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- "Look at me."
"Look at me."
Translation:Δείτε με.
17 Comments
I was under the impression that "βλέπω" is "to see" and "κοιτάζω/κοιτάω" is "to look (at)". Anyway, I was told by Duolingo that "κοιτάξτε με" was wrong. Am I missing some subtlety here? Thanks.
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Same question: why is this wrong? :https://screenshots.firefox.com/a80NLFW8DSX8nTBZ/www.duolingo.com
The correct form would be Κοίτα με.
Note the position of the accent -- κοιτά is "he/she looks (at)" while κοίτα is "look (at)!".
And also the position of the unstressed object pronoun, which comes after an imperative verb.
Thus Με κοιτά. for "He looks at me." but Κοίτα με! for "Look at me!".
Regularly or repeated: κοιτάζετε! (κοιτάζετέ με!)
one time: κοιτάξτε (με)!
βλέπω is the dictionary form.
It's rather irregular in its aorist forms, with a stem of -δ-: future θα δω, aorist indicative είδα, aorist imperative δες! δείτε!.
For those coming to modern Gk from ancient, it's fascinating that aorist είδα is connected to βλέπω instead of ὁράω. There seems to have been a merger.
Similarly, έφαγε, which used to belong to εσθίω "eat", got attached to τρώγω "chew" when that became the verb for "eat" in Modern Greek.
I wrote κοίταζε με and it was marked correct but I was told I have a typo. It said the correct answer was δείτε but I wasn't even close. Should something be fixed there? Now, after reading the comments I'm still confused. On the one hand it looks like my answer might be right. On the other it looks like it should have been κοίτα με. Could anyone enlighten me? Thanks.
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Hi, hjhj444 -- Boy, this sure did become a muddle, didn't it? Since three months have passed since your anguished question landed here and nobody's addressed, it, let me see if I (not a native Greek speaker, either) can share my understanding of this, without adding to the muddle! (And if anybody disputes and can improve on the following, let them come forward and speak now....) 1) Unlike in English, Greek usage apparently permits the usual verb for "see" to double up as "look at," even though they already have a perfectly good verb for that. Chalk this one up to the weirdness of all human languages. 2) Each of those two Greek verbs has two sets of command forms: a) singular/familiar and b) plural/formal 3) Each verb also has two aspects: a) forms based on the aorist to suggest a one-time action and b) forms based on the common present-tense form (the one in the dictionary) to express repeated or regular or continuous action 4) So, "look at me" can turn up as any of the following: * δες με OR κοίτα με [ordering one person familiarly and implying "once"] * δείτε με [alternatively, δέστε με] OR κοίταξτέ με [ordering multiple people or one in a formal manner, implying "once"] * βλέπε με OR κοίταζέ με [ordering one familiarly, but implying "keep on looking/look regularly] * βλέπετέ με OR κοιτάζετέ με [ordering multiple people or an individual formally, implying "keep on looking/look regularly" That's it, I think, in a (pretty big) nutshell. Best, Paul
Thank you so much Paul. That's an amazingly useful and perfectly structured answer. It was all a bit of a muddle in my mind before but at least now I understand the theory for these two verbs. Now I'll try to remember this if I get a chance to practice my duolingo Greek in Greece soon - without taking a whole minute to ponder what form to use! :-) Thanks again, Mike
δες μου is marked as incorrect!?
Yes. "me" is the direct object of "see" here, not the indirect object, so it has to be με, not μου.
