"My mother is a secretary."
Translation:Η μητέρα μου είναι γραμματέας.
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I'm confused about the ending of γραμματέας. Is it unusual for a feminine noun to end in -ας? How do the declensions work for this ending in accusative? Πιγαινω στην γραμματέα?
Female nouns don't end just in -η or -α. It's just the most common of female endings. Female nouns ending in -ας (like γραμματέας), or -ος (like έξοδος, είσοδος) are way fewer and less common than the ones ending in -η or -α.
And yes. Female nouns ending in -ας do form the accusative in -α. ^.^
In all fairness, we do have male secretaries and female lawyers and architects in this unit, so one can't say the authors of this language tree are sexist!
Would Η μητέρα μου είναι ένας γραμματέας work here? I thought it would, but I got counted as incorrect. Could someone explain this? Thanks!
Γραμματέας has the same nominative and accusative forms for both masculine and feminine, but you have to use the correct article forms for male or female. Ένας is the masculine form of the indefinite article so it's like saying that your mother is a male secretary. You have to use the feminine form μια (or you can omit the indefinite article altogether).
Does anyone else find the examples used in duolingo often a bit old fashioned and sexist? Men are directors, women are secretaries.
