Two Clitics Together | Greek Grammar

Greek does not say he gave it to me. It says Μου το έδωσε — "me it he-gave" — with both pronouns squeezed in front of the verb, in the exact reverse of the English order. Sentences like this are everywhere in ordinary speech, and they are the point where learners who are comfortable with one clitic suddenly stall: two unstressed syllables arrive back to back, there is no pause between them, and by the time you have worked out which is which the speaker is three sentences further on.

The good news is that there is exactly one rule, it has no exceptions, and it takes ten seconds to learn. The work is in the fingers, not the head — which is why most of this page is examples.

The order never changes: person first, thing second

In a cluster of two clitics the genitive comes first and the accusative second. In meaning terms: the person, then the thing.

English	Greek	Word for word
he gave it to me	μου το έδωσε	to-me it gave
I'm sending them to you	σου τα στέλνω	to-you them I-send
I told herit	της το είπα	to-her it I-told
they showed him to us	μας τον έδειξαν	to-us him they-showed

The ordering is by case, not by importance and not by what you want to emphasise. That is the part worth internalising, because Greek word order is otherwise remarkably free — you can move a subject, an object or an adverb almost anywhere in the sentence for effect. Inside the clitic cluster there is no freedom at all. The two words behave like the two halves of a single form that happens to be written with a space in it, and no amount of emphasis will let you swap them. When you genuinely need to stress one of the two participants, you do not reorder the cluster; you bring in a stressed pronoun alongside it, which is the subject of emphatic object pronouns.

Μου το έφερε ο ταχυδρόμος το πρωί, αλλά δεν το άνοιξα.

mu to éfere o tachidhrómos to proí, alá dhen to ániksa

The postman brought it to me this morning, but I didn't open it.

Της το είπα χθες το βράδυ και μου έκλεισε το τηλέφωνο.

tis to ípa chthes to vrádhi ke mu éklise to tiléfono

I told her last night and she hung up on me.

Σου τα άφησα στο γραφείο, δεν πρόλαβα να σε βρω.

su ta áfisa sto ghrafío, dhen prólava na se vro

I left them for you at the office — I didn't manage to catch you.

Μας τον έδειξε σε μια φωτογραφία από τον γάμο.

mas ton édhikse se mia fotoghrafía apó ton ghámo

She pointed him out to us in a photo from the wedding.

💡

Say it to yourself as person before parcel. Whoever receives comes first; whatever moves comes second. English does the opposite in its most common shape (give it to me), so the reflex has to be built deliberately — reading the cluster is easy, producing it under time pressure is not.

The clusters you will actually use

Every genitive clitic can combine with every third-person accusative one, which is a grid of forty-two boxes — the accusative slot has to be third person, and ×μου σε ("you to me") is impossible. You do not need forty-two: a handful account for almost everything you will hear.

	τον (him)	την (her)	το (it)	τους / τις (them, m./f.)	τα (them, n.)
μου — to me	μου τον	μου την	μου το	μου τους / μου τις	μου τα
σου — to you	σου τον	σου την	σου το	σου τους / σου τις	σου τα
του — to him/it	του τον	του την	του το	του τους / του τις	του τα
της — to her	της τον	της την	της το	της τους / της τις	της τα
μας — to us	μας τον	μας την	μας το	μας τους / μας τις	μας τα
σας — to you (pl.)	σας τον	σας την	σας το	σας τους / σας τις	σας τα
τους — to them	τους τον	τους την	τους το	τους τις (τους τους avoided)	τους τα

Three things to read off that grid.

The neuter column is the busy one. μου το, σου το, της το, τους το and their plurals μου τα, σου τα are far more frequent than the rest, for a structural reason rather than an accident: the thing you hand over, send, explain or promise is very often either a neuter noun or a whole idea — and an idea in Greek is neuter, picked up by το. That second job of το is on the clitic το for clauses.

