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The verb to have sounds really strange to me in this sentence. (Η συζήτηση μας έχει ενδιαφέρον.)
When is it okay to use έχω instead of είμαι?
The Greek sentence here is literally "Our conversation has interest" -- i.e. ενδιαφέρον is here used as a noun, not as an adjective. (Which otherwise would have to be ενδιαφέρουσα anyway, to agree with feminine συζήτηση.)
However "has interest" wasn't accepted. I thout is interesting would be είναι ενδιαφέρουσα, which i'd just learned (i thought!)
I get it. At this level we're learning more idiomatic structures.
But these Abstract Object lessons are killers. So many new words that aren't repeated often enough in a useful conext.
Not always, but it's common in greek to say "this person has beauty and grace"=αυτό το άτομο έχει ομορφιά και χάρη which means that he is beautiful and graceful=είναι όμορφος και κομψός. So you can use have+noun, or is+adjective.
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Shouldn't Our discussion has interest be considered right too, or is it too much unnatural for English speakers?
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If you wanted to express the idea that there is interest in your discussion (in the sense that people are interested/intrigued and want to know more about it) would you use υπάρχει? (like "Υπάρχει ενδιαφέρον για τη συζήτησή μας" ?) or would you still use "έχει" and let context do it's job?
In English it seems like "there is" is the way to go normally but I could still see people saying "has interest" depending on how the rest of the sentence is worded (i.e. "Among our peers, our discussion has a lot of interest")
Also should συζήτηση be συζήτησή?
Yes, it should be η/τη συζήτησή μας with two accents.
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In light of these comments, (and the meaning of the words), it sounds like the literally correct translation is "has interest".
That's the literal translation, yes, but I wouldn't call it correct as that's now how I'd express it in English.
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As a British English speaker I would say "the conversation has interest" is possible but awkward. "The conversation is of interest" would be better, but this wasn't accepted.
Yes, because if you use είναι, you would have to say "is interesting" (with adjective) and not "has interest" (with noun) -- and the adjective would have to agree in gender with the feminine noun συζήτηση and become ενδιαφέρουσα.
