What is New?

Statements of (or questions about) facts, realities.

I type Greek sentences (with great difficulty)
You read them (easily, I hope)
He moans and grumbles because she makes him wash up.

Different people do different things. To know who does what, we need pronouns:
      I, you, he, she, it .....
The Greek didn't (still don't, for that matter), the endings tell us who does what:

I      talk λέγω
you  sleep καθεύδεις
he
she  walks
it		 βαδίζει

As you say each form, imagine the action:

  • you yourself saying things
  • telling someone off for sleeping or just telling him/her: you're sleeping (again), how do you you expect to understand a film if you sit there asleep and miss half of the action?
  • see man, woman, child, dog, pig going for a walk in the park or something.
Use your imagination. Don't just learn the theory. Apply it to concrete facts, happenings, to life. Theory by itself is dead, applying it brings it to life.


Orders, commands, warnings

      Come here!
Be quiet!
Don't do that!

See book page 12 (1st edition) or 16 (2nd). For more detail click here for general chat about imperatives or here for Greek examples.

But, whatever you do, give real-life orders, mean what you say. Do not just translate a few vague sentences to apply the theory.

Pattern drills are just mindless drilling of half-understood rules, meaningless structures, parrot-fashion. Since there is no intelligent linking of language to real life in those exercises, they are useless, except as a purely mechanical exercise in faster producing Greek sounds..

Unless you give them real meaning in your mind - which nobody ever does. Everybody thinks of the rule, not of real-life application when doing grammar exercises.

That's why achievement in languages in schools is so abysmal. Despite the fact that every half-way normal child learns one or more languages willingly, effectively and quickly outside of school, in a foreign language environment. Because everything learnt in contact with life is applied at once, not to theoretical exercises, but to reality. Keep that in mind.