The bottom-right cell is one speakers dodge. τους τους ("them to them") is what the system predicts, and you will almost never hear it; a Greek speaker rephrases instead — Τους έδωσα τους φακέλους — rather than say two identical syllables in a row. This is not a rule you can be marked wrong on, it is a preference, but imitating it will make you sound less like a textbook.

μας and σας hide the case. They are identical in the genitive and the accusative, so μας τον έδειξε can only be decoded by position: the word in the first slot is the genitive, whatever it looks like. The four pairs that show the contrast in their shape are με/μου, σε/σου, τον/του, την/της — and those are the ones worth drilling, as the case forms of the weak pronouns sets out.

Τους το έχω πει χίλιες φορές και κανείς δεν ακούει.

tus to écho pi chílies forés ke kanís dhen akúi

I've told them a thousand times and nobody listens.

Της την πήρε από τα χέρια χωρίς να ρωτήσει.

tis tin píre apó ta chéria chorís na rotísi

He took it out of her hands without asking.

Μας τη δάνεισε ο γείτονας για ένα Σαββατοκύριακο.

mas ti dhánise o yítonas ya éna Savatokíriako

The neighbour lent it to us for a weekend.

One block, no gaps

The two clitics and the verb form a single unit, and nothing may be inserted anywhere inside it — not an adverb, not the subject, not a "please". English is happy to break its pronouns up (he told me, yesterday, about it); Greek is not. If you want an adverb, it goes in front of the whole block or after the verb.

Μου τα εξήγησε όλα με την ησυχία του.

mu ta eksíyise óla me tin isichía tu

He explained it all to me calmly, in his own time.

Σας τα στέλνω με μέιλ μόλις τα υπογράψει ο διευθυντής.

sas ta stélno me méil mólis ta ipoghrápsi o dhiefthindís

I'll email them to you as soon as the director signs them.

Δεν μου τα έδωσε ποτέ πίσω.

dhen mu ta édhose poté píso

He never gave them back to me.

That last one shows the other half of the picture: the negator δεν and the particles θα and να stand in front of the block rather than inside it — δεν μου τα, θα σου το, να μου το. The full slot template, with everything that can pile up in front of the verb at once, is on clitic ordering and contraction.

Θα σου το εξηγήσω άλλη μία φορά και μετά τα παρατάω.

tha su to eksiyíso áli mía forá ke metá ta paratáo

I'll explain it to you one more time and then I give up.

Να μου το φέρεις αύριο, το χρειάζομαι για τη δουλειά.

na mu to féris ávrio, to chriázome ya ti dhuliá

Bring it to me tomorrow — I need it for work.

Building one from English, in three steps

When you are still slow, run the sentence through this and the cluster comes out right every time.

Find the person — the to me / to you / to her — and take the genitive clitic: μου, σου, του, της, μας, σας, τους.
Find the thing and take the accusative clitic, matched to the Greek gender of the noun it stands for: το βιβλίο → το, η τσάντα → την, ο φάκελος → τον, plurals τα / τις / τους.
Say them in that order and then the verb. No pause, no words in between.

Step two is where English speakers lose sentences, because English it carries no gender and Greek forces you to remember which noun you are replacing. If you were talking about η ταυτότητα, "he gave it to me" is μου *την έδωσε, not μου το έδωσε*.

Ήθελε την ταυτότητά μου και του την έδωσα χωρίς δεύτερη σκέψη.

íthele tin taftótitá mu ke tu tin édhosa chorís dhéfteri sképsi

He wanted my ID and I handed it to him without a second thought.

Where the block goes

Everything above assumes the ordinary case: the cluster sits in front of a finite verb. It flips behind the verb in one everyday environment, the positive command, where the order inside the cluster stays exactly the same.

Δώσ' μου το πριν το ρίξεις κάτω.

dhós' mu to prin to ríksis káto

Give it to me before you drop it.

Φέρε μού τα όταν τελειώσεις με το πλυντήριο.

fére mú ta ótan teliósis me to plindírio

Bring them to me when you're done with the washing machine.

