Breakdown of Είσαι βέβαιη ότι μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
Questions & Answers about Είσαι βέβαιη ότι μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
In Greek, adjectives agree with the noun (or pronoun) they describe in gender, number, and case.
- βέβαιος = masculine singular (for a man)
- βέβαιη = feminine singular (for a woman)
- βέβαιο = neuter singular
In Είσαι βέβαιη..., the speaker is talking to a woman, so the adjective is feminine: βέβαιη.
If the speaker were talking to a man, the sentence would be:
- Είσαι βέβαιος ότι μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
“Are you (m.) sure that you can keep this secret?”
If they were talking about a thing/situation being certain (neuter):
- Είναι βέβαιο ότι θα έρθει.
“It is certain that he will come.”
Both mean roughly “sure / certain”, and here they’re almost interchangeable.
- βέβαιη (from βέβαιος) – a bit more neutral/formal.
- σίγουρη (from σίγουρος) – very common in everyday speech, maybe slightly more colloquial.
You could also say:
- Είσαι σίγουρη ότι μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
Same meaning: “Are you sure you can keep this secret?”
Grammatically they behave the same way: they agree in gender, number, and case with the subject.
Yes, in this sentence ότι and πως are practically interchangeable:
- Είσαι βέβαιη ότι μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
- Είσαι βέβαιη πως μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
Both mean: “Are you sure (that) you can keep this secret?”
Some points:
- With verbs like to be sure, to think, to say, to know, Greek can use ότι or πως to introduce a clause:
- Πιστεύω ότι/πως έχει δίκιο. – “I think (that) he is right.”
- ότι is a little more “standard” and is always clearly a conjunction.
- πως (meaning that) is written without an accent, to distinguish it from πώς (how?), which does have an accent.
There are contexts where ότι is preferred or required (e.g. after certain prepositions or when you want to avoid ambiguity), but in this sentence either is fine.
The choice changes the nuance:
- μπορείς να κρατήσεις = “you can keep / are able to keep”
- Emphasizes ability or capability.
- θα κρατήσεις = “you will keep”
- Emphasizes a future fact / promise / decision rather than ability.
So:
- Είσαι βέβαιη ότι μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
“Are you sure you can keep this secret (are you capable of keeping it)?”
If you said:
- Είσαι βέβαιη ότι θα κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό;
this sounds more like “Are you sure you will keep this secret?” – focusing more on whether you will in fact do it, not whether you’re capable of it.
Both are grammatically correct; they just highlight different things.
Greek distinguishes aspect (kind of action) in the subjunctive:
- να κρατήσεις – aorist subjunctive (perfective aspect)
→ Whole action as a single, complete event. - να κρατάς – present subjunctive (imperfective aspect)
→ Ongoing / repeated action, or “be in the process of keeping”.
In μπορείς να κρατήσεις αυτό το μυστικό, the idea is “can you (successfully) keep it as a secret (for as long as needed)?” – seen as one overall result, so Greek uses the perfective (να κρατήσεις).
Compare:
- Μπορείς να κρατάς μυστικά;
Literally: “Can you keep secrets (in general)?” – here, the imperfective (να κρατάς) fits because we’re talking about a general, repeated ability.
So in your specific sentence, να κρατήσεις is the natural choice.
The verb comes from κρατάω / κρατώ, which has several meanings depending on context:
to hold
- Κρατάω ένα ποτήρι. – “I’m holding a glass.”
to keep / retain
- Κράτησα την απόδειξη. – “I kept the receipt.”
to reserve
- Κράτησα τραπέζι στο εστιατόριο. – “I reserved a table at the restaurant.”
to last
- Οι διακοπές κράτησαν δύο εβδομάδες. – “The holidays lasted two weeks.”
In the phrase κρατάω μυστικό / κρατώ μυστικό, it specifically means “to keep a secret”:
- κρατήσεις (να κρατήσεις) here = “(to) keep (successfully, not reveal).”
