πίνεις" is probably why they never had any exclusively Greek dialogues in My Big Fat Greek Wedding...
Yeah, I'm a bit surprised at some of the pronunciations. Only knew Greek letters from math and science classes and always thought gamma was the same as G.
Yes, sometimes it's a help to know the alphabet before you start the language but sometimes you find very different things. Just look at these that we have prepared and slowly you'll get used to them.
Why is Εσείς or Εμείς not correct here? I seem to always forget this keep getting it wrong
Because the verb form is wrong.
- εσύ πίνεις
- αυτός πίνει
- εσείς πίνετε
- εμείς πίνουμε
So if you see the verb form πίνεις, the subject has to be εσύ.
Much as you can't say "you am drinking" or "he am drinking"; if you see "am", the subject has to be "I".
1140
Does Greek have different "you(s)" like in Spanish (tú/usted) or Russian (ты/вы)?
Yes.
It works like in Russian or French -- the polite form for one person is the same as the plural form.
εσύ is "you (one person, whom I know well)"; εσείς is any of "you (several people, whom I know well)", "you (several people, whom I do not know well)", or "you (one person, whom I do not know well)".
- 1140
Ευχαριστώ, thank you very much! Now I know and have to remember it. Two lingots for you.
"You are drinking milk." is another possible translation of this Greek sentence and should also be accepted.
