Introductory Ancient Greek Language/Lesson 5

Present Indicative, Active, Middle-Passive

Present Indicative tense

The suffixes are:

		Active	Middle-Passive
Singular	1st Person	-ω	-ομαι
	2nd Person	-εις	-ει
	3rd Person	-ει	-εται
Plural	1st Person	-ομεν	-ομεθα
	2nd Person	-ετε	-εσθε
	3rd Person	-ουσι(ν)	-ονται
Infinitive		-ειν	-εσθαι

One of the simplest verbs in Ancient Greek, and maybe the simplest, will be used in charts for almost all tenses: the verb λύω, which means free, release in the active, and having a specific meaning of ransom in the middle.

Greek	Pronunciation
λύω	lew-oh
λύεις	lew-eys
λύει	lew-ey
λύομεν	lew-omen
λύετε	lew-ete
λύουσι(ν)	lew-oosee(n)

The syllabs in bold indicate that, when speaking, the voice is raised and in A.Greek this voice raise is expressed with a mark above the vowel, the tone. You may notice that at the third person plural the letter "ν" is added in parentheses. You say λύουσιν, etc when the verb is followed by a word that begins with a vowel or when it is the last word of a sentence.

TRANSLATION

In English we have a number of ways that we express actions in the present. Eg. I run, I am running. Greek does not make that distinction, so a perfectly acceptable translation for λύω can be either "I release" or "I am releasing"

Another simple verb is γράφω (=write)

γράφω

γράφεις

γράφει

γράφομεν

γράφετε

γράφουσι(ν)