Modern Greek Grammar Lessons

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Lesson 15.1   Verbs Simple past 1

The three forms of αγοράζω listed in the dictionary are

αγοράζω / να αγοράσω / αγόρασα

'αγόρασα ένα αυτοκίνητο χτες' means ‘I bought a car yesterday’. 

This is known as the simple past tense because it implies a one-off incident.

Here are the rest of the endings:

If we know the subjunctive, we can form the simple past by

1 changing the ending 

2 moving the accent to the third syllable from the end of the verb. So for δουλεύω we get

Notice what happens with the verb γράφω:

An ‘έ’ is added to the first part of the verb if it doesn’t have 3 syllables.

The same applies to α handful of verbs such as θέλω except that an 'ή' is added, so we

we get ήθελα - I wanted.

These rules also work for the regular verbs with –άω and -ώ endings, so for the verb ‘to speak’ we get:

Other examples:

Now try Crosswords 31 and 32