Common Spelling Errors

Greek spelling is mostly regular once you know the rules — but a handful of endings sound identical while being spelled differently, and that is where nearly every recurring error lives. Because Greek has three ways to write the /i/ sound and two ways to write /o/, the ear cannot tell you which letter to use; only the grammar can. This page is a checklist you can run over your own writing. Each item is a wrong→right pair plus the rule that decides it. Learn to ask the grammatical question, and the spelling falls out automatically.

1. Verb ending: -ω, never -ο (θέλω, not ×θέλο)

The first-person singular of an active present-tense verb ("I _") ends in the letter -ω (omega), even though it just sounds like /o/. This is a grammatical ending, and it is never spelled with -ο (omicron). This is probably the most frequent single error learners make.

The rule extends to the future and subjunctive stem too: θα γράψω, να πάω — all -ω. The full family of verb-ending spellings has its own page, Verb-ending spellings. Careful, though: the ο/ω choice runs the opposite way in nouns and adjectives, where -ος and -ο are omicron and only the genitive plural -ων takes omega (ο δρόμος, το βιβλίο, but των βιβλίων). That side of the problem is on Noun and adjective endings: ο/ω, η/ι.

2. Passive/deponent -ται vs active -τε (έρχεται, not ×έρχετε)

Both endings are pronounced /te/, but they belong to completely different forms:

• -ται = third-person singular of a mediopassive or deponent verb ("he/she/it ___s"): έρχεται ("comes"), φαίνεται ("seems"), γίνεται ("happens").
• -τε = second-person plural of an active verb ("you all _"): γράφετε ("you write"), θέλετε ("you want").

Writing ×έρχετε for έρχεται is one of the top errors of natives and learners alike. Ask: who is the subject — a single "he/she/it" (→ -ται) or a plural "you" (→ -τε)?

This pair is the sharpest lesson on this page, and it explains why the error is so persistent: when you slip and write γράφετε for γράφεται, the slip lands on another real form. No spellchecker will underline it, because γράφετε exists — it is simply a different verb form with a different subject. Only the meaning you intended can tell you which one you wanted, and here the two are even pronounced the same (ghráfete either way). Ask the subject question every time.

Contrast a genuine active "you all" form, which really does end in -τε:

3. ει / η / ι in verb endings (κάνεις, not ×κάνης)

Three spellings, one sound (/i/). In verb endings the choice is fixed by the person:

• -εις = second-person singular ("you _"): κάνεις, θέλεις, γράφεις.
• -ει = third-person singular ("he/she/it ___s"): κάνει, θέλει, γράφει.

The tempting wrong spellings are ×κάνης / ×κάνη (with η) or ×κάνις / ×κάνι (with ι). In the present active of an ordinary -ω verb, the answer is always the digraph ει.

The one class the ει rule does not touch: -άω verbs

Be precise about the scope, because there is a whole conjugation where no ει appears at all. The contracted verbs that can say -άω in the first person (μιλάω, αγαπάω, ρωτάω, ξυπνάω, πεινάω) go -άς in the second person and -άει (or short -ά) in the third:

• μιλάω / μιλώ — μιλάς — μιλάει / μιλά
• ξυπνάω — ξυπνάς — ξυπνάει

So the /is/ ending you are spelling has to be there before the ει rule applies. There is no ×μιλάεις and no ×μιλάης.

…but a bare -ώ verb is not automatically one of them

This is where the shortcut "-άω / -ώ verbs take -άς" quietly breaks, and it breaks on one of the most frequent verbs in the language. Some contracted verbs have no -άω form at all — their first person is only ever -ώ — and those go straight back inside the ει rule:

The third row covers μπορώ (can), οδηγώ (drive), θεωρώ (consider), προσπαθώ (try), ζω (live), συμφωνώ (agree) and a long list of others: μπορείς, οδηγείς, θεωρείς, προσπαθείς, ζεις. Since ×μποράω does not exist, neither does ×μποράς — and μπορώ is one of the twenty commonest verbs in Greek, so getting this wrong costs you more than the ×κάνης this page exists to prevent.

Nouns use these same letters for their own reasons — feminine nouns very often end in -η (η νίκη, η αγάπη), neuters in -ι (το παιδί, το σπίτι) — so the verb rule above tells you nothing about them. The whole /i/ problem, endings and stems alike, is mapped on Spelling the /i/ sound, and the noun-ending half specifically on Noun and adjective endings.

4. τον vs το, and the movable final -ν

Two different things get lumped together as "the -ν problem," and it helps to separate them.

(a) Gender, not sound. The masculine article/pronoun is τον; the neuter is το (no -ν, ever). These must match the noun's gender. Writing ×τον βιβλίο is wrong not because of the sound but because βιβλίο is neuter → it needs το.

(b) The drop rule. The feminine την/στην, the numeral έναν, and the negatives δεν/μην keep their final -ν before a vowel or before one of the "hard-onset" consonants κ, π, τ, ξ, ψ and the clusters μπ, ντ, γκ, τσ, τζ — and drop it before the other consonants (β, γ, δ, ζ, θ, λ, μ, ν, ρ, σ, φ, χ). So it is την Άννα (before a vowel, keep) but τη λέξη (before λ, drop).

The negatives δεν/μην are very commonly kept even where the strict rule would drop them, and that is now widely accepted; the masculine τον is always kept (dropping it would make it look like neuter το). The full treatment is on The movable final -ν.

5. The missing or misplaced tonos (ευχαριστώ, not ×ευχαριστω)

Every word of two or more syllables needs exactly one tonos on its stressed syllable. In fast typing, learners drop it — but an accent-less polysyllable is a spelling error, not a shortcut, and it occasionally changes the word (πότε "when?" vs ποτέ "never").

6. και vs κι (never ×κι τυρί)

κι is the elided form of και ("and"). It exists for exactly one purpose: to avoid a vowel clash, so it appears only before a word beginning with a vowel. Putting κι in front of a consonant is a real spelling error — there is no vowel there to elide against, and the form simply does not exist in that position.

The reverse direction is not an error, and this is where learners are often over-corrected. και before a vowel is perfectly good Greek — it is simply the fuller, more deliberate variant. Compare the two, and note that neither is wrong:

In the correlative frame και … και … ("both … and …"), the full form is if anything the norm in careful writing, because the repetition of και is what carries the "both" meaning and eliding it weakens the pattern. So: never κι before a consonant, but do not go hunting through your writing to replace every και before a vowel.

Your proofreading checklist

Run these six questions over anything you write:

Common Mistakes

The whole page is a mistakes catalogue, so here are the three highest-frequency offenders gathered in one place — the ones to check first, every time.

1. ×θέλο for θέλω. The "I" verb ending is -ω.

2. ×έρχετε for έρχεται. A "he/she/it" mediopassive verb ends in -ται.

3. ×τον for το before a neuter noun. Match the article to the noun's gender.

Key Takeaways

• The sound never tells you the spelling — the grammar does. Ask the person/number/gender question and the letter follows.
• -ω for "I", -ται for "he/she/it" (passive), -εις/-ει for "you/he" (active): fix these three and most errors disappear — remembering that -άω verbs sit outside the ει rule (μιλάς, μιλάει), while a -ώ verb with no -άω form sits right back inside it (μπορώ → μπορείς, οδηγώ → οδηγείς).
• Match τον/το to gender; apply the drop rule to feminine την and the negatives.
• Give every polysyllable one tonos, and never write κι before a consonant (κι before a vowel is optional, not obligatory).