Talk:Modern Greek/Reading Exercises/Reading 03

=χωριό=

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Is χωριό cognate with "chorus," χορος? Χορος *is* cognate with "court," but maybe the ω versus ο in the spelling means they're unrelated?--Bcrowell 05:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ancient Greek χωρίον, diminutiv of χῶρος, space. Source: Ν. Π. Ανδριώτη, Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Θεσσαλονίκη 1967. Andreas 23:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Kleftes
Translating kleftes as soldiers betrays the mood of the poem. The term kleftis has a very strong connotation of clandestine resistance to the oppressor. We have no such word in English. The American War of Independence was fought by regular soldiers organized in an army. The Greek War was (at least according to the patriotic legend) fought in the mountains by keen resistance fighters. A soldier at that time would be an αρματολός. See: http://pegasos.fhw.gr/chronos/12/en/1833_1897/society/facts/02.html. I would suggest fighter. Here is picture with Kleftes: Andreas 14:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Μάνα is different from Μαμά - mama. Μαμά is what a child calls her mother. Μάνα is used by adults, and, as an exclamation, confers strong feelings. In general, this poem is very hard to translate because it cenfers a mood that is typically Greek. Andreas 14:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Help!
I am trying to teach myself from this course; it is very comprehensive, well done to everyone who helped put this together! In the subjunctive section, I came across this sentence: "The subjunctive has two forms according to the aspect being perfective or imperfective:" four questions:

1) what does subjunctive mean?

2) what does aspect mean?

3) what does perfective mean?

4) (you guessed it) what does imperfective mean?

Thankyou in advance for your help! :D Storeye (talk) 10:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)