SACE Stage 2 Modern Greek (beginners) cheat sheet

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters; each letter's name is a stable word (άλφα, βήτα, γάμμα) and letter names are used in spelling aloud, acronyms and abbreviations.

Greek has five vowel sounds written with seven letters: α, ε, η/ι, ο/ω, ου; η, ι, υ and the digraphs ει, οι, υι all represent the same /i/ sound, so spelling must be memorised word by word.

The digraphs μπ, ντ, γκ, γγ represent voiced stops /b, d, g/ word-initially but nasal-plus-stop [mb, nd, ŋg] in the middle of a word.

The digraphs αυ and ευ are pronounced /av, ev/ before vowels and voiced consonants, but /af, ef/ before voiceless consonants (αυτός /afˈtos/ versus αυλή /avˈli/).

The final sigma ς is written only at the end of a word; σ appears elsewhere (σπίτι, αλλά σας). Capital sigma is Σ in all positions.

Greek verbs agree with the subject in person and number: first person singular present endings are typically -ω or -μαι, second singular -εις or -εσαι, third singular -ει or -εται.

The definite article inflects for gender, number and case: ο/η/το in the nominative singular, τον/την/το in the accusative, του/της/του in the genitive.

Greek is a pro-drop language: subject pronouns are normally omitted because the verb ending shows the person; εγώ, εσύ, αυτός are used for emphasis or contrast.

Politeness is encoded in the choice of second person: εσύ with the singular verb form for friends and peers, εσείς with the plural form for strangers, elders and formal settings.

Modern Greek nouns fall into three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter); gender is a lexical property, so the article and adjective endings must be learned with each noun.

There are four cases: nominative (subject), genitive (possession and indirect object), accusative (direct object and after prepositions), vocative (address). Most nouns have distinct genitive singular and nominative plural forms.

Adjectives agree with their noun in gender, number and case; a feminine adjective usually takes the same endings as a feminine noun in -η or -α.

The genitive is also used for possession without a verb: το βιβλίο του Γιώργου means 'George's book'; the possessive pronoun (μου, σου, του) follows the noun it modifies.

The aorist stem marks completed past actions and differs from the present stem: γράφω becomes έγραψα; the augment ε- appears at the start of the past form when the verb has no prefix.

The future is formed with the particle θα plus the subjunctive form (θα γράψω); θα plus the present stem (θα γράφω) expresses habitual or ongoing future.

Subjunctive forms follow the particles να, θα, ας and are negated with μη(ν), whereas the indicative is negated with δεν: δεν θέλω versus μη μιλάς.

The negative particle δεν precedes the verb and can trigger the shift of the stress in the verb form (δεν ξέρω); the negative μην is used with the subjunctive and imperative.

Word order is relatively free because case endings show grammatical roles, but the verb normally precedes the object and clitics (με, σε, το) attach before the verb: το βλέπω.

Accent marks (τόνος) are obligatory on Greek words with more than one syllable and mark stress; only one accent is written per word, and it is placed on a vowel, never on a consonant.

The accent shifts within a paradigm: άνθρωπος (nominative singular) versus ανθρώπου (genitive singular); stress position is part of the word's identity.

The diaeresis (διαλυτικά) shows that two adjacent vowels are pronounced separately rather than as a diphthong: προϊόν, καΐκι.

When a word is written in capitals, accents are omitted except in disyllabic words where the accent distinguishes meaning (ΠΟΥ versus ΠΟΰ).

Punctuation follows Greek conventions: the question mark is the semicolon (;), while the Greek semicolon is the raised dot (·); the colon is (·) and quotation marks are «».

Common prepositions take the accusative: σε, με, για, από, προς, κατά; the preposition σε contracts with the article to form στο, στη, στον, στην.

The verb είμαι is irregular in the present: είμαι, είσαι, είναι, είμαστε, είστε, είναι; it links a subject to a predicate noun or adjective in the nominative.

The verb έχω is used both for possession and as an auxiliary in perfect tenses: έχω γράψει means 'I have written'; the perfect participle is invariable in the neuter form.

Numbers one to four inflect for gender (ένας/μία/ένα, δύο, τρεις/τρία, τέσσερις/τέσσερα); numbers five and above are invariable.