Hi there, This resource was for anyone who was interested in learning Modern Greek, but was primarily used as a repository for classnotes for a first year Modern Greek evening class.
Although this blog site will remain here, it has now been superceeded by a a regular website www.allgreek2me.com which contains all the referance material available on this blog. Additionally all future Year 2 referance notes will only appear on the new website.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

What's your name?

Like many languages Greek has a familiar way of introducing yourself and more formal versions. The familiar is shown in this short conversation between Nikos and Kostas:
Κώστας:--------------Πώς σε λένε;What's your name?
Νίκος:Με λένε Νίκο. Εσένα;My name is Niko. And you?
Κώστας:Με λένε Κώστα.My name is Kosta.

In uppercase those phrases are:
ΠΟΣ ΣΕ ΛΕΝΕ;
ΜΕ ΛΕΝΕ ΝΙΚΟ
ΕΣΕΝΑ;


NB the semi colon (;) symbol is used in Greek as a question mark.

More formal ways of asking, "what's your name?" are:
ΤΟ ΟΝΟΜΑ ΣΑΣ;το ονόμα σας;
ΠΟΣ ΛΕΓΕΣΤΕ;πος λεγεστε;
and reply "my name is" with:
ΤΟ ΟΝΟΜΑ ΜΟΥ ΕΙΝΑΙ ------το ονομα μου ειναι
ΟΝΟΜΑΖΟΜΑΙονομαζομαι
ΛΕΓΟΜΑΙλεγομαι

And the slightly more formal way to say "and you?" is to add the and in so "ΕΣΕΝΑ" (liturally meaning just "You?") becomes "ΚΑΙ ΕΣΕΝΑ;"

To use Mr and Mrs use ΚΥΡΙΟΣ (κύριος) for Mr and ΚΥΡΙΑ (κυρία) for Mrs, so you would say:
Με λένε ο κυρίοσ ....... / My name is Mr ....... or
Με λένε η κυρία ........ / My name is Mrs .......

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