#omilo

One of those verbs you hear a lot in Greek songs, or you need when you fall in love with a Greek person,  is the verb “αγαπάω” = I love

It is a verb that we use in many everyday phrases. Below you will find some important expressions and the grammar on how to use and conjugate this verb. Let’s have a look!

Before celebrating valentine’s day, first some Greek grammar… The present tense of the verb αγαπάω (below you also find the video, so you can listen to the correct pronunciation as well)

This verb is conjugated like the verbs

μιλάω (I speak), (click here to watch the video)

ρωτάω (I ask),

Who could imagine in March 2020, that the whole world would go to “lockdown” due to the Corona Covid-19 virus, and when traveling many times a “quarantine” is requested? All this belonged to history, most of us thought… or the younger generation probably never heard of the word “quarantine” before… So let’s see how the quarantine was organized on the Greek island of Syros, in a previous century.

Kiria Sarakosti: the calendar counting down 7 weeks until Easter. It is not easy to translate the Greek “Kiria Sarakosti”, but we propose to call her “Lady-Lent” in English! It is an old tradition in Greece and a way to count the weeks from Clean Monday (the end of carnival) until Easter.

Despite the difficult times we live in, Greece is still here, very much looking forward to welcoming you back soon. But until then, why not seize the opportunity afforded by the lockdown to pick up some basic Greek that’ll surely come in handy when you do come?

It will not only make life easier as you travel around the country, it will also bring you a step closer to the locals, potentially opening doors you never expected.

Most Greeks speak at least one foreign language – usually English. Even if they aren’t taught it perfectly at school (as is the case in other European countries, too), they are able to communicate – at least on a basic level. But the further you move away from the country’s big cities and more touristy destinations, the fewer people who know English and, thus, the harder it becomes to communicate. So if you plan to head off the beaten trail, a smattering of Greek can be very handy.

And it’s a fact that if you are traveling around a place and know even just a handful of phrases in the local tongue, residents view this as a sign of respect and it helps bring people closer together. The Greeks, in particular, feel a special pride and joy when someone tries to speak their language, because they know full well that it’s a difficult one, and one that’s spoken only in Greece and Cyprus, leaving few with much motivation to learn it.

Eugene Trivizas is one of Greece’s leading writers for children. Although he studied law and specialises in criminology, he has published more than 120 children’s books and has become the most well-known and beloved Greek storyteller (or as we’d say in Greek, “paramithas”).

Trivizas’ work is characterized by humour, subversives, depth and the unexpected retelling of classic stories, which makes it a pleasure to read for both children and adults at different levels.

For his lasting contribution as a children’s writer, he has received more than twenty national and international literary prizes and awards and has also been a finalist for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006.

His life Eugene Trivizas was born in Athens, where he also completed his studies in law before moving to the UK to pursue an academic career in criminology. He has worked with the UK Home Office and Scotland Yard as part of his research and has published almost as many papers on different aspects of criminology as he has children’s books. Quite an unexpected background for someone who conjures stories about princesses, pirates, animals who talk, and dragons, and has the ability to narrate them in such a soft-spoken and optimistic manner.

Greek Zeibekiko in Azolimnos, Syros