Accusative for Extent and Measure

Greek uses the accusative for a second big adverbial job beyond time: measuring extent. How far you walked, how much something weighs, what it cost, how tall a wall is — all of these are expressed by a noun phrase in the bare accusative, attached directly to the verb with no preposition at all. English needs for, of or nothing at all depending on the noun, which is exactly why learners either insert a preposition that does not belong or hesitate about which one to use. Greek's answer is uniform: just put it in the accusative.

This is the same grammatical machinery as the temporal accusative — the traditional label for both is the accusative of extent, covering extent in time and extent in space or quantity. The parallel is exact: Περπάτησα δύο ώρες (extent in time) and Περπάτησα δύο χιλιόμετρα (extent in space) are the same construction with a different noun.

Distance

Notice απέχει δύο χιλιόμετρα από — the measured distance is a bare accusative, but the reference point still needs its preposition από. The two coexist happily in the same clause.

Weight, height, length, volume

The verbs that take a measure accusative most often are ζυγίζω (weigh), έχω with a dimension noun (έχει ύψος / μήκος / πλάτος / βάθος), χάνω / παίρνω (lose / put on weight), and χωράω (hold, fit).

For height of people, everyday Greek drops the unit altogether and just gives the number: είναι ένα και ογδόντα ("he's one eighty", i.e. 1.80 m). This is (informal) but universal in speech.

Age is the one measurement that is not accusative

Everything else on this page is a bare accusative. Age is not. Greek states age in the genitive plural: τριάντα χρονών, literally "of thirty years" — you are describing yourself as belonging to a stock of thirty years, not measuring yourself out in them. χρονών is the everyday word; ετών is the (formal) equivalent you meet on forms, in news reports and on documents.

The στα δεκαπέντε του in the height example just above is not a counter-example: that is σε + accusative meaning "at (the age of) fifteen" — a point on a timeline, not a measurement of the boy. See Genitive of time.

Price and value

Money amounts behave exactly the same way. English says "it cost ten euros" with no preposition but "I sold it for three thousand" with one; Greek uses the bare accusative for both.

That last example stacks two accusatives: the price (δώδεκα ευρώ) and the distributive unit (το κιλό = "per kilo"), the same "definite article for per" pattern as τρεις φορές την εβδομάδα.

Making the number agree

The measure phrase is a normal accusative noun phrase, so if the number declines, it must agree with the unit noun. Most Greek numerals are frozen — but the popular shortcut "only 1, 3 and 4 change" is not true, and it will make you write ×διακόσιοι ευρώ. Three groups decline:

Two things follow from that table. First, inside a compound number every declinable part agrees on its own account, and the frozen parts simply sit there: είκοσι τρία κιλά (only the three can move), εκατόν τέσσερις μέρες, τριακόσιες πενήντα σελίδες (the hundred agrees with a feminine noun even though πενήντα cannot), τριακόσια πενήντα ευρώ (the same hundred, now neuter). Second, χιλιάδες is not a numeral at all — it is the feminine noun η χιλιάδα in the plural, so the number in front of it agrees with χιλιάδες, not with whatever is being counted: τρεις χιλιάδες ευρώ, never ×τρία χιλιάδες ευρώ, even though ευρώ is neuter. Exactly 1000, by contrast, uses the adjective: χίλια ευρώ.

With the numerals sorted, agreement itself is straightforward:

For 3 and 4, masculine and feminine share one form (τρεις, τέσσερις), so there the only decision is neuter or not: τρία κιλά but τρεις ώρες, τέσσερα ευρώ but τέσσερις μέρες. The hundreds ask more of you: they behave like ordinary -ος / -α / -ο adjectives and keep all three genders apart, with a genuine masculine accusative plural in -ους — διακόσιους πόντους, διακόσιες μέρες, διακόσια ευρώ. Note also that the masculine one has its own accusative: έναν μήνα, not ×ένας μήνα. See Which cardinals decline and Tens and hundreds.

The destination accusative: πάμε σπίτι

There is one more bare accusative worth knowing, and it is pure spoken Greek. With a handful of very frequent destinations, colloquial speech drops both the preposition and the article, leaving the noun stranded in the accusative:

Two activity nouns behave the same way without being destinations at all: πάω βόλτα (go out for a stroll) and πάω διακοπές (go on holiday).

Two cautions. First, this is (informal) — natural in conversation, out of place in a formal letter, where στο σπίτι / στη δουλειά is expected. Second, it does not generalise. The set is bigger than most textbooks let on, but it is still a set: you learn it item by item, you do not derive it. ×Πάω νοσοκομείο is simply not Greek — you say πάω στο νοσοκομείο. Πάω τράπεζα is a middle case: you will hear it, but it is far less established than πάω δουλειά and looks careless in writing. For any noun that is not on the list, use the full form with σε.

Extent vs time: telling the two apart

Both are bare accusatives, so how do you know which is which? By the noun, and by nothing else — and that is fine, because nothing hangs on the distinction grammatically. If the noun is a time unit (ώρα, μέρα, χρόνος, μήνας) you have a duration; if it is a unit of space, weight or money (μέτρο, κιλό, ευρώ, χιλιόμετρο) you have a measure. The construction, the case, and the absence of a preposition are identical.

That single sentence contains both: τρεις ώρες (extent in time) and διακόσια χιλιόμετρα (extent in space), coordinated as equals — the clearest possible evidence that Greek treats them as one construction.

Common Mistakes

1. Adding για before a measure. English "for five kilometres" tempts an unnecessary preposition.

2. Putting για after a price verb. The same English reflex, this time from "it cost ten euros" and "it weighs two kilos". κοστίζω, κάνω (cost) and ζυγίζω name the amount directly and never take a preposition at all.

With the transfer verbs πουλάω and αγοράζω, on the other hand, both patterns are good Greek: το πούλησα δέκα ευρώ and το πούλησα για δέκα ευρώ are equally idiomatic, because there για means straightforwardly "in exchange for". The rule to remember is narrower than it looks: για is available where something changes hands, and unavailable where the verb simply states a measurement.

3. Getting the gender of the numeral wrong. κιλό is neuter, so it takes τρία, not τρεις.

4. Pluralising ευρώ. It is invariable.

5. Adding an article to the colloquial destination accusative. The whole point of πάμε σπίτι is that the article is gone; half-doing it sounds wrong.

Key Takeaways

• Distance, weight, height, volume and price all stand in a bare accusative with no preposition: περπάτησα πέντε χιλιόμετρα, ζυγίζει δύο κιλά, κόστισε δέκα ευρώ.
• Age is the exception and takes the genitive: είμαι τριάντα χρονών (everyday) / ετών (formal), Πόσων χρονών είσαι;
• This is the same accusative of extent as the temporal accusative — one construction, two kinds of noun, and they can be coordinated in a single clause.
• The numerals that decline are 1, 3, 4 (and compounds ending in them), the hundreds from 200 up and χίλιοι; 2, 5–100 and the noun χιλιάδες never change. For 3 and 4 the only choice is neuter vs non-neuter (τρία κιλά / τρεις ώρες); the hundreds keep all three genders apart (διακόσιους / διακόσιες / διακόσια). Masculine one is έναν.
• ευρώ is indeclinable — never ×ευρά.
• The distributive unit uses the definite article: δώδεκα ευρώ το κιλό.
• πάμε σπίτι / πάω δουλειά / πάμε θάλασσα is a genuine article-less destination accusative, but it is (informal) and limited to a learned set — not a pattern you can extend to a new noun (×πάω νοσοκομείο).