Learn one thing from this card: the person you ask goes in the accusative. Τον ρώτησα, Με ρώτησε. Almost every other verb of speaking in Greek — λέω, απαντάω, ζητάω, δείχνω, εξηγώ — puts the person in the genitive, so learners generalise the genitive here and stay wrong for years. ρωτάω does not join that club, and it never has.
Every form ρωτάω has
| Slot | Forms |
|---|---|
| Present | ρωτάω/ρωτώ, ρωτάς, ρωτάει/ρωτά, ρωτάμε, ρωτάτε, ρωτάνε/ρωτούν(ε) |
| Imperfect | ρωτούσα — also ρώταγα (informal) |
| Aorist | ρώτησα |
| Dependent (θα, να) | ρωτήσω |
| Imperative | ρώτα / ρωτάτε · ρώτησε / ρωτήστε |
| Perfect | έχω ρωτήσει |
| Gerund | ρωτώντας |
| Passive | ρωτιέμαι · aorist ρωτήθηκα — see below |
Government
| Frame | Example |
|---|---|
| accusative person | Τον ρώτησα. |
| accusative person + accusative thing | Με ρώτησε το όνομά μου. |
| accusative person + indirect question (αν, τι, πού, πότε, γιατί) | Με ρώτησε αν θα έρθω. |
ρωτάω για
| Ρώτησε για σένα. |
Με ρώτησε αν έχω ξαναταξιδέψει μόνη μου στο εξωτερικό.
me rótise an écho ksanataksidhépsi móni mu sto eksoterikó
She asked me whether I'd travelled abroad on my own before.
Ρώτησε τη γραμματεία μέχρι πότε δέχονται αιτήσεις.
rótise ti ghramatía méchri póte dhéchonde etísis
Ask the office up to when they accept applications.
The double accusative is genuine, not a slip: the person and the thing asked can both be accusative in the same clause, which is rare in Greek and is why this verb gets its own row on double-object verbs.
Με ρώτησαν την ηλικία μου και ένιωσα άβολα.
me rótisan tin ilikía mu ke éniosa ávola
They asked me my age and it made me uncomfortable.
Ρώτησέ την πότε γυρίζει από τη δουλειά, να την περιμένουμε.
rótisé tin póte yirízi apó ti dhuliá, na tin periménume
Ask her when she gets back from work so we can wait for her.
ρωτάω για does two jobs. With a thing it is ask about — ρώτησα για τα δρομολόγια. With a person it is ask after, which is what you report when a visitor enquired about you:
Πέρασε η Ελένη και ρώτησε για σένα.
pérase i Eléni ke rótise ya séna
Eleni came by and asked after you.
The verb it is most often confused with is ζητάω, and the case is what separates them. Two sentences naming the same person and the same κάτι mean quite different things depending on which verb — and therefore which case — you picked:
Με ρώτησε κάτι και δεν ήξερα τι να πω.
me rótise káti ke dhen íksera ti na po
She asked me something and I didn't know what to say.
Μου ζήτησε κάτι και δεν μπορούσα να αρνηθώ.
mu zítise káti ke dhen borúsa na arnithó
She asked me for something and I couldn't say no.
The pattern is easy to state and hard to internalise: ρωτάω interrogates a person, ζητάω asks a person for a thing. Greek marks that difference on the pronoun rather than on the verb, so the whole distinction rides on a single letter — με against μου, σε against σου, τον against του — and a learner who has not sorted the two verbs out will keep producing sentences that are perfectly grammatical and say the wrong thing.
The learned twin: ερωτώ
ρωτάω comes from ancient ἐρωτάω, and the older form ερωτώ (formal) never left the written language. Everything nominal in this family is built on it, and so is the participle you meet daily in news reports:
| Form | Where you meet it |
|---|---|
| η ερώτηση, το ερώτημα, το ερωτηματικό | everyday nouns — there is no ×ρώτηση |
| ερωτηθείς, ερωτηθείσα | news writing: "asked about…" (formal) |
| ερωτούμαι, ο ερωτώμενος | surveys, legal texts (academic) |
Ερωτηθείς για τις αυξήσεις, ο υπουργός απέφυγε να απαντήσει.
erotithís ya tis afksísis, o ipurghós apéfiye na apandísi
Asked about the price rises, the minister avoided answering.
Slots this verb leaves empty
- No genitive person. Standard Greek has no ×Του ρώτησα — the accusative is obligatory, and the point is argued at genitive vs σε.
- No noun of its own. ρωτάω has no ×ρώτηση; it borrows ερώτηση from the learned stem.
- A thin mediopassive. ρωτιέμαι is fully conjugable but you will hardly ever hear the first and second person. What is live is the aorist ρωτήθηκε in reporting, and the derived deponent αναρωτιέμαι "wonder", which has taken over most of the territory a middle voice would have had.
Ρωτήθηκε τρεις φορές και τρεις φορές είπε το ίδιο.
rotíthike tris forés ke tris forés ípe to ídhio
He was asked three times and three times he said the same thing.
Αναρωτιέμαι αν πήρε ποτέ το γράμμα μου.
anarotiéme an píre poté to ghráma mu
I wonder whether he ever got my letter.
Set phrases
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Μη ρωτάς! | don't even ask (informal) |
| Αν με ρωτάς… | if you ask me… |
| ρώτησα γύρω γύρω | I asked around |
| Ρώτα τον εαυτό σου | ask yourself |
| κάνω μια ερώτηση | ask a question — the light verb is κάνω |
Πώς πήγε η μετακόμιση; Μη ρωτάς, χάλια.
pos píye i metakómisi; mi rotás, chália
How did the move go? Don't even ask — a disaster.
Ρώτησα γύρω γύρω πριν διαλέξω γιατρό και τελικά πήγα στον πιο κοντινό.
rótisa yíro yíro prin dhialékso yatró ke teliká pígha ston pio kondinó
I asked around before picking a doctor and in the end I went to the nearest one.
Να σου κάνω μια ερώτηση που με απασχολεί καιρό;
na su káno mia erótisi pu me apascholí keró;
Can I ask you something that's been on my mind for a while?
Key Takeaways
- Principal parts: ρωτάω/ρωτώ · ρωτούσα · ρώτησα · ρωτήσω, perfect έχω ρωτήσει.
- The person asked is accusative — the odd one out among Greek speech verbs — and a double accusative is allowed.
- Complements: an accusative thing, or an indirect question with αν, τι, πού, πότε, γιατί.
- ρωτάω για = ask about a thing, ask after a person.
- The nouns and the news-report participle come from the learned twin: ερώτηση, ερωτηθείς. Requesting something is a different verb, ζητάω.
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Start learning Greek →Related Topics
- ζητάω/ζητώ (to ask for/request)A2 — Requesting, not questioning: the person is genitive or από, never accusative-plus-thing. Three ending sets are all in use (ζητάς, ζητά, ζητεί), and the learned mediopassive gives you the ΖΗΤΕΙΤΑΙ of every shop window and το ζητούμενο, 'the point at issue'.
- απαντάω/απαντώ (to answer)A2 — The case-flip partner of ρωτάω: the person asked is accusative, the person answered is genitive or σε. Plus the accusative slot that is reserved for the content of the reply, and the second life of this verb — απαντά / απαντάται 'occurs, is found', with the voice argument that goes with it.
- Two Objects: Case AssignmentB1 — What happens when a verb has both a thing and a person — the thing is always accusative, the person is genitive or σε — plus the fixed genitive-before-accusative order of a double clitic, the second accent in Δώσε μού το, and the word-order trap that turns an indirect object into a possessor.