Breakdown of Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω με άτυπο τρόπο, ο οποίος είναι πιο φυσικός για εμάς.
Questions & Answers about Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω με άτυπο τρόπο, ο οποίος είναι πιο φυσικός για εμάς.
In Greek, possessive pronouns like μου (my), σου (your), του (his), etc. usually come after the noun they belong to.
- τους φίλους μου = my friends (literally: the friends of-me)
- με τους φίλους μου = with my friends
You almost never put μου before the noun (μου φίλους sounds wrong/foreign). The normal pattern is:
- ο φίλος μου – my friend
- η μητέρα σου – your mother
- το βιβλίο του – his book
The preposition με (with) in Greek always takes the accusative case.
- Nominative (subject): οι φίλοι – the friends
- Accusative (object / after preposition): τους φίλους – the friends
Because με is followed by a noun in the accusative, you must say:
- με τους φίλους (μου) – with my friends
not - με οι φίλοι (μου) ❌
Yes, both word orders are correct:
- Μιλάω με τους φίλους μου...
- Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω...
Greek word order is flexible. The difference is mainly in emphasis:
- Μιλάω με τους φίλους μου – neutral, normal order: I talk with my friends…
- Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω – fronting με τους φίλους μου gives it more emphasis: With my friends I speak… (contrasting with other people, e.g. not with colleagues).
Grammatically they are both fine; the original sentence just emphasizes with my friends.
In Greek, the personal subject pronoun is usually dropped, because the verb ending already shows the person:
- μιλάω = I speak (1st person singular)
- μιλάς = you speak
- μιλάει / μιλά = he/she speaks
So μιλάω already means I speak, and adding εγώ is only for emphasis:
- Εγώ μιλάω με τους φίλους μου... – I (as opposed to someone else) talk with my friends…
In the sentence given, εγώ is understood but not written.
They are just two forms of the same verb:
- μιλάω – more colloquial, very common in everyday speech and writing
- μιλώ – a bit more formal or neutral, preferred in very formal writing, but also used in normal speech
Both are correct. You could say:
- Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω...
- Με τους φίλους μου μιλώ...
with no real change in meaning.
The verb μιλάω (to speak, to talk) in Greek usually needs a preposition when you specify who you speak with/to:
- μιλάω με κάποιον – I talk with someone
- μιλάω σε κάποιον – I talk to someone
So you don’t say μιλάω τους φίλους μου (that would be wrong). You must use:
- μιλάω με τους φίλους μου – I talk with my friends
or - μιλάω στους φίλους μου – I talk to my friends
In your sentence, με emphasizes the idea of interaction / conversation with them.
Both are possible, but there is a nuance:
- με άτυπο τρόπο – literally in an informal way / manner. Slightly more explicit or careful, can sound a bit more formal or explanatory.
- άτυπα – adverb: informally. Shorter and very natural in speech.
So you could also say:
- Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω άτυπα, που είναι πιο φυσικό για εμάς.
The original με άτυπο τρόπο matches the English structure in an informal way and sounds a bit more “spelled out.”
Because άτυπο is agreeing with τρόπο:
- ο τρόπος – masculine, singular
- In accusative: τον τρόπο
The adjective άτυπος (informal) must agree in gender, number, and case:
- άτυπος τρόπος – nominative
- άτυπο τρόπο – accusative (after με)
So με άτυπο τρόπο is: with/in an informal way.
If you say άτυπα on its own, that’s an adverb, not an adjective:
- Μιλάω άτυπα. – I speak informally.
ο οποίος is a relative pronoun meaning roughly who / which / that. It introduces a relative clause that refers back to a noun, here τρόπο:
- ...με άτυπο τρόπο, ο οποίος είναι πιο φυσικός για εμάς.
= ...in an informal way, which is more natural for us.
Differences from που:
Formality
- ο οποίος is more formal / careful.
- που is more colloquial and very common in everyday speech.
Agreement
- ο οποίος changes form to agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.
- που is invariable (it doesn’t change).
You could also say:
- ...με άτυπο τρόπο, που είναι πιο φυσικός για εμάς.
This is very natural in spoken Greek and in informal writing. The meaning is the same.
In many real-life contexts, που would indeed be more common:
- Με τους φίλους μου μιλάω με άτυπο τρόπο, που είναι πιο φυσικός για εμάς.
However, ο οποίος is preferred when:
- the style is a bit more formal or written,
- the speaker wants to sound more precise or careful,
- or in teaching materials, where they also want to show the full paradigm (ο οποίος, η οποία, το οποίο, etc.).
So the choice of ο οποίος here is more about style, not correctness. Both are grammatically fine.
The relative pronoun ο οποίος and the adjective φυσικός must agree with the noun τρόπο:
- τρόπος – masculine, singular, nominative
- So the relative pronoun is ο οποίος (masculine, singular, nominative)
- The adjective in the predicate position must also be masculine singular: φυσικός
Hence:
- ...τρόπο, ο οποίος είναι πιο φυσικός...
If the noun were feminine, it would change:
- με άτυπη μορφή, η οποία είναι πιο φυσική...
(μορφή is feminine, so η οποία, φυσική.)
Greek has two ways to form comparatives:
With πιο + adjective (very common):
- πιο φυσικός – more natural
- πιο όμορφος – more beautiful
With a synthetic comparative ending (more formal / less common for some adjectives):
- φυσικότερος – more natural
- ομορφότερος – more beautiful
In everyday Greek, πιο φυσικός is by far the most usual. φυσικότερος sounds more formal, literary, or a bit old-fashioned. Both are correct, but πιο φυσικός is what you will normally say.
εμείς and εμάς are different cases of the same pronoun (we/us), and μας is the clitic/weak form:
- εμείς – nominative (subject): we
- Εμείς μιλάμε. – We speak.
- εμάς – accusative/genitive (strong form): us (stressed or after prepositions)
- για εμάς – for us
- από εμάς – from us
- μας αγαπούν εμάς. – They love us (with emphasis on us).
- μας – weak form (usual unstressed us/our):
- μας μιλάνε. – They talk to us.
- οι φίλοι μας – our friends.
After a preposition like για, you use the strong form εμάς:
- για εμάς – for us
για εμείς is ungrammatical.