Present Tense Indicative


Sounds worse than it is. Why present "indicative"? Because it indicates facts, real happenings, actions taking place now, in the present. Latin "indicare" means to show, signal, make apparent, indicate things that are, exist, take place (or the opposite of course: that are most definitely not, really do not exist). "Stones don't usually melt" is as much fact as "ice-cream melts and runs down the front of my shirt."
For once Greek is easier than English: one form to denote both
he usually does it and
he's doing it right now
.
And why 3rd person singular?

Who is the most important person in the whole wide world? "I" am, obviously. No, no, not me personally, every person is nearest to him/herself and is #1.
And who is #2. Well, evidently whoever we're talking to. No doubt about that, otherwise we wouldn't be talking to them. So that's the "you" whom I am addressing.
Which leaves us with poor #3. The other one, the 3rd wheel, the other woman, the one we discuss, complain about, admire from afar.

And what about singular.

Only one of each: one I, one you, one he, she or it.
To start with, we only consider #3, that other person we're naming as doing all those things people do:
he (or she) is, says, carries, rejoices, groans, lives, loves...

To start with nice and easy, but don't forget: For each verb you must imagine a person you know, you've seen in a film, on TV, in a dream... performing these actions: carrying, speaking, rejoicing etc. It must all make sense in your head, even if ancient Greek words seem a bit out of place there. Take them in and make them welcome, not as poor relatives, but as full members of your word treasure-trove.
Why shouldn't your father φέρει   you a present or your wife παρέχει   you food? And why shouldn't the little girl στενάζει  when she's got a test in maths and the little boy blush when he λέγει   "I love you" for the first time?
      φέρει he or she carries/is carrying what?
      λύει is loosening, letting go, setting free whom or what?
      λέγει speaks, says what? where? when? why? how?
      χαίρει rejoices (but also greets, joyously I suppose)
      στενάζει     is or keeps groaning and moaning, groans and moans all the time
      παρέχει provides, gives
      βλέπει sees, looks at
      φιλεῖ loves (or: kisses) whom, what? why not?...
      οἰκεῖ lives where, with whom, how...?
      γεωργεῖ   is farming, cultivating
Easy-peasy: The endings, i.e. the last letters of a word clarify its meaning, in this case tell us who does or is doing what.
The ending for 3rd person singular in Greek is:   ει   and tells us that he, she or it does it (often, regularly...) or is doing it right now. Whatever that action may be.

Do I sense objections? What about   εῖ ? you say, where does that funny circumflex come form? The last syllable is pronounced strong and long because it is actually 2 syllables fused into one. That's why. To make pronunciation more fluent.
 
φιλέ ει  
οἰκέ ει   
πονέ ει  
  any    ...έ ει  		   gets shortened to  
  gets shortened to  
  gets shortened to  
  gets shortened to  		   φιλεῖ  
  οἰκεῖ  
  πονεῖ  
  ...εῖ  
 
 
But unfortunately there is always a fly in every ointment. And as usual it is the verb "to be". Just look at English, all those different forms: am,is,are,was,were,be,being,been. All languages do funny things to their "to be" verb. And Greek is no exception.  
he, she, it is
1. movable   ν  
  ἐστι  
  normal form   μακρός ἐστι καὶ χαλεπός   
  ἐστιν   
  if followed by a vowel   ἔστιν αὐτουργός
  before a punctuation mark (full stop, comma...)     αὐτουργός ἐστιν.    
2. enclitic    ἐστιν
  enclitics lean on preceding word for strength and stress
  in (almost) all cases they are unstressed and have no written accent.
  Except as: 1st word   ἔστιν αὐτουργός
  and after negative οὐκ   οὐκ ἔστιν