Breakdown of Η μαμά μου βάζει ντομάτα και λίγο λάδι στη σαλάτα.
Questions & Answers about Η μαμά μου βάζει ντομάτα και λίγο λάδι στη σαλάτα.
In Greek, the unstressed possessive pronouns (μου, σου, του, της, μας, σας, τους) usually come after the noun, not before it.
- Η μαμά μου = my mom (literally: the mom my).
- Saying Η μου μαμά sounds wrong in modern Greek in normal speech.
So the pattern is:
- το σπίτι μου – my house
- ο φίλος σου – your friend
- η μαμά μας – our mom
Μου can mean both “my” (possessive) and “to me” (indirect object), but in this sentence it’s clearly possessive:
- Η μαμά μου – my mom
You know it’s possessive because:
- It follows a noun (μαμά), not a verb.
- The meaning in context is obviously my mom, not mom to me.
Compare:
- Η μαμά μου βάζει ντομάτα… – My mom puts tomato… (possessive)
- Η μαμά μου μου μιλάει. – My mom talks to me.
Here the first μου is “my”, and the second μου is “to me”.
Both mean mother, but they differ in style:
- μαμά – informal, familiar, like “mom / mum / mommy”
- μητέρα – more formal or neutral, like “mother”
In everyday conversation, people almost always say μαμά when talking about their own mother:
- Η μαμά μου βάζει ντομάτα… (very natural)
- Η μητέρα μου βάζει ντομάτα… (correct, but sounds more formal or distant)
Βάζει is:
- Present tense
- 3rd person singular of the verb βάζω (to put).
Roughly:
βάζω – I put
βάζεις – you put (singular)
βάζει – he/she/it puts
βάζουμε – we put
βάζετε – you put (plural / polite)
βάζουν(ε) – they put
The Greek present tense can mean both:
- Habitual / repeated action:
- My mom (usually) puts tomato and a little oil in the salad.
- Action happening now (if the context makes that clear):
- My mom is (right now) putting tomato and a little oil in the salad.
Without extra context, it’s often understood as a general habit in a sentence like this.
Greek, like English in cooking/food contexts, can use the singular of a countable noun to mean some of that food or it can refer to tomato as an ingredient:
- βάζει ντομάτα – she puts tomato / some tomato
- βάζει ντομάτες – she puts (whole) tomatoes / several tomatoes
Here ντομάτα feels like “tomato as an ingredient in the salad,” not counting individual pieces.
In Greek:
With ingredients / substances, it’s very common not to use an article when you mean “some (of this)” in a general sense:
- βάζει ντομάτα – puts (some) tomato
- και λίγο λάδι – and a little (bit of) oil
With a specific item, like the salad on the table, you usually use the definite article:
- στη σαλάτα – in the salad (a particular salad we are talking about)
So:
- No article: ντομάτα, (λίγο) λάδι – ingredients, non-specific amount
- With article: τη σαλάτα – a specific salad
Λίγο here means “a little / a small amount of”.
Grammatically:
- λίγο is the neuter singular form of the adjective λίγος (little, few), used here like an invariable quantifier before a mass noun:
- λίγο λάδι – a little oil
- λίγο νερό – a little water
With countable plural nouns, you’d use the appropriate plural form:
- λίγες ντομάτες – a few tomatoes
- λίγα μήλα – a few apples
Both are correct; they differ in specificity:
- λάδι – oil in general (often understood as olive oil in Greek kitchens, but not always)
- ελαιόλαδο – specifically olive oil
In everyday speech, people frequently just say λάδι when they mean olive oil in a cooking context, unless they need to distinguish between types of oil.
Στη is a contraction of:
- σε (in, at, to) + τη(ν) (the, feminine accusative singular)
So:
- σε τη σαλάτα → στη σαλάτα
Similarly:
- σε τον φίλο → στον φίλο
- σε το σπίτι → στο σπίτι
In modern Greek, these combinations are normally written together (στη, στον, στο, στις, στους, στα) and pronounced as one unit.
In modern Greek, most prepositions (including σε) are followed by the accusative case.
So you need:
- Feminine singular accusative: τη σαλάτα
- Not της σαλάτας (genitive) or η σαλάτα (nominative) after σε.
Pattern:
- σε + τη σαλάτα → στη σαλάτα
- σε + τον φίλο → στον φίλο
- σε + το σπίτι → στο σπίτι
The genders are:
- η μαμά – feminine
- η ντομάτα – feminine
- το λάδι – neuter
- η σαλάτα – feminine
You can see the feminine from the article η and masculine/neuter from ο / το, for example:
- η μαμά, η ντομάτα, η σαλάτα
- το λάδι
Yes, Greek word order is flexible, and your example is grammatically correct.
Η μαμά μου βάζει ντομάτα και λίγο λάδι στη σαλάτα.
– neutral, standard word order.Η μαμά μου στη σαλάτα βάζει ντομάτα και λίγο λάδι.
– emphasizes στη σαλάτα (in the salad, as opposed to somewhere else).
The basic pattern is usually Subject – Verb – Object – (Place/Time), but you can move elements for emphasis or contrast. The meaning stays essentially the same; the focus changes.
The accent mark (´) in modern Greek shows word stress, i.e., which syllable is pronounced more strongly.
- μα-ΜΆ – stress on the last syllable
- ΛΊ-γο – stress on the first syllable
- σα-ΛΆ-τα – stress on the middle syllable
Every word of more than one syllable has exactly one written stress mark in standard modern Greek. This is important because stress can sometimes distinguish between different words or forms.