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- "Δείτε με."
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So, I don't know if I missed something in a lesson or what, but what verb is this?! I have learned κοιτάζω and βλέπω, but what other verb here is being used as "see/look"?
δες, δείτε are the command forms of βλέπω :)
The aorist indicative is είδα and the aorist subjunctive is (να, θα) δω.
It's "slightly" irregular ;-)
Oh, wow, I have come to accept that verbs in Greek are very dynamic, but I was not expecting such a big change (είδα, δες, etc. are not even remotely recognizable as coming from βλέπω in my opinion). I guess, it is similar to how in English present tense "go" changes to simple past "went." Anyway, τώρα καταλαβαίνω, ευχαριστώ πολύ! :)
Yes, I imagine the origin is similar: that you have suppletion in action here, i.e. the various forms of what are now considered one verb were in origin several different words with similar meanings, which would explain the radically different stems.
(In English, the present tense of the verb that gave us "went" is still sort of around as "wend", as in "wend one's way".)
In French, "to go" is based on at least three different verbs: Latin ire contributed forms such as the future j'irai, vadere gave us forms such as je vais, and andare and/or ambulare gave us aller, allons, allez etc.
Yep, it is just one of those things that happens during the evolution of any language.
In ancient Greek βλέπω means to look at or watch, and εἶδον was an aorist-tense-only verb meaning to see, while a third verb, ὁράω, had present forms and meant to see.
εἶδον originally, in prehistoric Greek, was spelled with a digamma, viz. Ϝεῖδον, and was pronounced "WAY-don". This was essentially the same word as the Latin word video (pronounced "wí-day-o"), which is where we get the English word "video".
Hello. How can I have the Ancient Greek keyboard on my phone? My Samsung has just the Modern Greek one and it doesn't bring those ancient letters nor the other accents, of course.
Some very important advice. If you use the Ancient Greek keyboard and accents the program that grades the exercises on Duolingo may not recognize them...although they look the same to you...and will reject your translations.
θα is used to form the future.
να is, to put it simply, used to connect two verbs, e.g. θέλω να δω "I want to see" or μπορώ να διαβάσω "I can read".
Modern Greek has no infinitive form so those are, a bit more literally, "I want that I see" and "I can that I read".
I've might have mixed up but I thought these two words were interchangable in some cases
I can't think of a case where they can be interchanged while keeping the same meaning.
να can be used without a preceding verb but then it's more like "let's ...!" or "shall I ...?". For example:
- θα δούμε! - We will see!
- να δούμε! - Let's see!
- θα σου πω την αλήθεια. - I will tell you the truth.
- να σου πω την αλλήθεια. - Let me tell you the truth.
- θα ανοίξω το παράθυρο; - Will I open the window?
- να ανοίξω το παράθυρο; - Shall I open the window?
- δείτε με = see me, when talking to εσείς (politely to one person, or to many people)
- δες με = see me, when talking to εσύ (one familiar person)
I don't think δες μου works, unless it means "see for me" or "do me a favour and see".
The basic rule is that short forms such as με σε, μου σου κτλ go right before the verb, except in the imperative (command form) when they go right after it.
Δείτε! here is an imperative and so the short form pronoun comes after it.
The former is second person singular and the latter is second person plural. Other than that, κοιτάζω is closer to look/watch and βλέπω = see, so I'd use κοίτα με for watch/observe, because it sounds to me like it matches the duration of the activity better than δες/δείτε. Δες/δείτε is good enough for just a glance, κοίτα/κοιτάξτε is not.
535
Most of the wonderful discussion here points out that Δείτε με! = see me or look at me, which implies, in English, short duration; longer than a glance to be sure, but still short. However, the translation above clearly states: ”Watch me!”, which in English implies longer duration. I can tell my child: “Look at me!” when I wish to have a serious conversation. On the other hand, I can say: “Watch me!” as I show him how to do something. Is the translation here correct?
If you want to have a conversation with your child, you can say "Κοίτα με"/"Κοίταξέ με", if you want to show them how to do something, you can also use "Δες με".
i know what was required to get it right but awkward in Greek. I would not use that structure. Δείτε με I usually use as part of a sentence meaning "see with" as in "see with who you can do something", etc
- 1761
In your version it should be accompanied with something else and it wouldn't have a full stop.
Δείτε με ποιόν έχετε να κάνετε = Look with who you have to deal [with].
Δείτε με ποιόν μιλάει = Look with who [he/she/it] is talking.
Δείτε με. = Look at me.
- 1381
"Look at me"? (This version was red-screened.) After all, the familiar/singular "δες μου" was given elsewhere for this English phrase, elsewhere in the exercise.
I was red-carded just now when I translated this as 'Look at me.' ("Write this in English")(https://www.duolingo.com/skill/el/Verbs%3A-Imperative/practice)
I think I've lost something too. I don't remember seeing this verb before. Well, together with adverbs it opened the past, infinitive and imperative. I've chosen to start with the imperative. Should I have done the other way round? Where are the grammar explanations? They just opened in the first few lessons.
The Tips and Notes for each skill are accessible on the web. The imperative of the verb "βλέπω" is irregular, not covered in the notes. Others have left some answers above.
I cannot see the tips by using the app on my phone, just on my computer. Why is that?
Unfortunately, both options are available only in the more popular courses (Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian). For the rest of them, the Tips &Notes are accessible only on the web.
I'm not sure if you can access this on a phone. This link has all the Tips & notes plus other information.
Please try it and let us know if you are able to access it so we can tell other learners who are not on the web.
