How to Ask Questions in the Greek Language

Written by Greek Boston in Learn How to Speak Basic Greek Comments Off on How to Ask Questions in the Greek Language

When learning a language such as Greek, there are a few basic types of sentences that you need to become familiar with. These basic sentences will allow you to accomplish most things in the language as long as you have the right vocabulary. Being able to ask questions in Greek is one of the types of sentences you need to know. Here’s more information:

Simply Make a Sentence Sound Like a Question

One of the easiest ways to ask a question is to simply inflect your voice in a “question asking” tone when speaking a normal sentence. This isn’t as common or as effective as actually forming a grammatical sentences using one of the question words. However, it does have its place. Here’s a sample dialog that illustrates this point:

Πρέπει να πάω στο κατάστημα. – Prepie na pow sto katastima. – I need to go to the store.

Πρέπει να πάτε στο κατάστημα; Καλα. Και εγώ –  Prepie na pow sto katastima. Kala. Ego Emai – You need to go to the store? Good. I do too.

In the above example, the two sentences look exactly the same. The voice is simply inflected different to ask it as a question. We do the same thing when we are speaking English. Also, notice that the way to end a question sentence in Greek is to use ; and not ?.

Know the Question Words in Greek

Another strategy is that you should memorize the question words in Greek so that you can ask a variety of different questions. Here’s a look:

• Ποιος, ποια, ποιο – pyos, pya, pyo – who, which
• Πού – poo – where
• Πότε – potay – when
• Πώς –  pos – how
• Τίνος – Tinos – Whose
• Τι – Tee – What
• Γιατί – Ya ti – why
• Πόσος, πόση, πόσο – posos, posi, poso – how much, how many

As with learning anything in Greek, your goal is to become familiar with this. Chances are pretty good that you already know some questions to ask in the Greek language. Keep using these phrases and practicing and eventually they’ll become second nature.

The Learn Greek section on GreekBoston.com was written by Greeks to help people understand the conversational basics of the Greek language. This article is not a substitute for a professional Greek learning program, but a helpful resource for people wanting to learn simple communication in Greek.

Categorized in: Learn How to Speak Basic Greek

This post was written by Greek Boston