Page 1 of 1

What is the name of this verbal tense?

Posted: January 3rd, 2025, 4:46 am
by cecilperez
Hello,

Hi. A simple question to Greek speakers: what is the name of this verbal tense (or mood, I have no idea how to call it):

Θα σκεφτόταν, θα ήσουν, etc..:

I'm learning Greek with Duolingo and no grammar explanation makes the unit I'm on rather challenging. Thanks for the help.

Re: What is the name of this verbal tense?

Posted: January 3rd, 2025, 4:20 pm
by Jason Hare
cecilperez wrote: January 3rd, 2025, 4:46 am Hello,

Hi. A simple question to Greek speakers: what is the name of this verbal tense (or mood, I have no idea how to call it):

Θα σκεφτόταν, θα ήσουν, etc..:

I'm learning Greek with Duolingo and no grammar explanation makes the unit I'm on rather challenging. Thanks for the help.
[Disclaimer: I’m not a speaker of modern Greek.] To be clear, this isn’t Attic or Koinē Greek. This is modern Greek that you’re asking about. This looks to me to be a conditional (potential) mood, as in θα σκεφτόταν “he would think” and θα ήσουν “you would be.” Similar to Spanish pensaría “he would think” and serías “you would be,” if that means anything to you. From Wikipedia: “θα combined with the imperfective past form is used to form the conditional mood”, and θα is a shortened form of θέλει να.