English - Greek translation

Writing a Greek message that preserves an English speaker’s meaning

An English description can require a Greek agreement choice

“I am ready” can be “Είμαι έτοιμος” for a speaker using masculine agreement, or “Είμαι έτοιμη” with feminine agreement. English ready does not identify that choice. A translated message written in somebody else’s voice therefore needs information about its actual sender. The alternatives are grammatical forms with different agreement, not two interchangeable spellings.

The same care applies to descriptions of another person. Use information established in the message rather than inferring gender from an occupation or activity. For objects, Greek grammatical gender belongs to the noun and does not necessarily describe anything about a human being. Check the whole phrase, including any article and adjective, after choosing the noun that expresses the intended meaning.

Choose familiar or polite address before translating a request

English you does not distinguish a friend from a politely addressed customer. Greek can use singular εσύ or plural εσείς, with the latter also serving polite address to one person. The verb and other referring forms need to follow the same relationship. The pronoun itself is often unnecessary, but its absence does not remove that grammatical choice.

“Can you wait?” can be “Μπορείτε να περιμένετε;” for polite address or a plural audience. A familiar singular request needs different verb forms. Do not make the first sentence polite and then slip into familiar forms when translating the next instruction. The reader should remain the same person or group throughout the exchange.

Present a task as an activity or as a completed event

Greek verbs distinguish ways of viewing an event, including an ongoing or repeated perspective and a bounded perspective. English tense labels do not settle every Greek aspect choice. In an update about preparing a document, determine whether somebody is still working, performs the task regularly, or has completed a particular result.

This distinction also matters in requests and plans. A request for one finished action and an instruction about a repeated routine need not use the same Greek stem. Do not select a verb form simply because the English sentence contains will or to. Identify what the writer expects to happen and whether the event is presented as a process, repetition, or whole occurrence.

Keep the Greek script and question punctuation intact

Greek normally writes a direct question with a mark shaped like an English semicolon. The ending of the example above is therefore normal Greek question punctuation. It does not join two English-style clauses. Preserve the Greek accents and letters as well: replacing the entire message with improvised Latin-letter spelling makes it harder to use in an edited email or a copied instruction.

For names and addresses, distinguish translation from identification. Retain an established official spelling where a person must be found in a booking or contact list. A translation should not create a new spelling from pronunciation alone. Correct agreement, recipient relationship, event meaning, and usable names make the message more helpful than a word-by-word match to the English.