Δίνοντάς μου τα, χαμογέλασε και έφυγε.

dhínondás mu ta, chamoyélase ke éfiye

Handing them to me, she smiled and left.

Notice the extra accent in Φέρε *μού τα and Δίνοντάς μου τα, and its absence in Δώσ' μου το*. It is not decoration and it is not optional in writing — but it is also not this page's business: the exact condition is worked out on the accent on clitic clusters. Which sentences put the clitics in front and which put them behind belongs to where clitics go and proclisis and enclisis. Here, take away only this: the internal order of the cluster is the same on both sides of the verb.

💡

A useful listening habit: when you hear two unstressed syllables in a row before a verb, do not try to translate them in the order you heard them. Flip them. Μου το is "it to me", σου τα is "them to you". Getting the flip automatic in listening is what eventually makes it automatic in speech.

Common Mistakes

1. Putting the thing first, English-style. This is the error, and it survives long into intermediate level because the English order is so ingrained.

❌ Το μου έδωσε πριν φύγει.

Incorrect — the genitive always leads: Μου το έδωσε.

✅ Μου το έδωσε πριν φύγει από το σπίτι.

mu to édhose prin fíyi apó to spíti

He gave it to me before he left the house.

2. Leaving the direct-object clitic behind the verb. Learners get the first clitic into position, then park the second one where English puts it.

❌ Μου έστειλε τα χθες το βράδυ.

Incorrect — both clitics go in front of the verb, in one block: Μου τα έστειλε.

✅ Μου τα έστειλε χθες το βράδυ, τα είδες;

mu ta éstile chthes to vrádhi, ta ídhes;

He sent them to me last night — did you see them?

3. Using το for anything that English calls "it". The accusative clitic has to agree with the gender of the noun it replaces, and Greek gender does not care what the thing is made of.

❌ Ήθελα την τσάντα και μου το έδωσε.

Incorrect — τσάντα is feminine, so the clitic is την: μου την έδωσε.

✅ Ήθελα την τσάντα και μου την έδωσε αμέσως.

íthela tin tsánda ke mu tin édhose amésos

I wanted the bag and she handed it to me straight away.

4. Writing τις where the cluster needs της. The two are pronounced identically, and only the slot tells you which one is meant: the first slot is genitive, so it can only be της.

❌ Τις το έδωσα μόλις τη συνάντησα.

Incorrect — τις is an accusative (feminine plural); the first slot must be the genitive της.

✅ Της το έδωσα μόλις τη συνάντησα στην είσοδο.

tis to édhosa mólis ti sinándisa stin ísodho

I gave it to her as soon as I ran into her at the entrance.

5. Slipping an adverb inside the block. Nothing goes between the two clitics, and nothing goes between the cluster and its verb.

❌ Μου ήδη το είπε η Μαρία.

Incorrect — nothing may sit inside the cluster; the adverb goes after the verb: Μου το είπε ήδη η Μαρία.

✅ Μου το είπε ήδη η Μαρία, μην ανησυχείς.

mu to ípe ídhi i María, min anisichís

Maria has already told me — don't worry.

Key Takeaways

Two clitics cluster in the fixed order genitive then accusative — the person, then the thing: μου το, σου τα, της το, μας τον.
The order is decided by case, not by emphasis, and it cannot be changed. For emphasis you add a stressed pronoun instead.
The high-frequency clusters end in the neuter το / τα, because things and whole ideas alike are picked up by neuter clitics.
μας and σας look the same in both cases, so position is the only clue to which is which; the visibly contrasting pairs are με/μου, σε/σου, τον/του, την/της.
The cluster plus the verb is one block: no adverb, subject or particle may sit inside it. δεν, θα and να stand in front of the whole block.
The internal order is identical behind a positive imperative (Πες μου το, Φέρε μού τα) — only the position relative to the verb changes.
Match the accusative clitic to the Greek gender of the noun it replaces, not to English it.

Now practice Greek

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Greek →