Breakdown of Ο υπάλληλος μού είπε να περιμένω στην ουρά και να έχω μαζί μου την ταυτότητα.
Questions & Answers about Ο υπάλληλος μού είπε να περιμένω στην ουρά και να έχω μαζί μου την ταυτότητα.
Ο is the masculine singular definite article (the). It marks υπάλληλος as a specific person: the employee/clerk. In Greek, common nouns usually take an article when you mean a particular one in context.
υπάλληλος means employee or clerk/official (often in an office, bank, public service desk, etc.). It’s neutral-to-formal and very common in service/administrative contexts.
It’s the same word (μου = to me / my), but it’s sometimes written as μού to make the stress clear or to avoid ambiguity in reading. In modern everyday writing, you’ll often see μου without the accent; both are acceptable depending on style.
μού is an unstressed object pronoun meaning to me. With είπε (said/told), it marks the person who received the message: (He/She) told me.
Greek often uses λέω / είπα (say / said) where English uses tell. So μού είπε is the normal way to express he/she told me. You can also say μου είπε (same meaning).
να introduces a clause in the subjunctive. After verbs like είπε (said/told), Greek commonly uses να + subjunctive to report instructions, requests, or what someone said should happen. Here it’s like: (He/She) told me to wait…
Because the sentence is reported from my perspective. The employee told me what I should do, so Greek uses 1st person in the subordinate clause: να περιμένω = for me to wait / that I should wait.
Not exactly. It functions like an instruction in meaning, but grammatically it’s subjunctive (introduced by να), not an imperative form. Greek often expresses “told/asked/ordered someone to…” with να + subjunctive.
στην is a contraction of σε + την = in/to the (feminine singular).
So στην ουρά literally means in the line/queue.
ουρά is a feminine noun (it also means tail, but in this context it means queue/line). After σε (in/to), it takes the accusative in modern Greek, so you get στην ουρά (accusative).
Greek often repeats να before each coordinated verb in the subjunctive: να περιμένω … και να έχω…. It’s the most natural/clear form. You may sometimes see να περιμένω … και να έχω… with only one να at the start, but repeating it is very common and stylistically smooth.
μαζί means together/with, and μου is me.
So μαζί μου literally is with me (i.e., on me / in my possession). Greek commonly uses this phrasing to mean to have something along with you.