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- "The girl reads him a book."
"The girl reads him a book."
Translation:Το κορίτσι τού διαβάζει ένα βιβλίο.
11 Comments
I read somewhere that it should be το κορίτσι τού (with an accent on τού) to differentiate between 'the girl reads him a book' and 'his daughter reads a book'. So is the accent mandatory or optional?
Του is normally not accented. It is, though, if it is a personal pronoun and can be mistaken as possessive in the context it is in. So, in this sentence and unaccented του would mean "his" as a possessive whereas an accented τού means "(to) him".
Why is it "σε αυτόν" instead of "σε αυτού" as it is the indirect object?
It's either the genitive weak form or σε+strong accusative form for the indirect object. The tips¬es are poorly made on that matter. I'll tend to it. Sorry for the inconvenience... :)
Prepositions such as σε, για, and από are always followed by the accusative case — so in all contexts it would be σε αυτόν/αυτήν/αυτό
When there's «Το κορίτσι τού διαβάζει ένα βιβλίο.», how do you know that the sentence refers to "The girl reads HIM" or "HIS girl reads"?
When there's «Το κορίτσι τού διαβάζει ένα βιβλίο.», how do you know that the sentence refers to "The girl reads HIM" or "HIS girl reads"?
The accent on the τού shows that it's an indirect object (to him), not a possessive (his).