So in the sentence, κρατήσεις clearly means “keep (a secret)”, not “hold” in a physical sense.
In Greek, when a demonstrative (αυτός, αυτή, αυτό = “this/that”) is used before a noun, it is normally used together with the definite article:
- αυτό το μυστικό = “this secret” (literally “this the secret”)
- αυτή την πόλη = “this city”
- εκείνο το βιβλίο = “that book”
So:
- ✅ αυτό το μυστικό
- ❌ αυτό μυστικό (wrong in this position)
You can also put the demonstrative after the noun:
- το μυστικό αυτό = “this secret (this particular secret)”
Both αυτό το μυστικό and το μυστικό αυτό are correct; the first is more common and neutral in speech.
Both mean “this secret” and are grammatically correct.
- αυτό το μυστικό – very common, neutral; often simply “this secret” without any special emphasis.
- το μυστικό αυτό – also “this secret”, but sometimes feels slightly more emphatic or stylistic, like “this secret (in particular)”.
In everyday speech, αυτό το μυστικό is more frequent.
In written or more formal Greek, you might see το μυστικό αυτό a bit more often, especially for rhetorical emphasis.
In Greek punctuation:
- The Greek question mark is written as a semicolon (;).
- The ordinary period (.) is the same as in English.
- The semicolon (;) in the English sense (between clauses) is normally replaced by a colon (:) or just a comma in modern Greek.
- There is also a raised dot (·) used like a semicolon/colon in more formal writing, but it’s less common in everyday texts.
So the final ; in μυστικό; is the normal Greek question mark.
The subject is the pronoun “you”, but in Greek it’s usually not written because it’s clear from the verb ending.
- Είσαι = “you are” (2nd person singular).
The -σαι ending already tells us the subject is “you (singular)”.
Greek is a pro‑drop language, meaning subject pronouns (εγώ, εσύ, αυτός...) are often omitted unless you want to stress them:
- Είσαι βέβαιη... – “You are sure…” (neutral)
- Εσύ είσαι βέβαιη... – “YOU are sure…” (emphasizing “you” as opposed to someone else)
For polite or plural “you”, Greek uses είστε and the corresponding plural forms for the other verbs:
Είστε βέβαιη ότι μπορείτε να κρατήσετε αυτό το μυστικό;
– to one woman you’re addressing politely (or to a group of women)Είστε βέβαιος ότι μπορείτε να κρατήσετε αυτό το μυστικό;
– to one man politely, or to a group of men/mixed group
Changes:
- είσαι → είστε (you are, singular → plural/polite)
- μπορείς → μπορείτε (you can, singular → plural/polite)
- κρατήσεις → κρατήσετε (2nd person singular → 2nd person plural subjunctive)
Approximate pronunciations (stressed syllables in CAPS):
Είσαι – EE-se
/ˈise/βέβαιη – VE-vi (often pronounced as two syllables)
/ˈve.vi/ (spelling suggests /ˈve.vi.i/, but in normal speech it usually sounds like two syllables)μπορείς – bo-REES
/boˈris/- μπ is pronounced like English b.
- οι sounds like ee (/i/).
μυστικό – mee-stee-KO
/mistiˈko/- υ often sounds like ee (/i/) here.
- Stress is on the last syllable -κό.
So the whole sentence roughly:
- EE-se VE-vi o-ti bo-REES na kra-TEE-sees af-TO to mis-ti-KO?
You mainly need to add the negation particle δεν and change “you are sure” to “I am not sure”:
- Δεν είμαι βέβαιη ότι μπορώ να κρατήσω αυτό το μυστικό.
“I’m not sure (f.) that I can keep this secret.”
For a man:
- Δεν είμαι βέβαιος ότι μπορώ να κρατήσω αυτό το μυστικό.
Key points:
- Δεν goes right before the verb:
δεν είμαι, δεν μπορώ, etc. - μπορώ να κρατήσω is the 1st person singular version of μπορείς να κρατήσεις.