Asking Present-Tense Questions

Asking a question in Greek is astonishingly easy for one reason: you don't have to rearrange anything. Where English flips the subject and verb ("You are — Are you?") or drafts in a helper verb ("You speak — Do you speak?"), Greek can leave the sentence exactly as it stands and mark the question with its characteristic intonation. In writing, the only change is the mark at the end. Once you stop looking for the machinery English forces on you, Greek questions become the simplest structure in the language.

Yes/no questions: intonation does all the work

A yes/no question has the same word order as the corresponding statement. In neutral Standard Greek, a low pitch on the main stressed region is followed near the edge by a rise and a final fall. In writing you close with the Greek question mark ;. Compare each statement with its question — the words are identical:

Look at what the English translations need that the Greek does not: "Do you...?" and "Are you...?" both introduce a helper and swap word order. The Greek pair differs by a single character — the final ; — and by the melody of the voice. That characteristic low–rise–fall question contour is described on question intonation.

No "do," no inversion

This is the point to hammer home, because English trains such a strong reflex. English builds questions two ways — with do-support ("Do you know?") and with inversion of be and other auxiliaries ("Are you ready?"). Greek uses neither as a question-forming operation. The verb already carries person and number, so no helper or obligatory inversion is needed.

If you find yourself wanting to translate English "do" or add a second verb for "are," stop — no extra question-forming word belongs there. Ξέρεις; on its own is a complete question ("Do you know?"), and Είσαι έτοιμος; is "Are you ready?" with no extra verb.

The Greek question mark: ;

In standard written Greek, the question mark is ; — the character that looks like an English semicolon. This trips up every beginner. The raised dot · is a separate mark whose uses overlap an English semicolon and a light colon. Edited direct questions, yes/no or wh-, end in ;.

Wh-questions: front the question word

In a neutral information-seeking question, Greek puts what, where, when, how, why, or who at the front and lets the verb follow — again with no auxiliary and no inversion of the kind English uses. Echo questions can leave a questioned item in place, but that marked use belongs beyond this A1 pattern. The main interrogatives are:

Note the last one: the question word is fronted, and everything else — including the negator δεν and the object pronoun μου — keeps the ordinary statement order that follows it. Nothing about the verb changes just because a question word is in front. The full set of interrogatives and their forms is on wh-questions.

πού, πότε, πώς — accents distinguish them from που, ποτέ, πως

Three question words have very common spelling twins. For πού/που and πώς/πως, the tonos is the only written difference; for πότε/ποτέ, its position distinguishes the words:

• πού (where?) vs που (that/who — relative): Πού μένεις; ("Where do you live?") vs το σπίτι που μένω ("the house I live in").
• πώς (how?) vs πως (that — after verbs of saying): Πώς σε λένε; ("What's your name?") vs Ξέρω πως έρχεσαι ("I know that you're coming").
• πότε (when?) vs ποτέ (ever/never): Πότε φεύγεις; ("When are you leaving?") vs δεν φεύγω ποτέ ("I never leave"). Here even the stressed syllable moves.

The interrogatives carry the tonos shown here. Their partners που/πως are unaccented, while ποτέ carries it on the final syllable. Which one to write in a given sentence is the subject of πού/που, πώς/πως, πότε/ποτέ. Get the accent wrong and you have written a different word — this is a spelling mistake, not a stylistic slip.

Common Mistakes

1. Importing English "do." No helper verb belongs in a Greek question.

2. Adding a form of "to be" for "are you...?" The single conjugated verb is already the whole question.

3. Carrying informal digital "?" into edited Greek. Standard Greek marks questions with the character that looks like a semicolon.

The Latin-style ? is recognizable in informal messaging, but it is not the form to use in edited prose.

4. Leaving the accent off the interrogative. Unaccented που is a different word; the question word is πού.

Key Takeaways

• Yes/no questions can keep the statement unchanged, said with the characteristic low–rise–fall contour and closed with ;. No question-forming "do," no required inversion.
• The standard Greek question mark is ; (it looks like a semicolon); informal digital ? is recognizable but is not the edited norm.
• Neutral wh-questions front the question word (Τι κάνεις; Πού μένεις;) and keep normal order after it — the verb is unchanged.
• πού, πώς, πότε carry an accent that distinguishes them from που, πως, ποτέ; getting it wrong writes a different word.