Sorting out the aorist in a class diary entry
A Year 12 student writes a diary entry for a school-based writing task. She wants to describe a school excursion that happened last Tuesday and to explain what she usually does on Tuesdays. Her draft contains these verb forms in context: «Πήγαμε στο μουσείο», «Είδαμε μια έκθεση», «Συνήθως πηγαίνω στο σχολείο με το λεωφορείο», «Μετά το μουσείο φάγαμε και γυρίσαμε στο σπίτι». Her teacher comments that the narrative is clear but that one sentence mixes aspect incorrectly: «Κάθε Τρίτη πήγαμε στο μουσείο». The student also asks whether «είδαμε» and «έβλεπα» could both work in the excursion sentence, and whether «θα πάμε» would be acceptable if she reframes the entry as a plan for next week.
1. Explain why «Κάθε Τρίτη πήγαμε στο μουσείο» is problematic and give a corrected version with justification.
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The problem is an aspect–adverb clash. «Κάθε Τρίτη» signals habitual, repeated action, which in Greek requires the imperfective stem (παρατατικός/ενεστώτας), not the aorist. The aorist «πήγαμε» presents the action as a single completed whole, so it cannot carry habitual meaning with «κάθε». Correct version: «Κάθε Τρίτη πηγαίναμε στο μουσείο» (past habitual) or, if the habit still holds, «Κάθε Τρίτη πηγαίνουμε στο μουσείο». The reasoning to state in an exam answer: aspect is selected by the speaker's view of the action (whole vs. ongoing/repeated), and time adverbials constrain that choice. The aorist in the narrative sentences «Πήγαμε», «Είδαμε», «φάγαμε», «γυρίσαμε» is fine because each names a bounded event in a sequence.
2. Could «έβλεπα» replace «είδαμε» in «Είδαμε μια έκθεση»? Explain the effect on meaning.
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Grammatically possible, but the meaning changes and the sentence becomes less natural in this narrative. «Είδαμε» (aorist) = we saw the exhibition as a completed event: we went in, looked, finished. «Βλέπαμε» (imperfective past) = we were seeing/were in the process of seeing, or used to see repeatedly. In a sequence of completed excursion events, the aorist is the default. «Βλέπαμε» would need support such as duration or repetition: «Βλέπαμε την έκθεση για δύο ώρες» or «Κάθε φορά που πηγαίναμε, βλέπαμε κάτι καινούργιο». So the answer is: possible in form, but only if the writer intends progressive or habitual meaning, and then the surrounding sentence must signal that.
3. If the entry is reframed as a plan for next week, is «θα πάμε» acceptable, and what should happen to the rest of the verbs?
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Yes. «Θα πάμε» is the future (θα + dependent form) and fits a plan. But the whole entry must then be consistent: past-tense narrative verbs («είδαμε», «φάγαμε», «γυρίσαμε») would need to become future or be recast as intentions, e.g. «Θα πάμε στο μουσείο, θα δούμε την έκθεση, θα φάμε και θα γυρίσουμε». Note that the dependent forms «δούμε», «φάμε», «γυρίσουμε» are used after «θα», not the aorist past forms. The habitual sentence «Κάθε Τρίτη πηγαίνουμε» can stay in the present if the habit is current. The key judgement: tense/aspect choice is a whole-text decision, not a sentence-by-sentence one.