Breakdown of Όταν υπάρχει απεργία στη συγκοινωνία, ζητάω από τη φίλη μου να με πάρει με το αυτοκίνητο.
Questions & Answers about Όταν υπάρχει απεργία στη συγκοινωνία, ζητάω από τη φίλη μου να με πάρει με το αυτοκίνητο.
Όταν means when(ever) and is typically used for things that happen repeatedly or as a general pattern (habitual situations): “Whenever there’s a strike…”.
Αν means if and frames the situation more as a condition or hypothetical: “If there’s a strike…”. In many contexts both could work, but Όταν sounds more like a routine/expected circumstance.
Greek commonly uses the present tense with Όταν to express a general, repeated situation: Whenever there is a strike…
If you wanted a specific past event, you’d use a past form: Όταν υπήρχε/έγινε απεργία… depending on meaning. For a future event, you often still use a present form in the clause with όταν, while the main clause can show future meaning.
υπάρχει means there exists / there is. It’s the natural verb for “there is/are” in Greek: υπάρχει απεργία = “there’s a strike.”
είναι (“is”) can be used in some contexts, but υπάρχει is more idiomatic for “there is a strike (happening).”
στη is a contracted form of σε + τη(ν) = “in/on/to the.”
Greek often drops the -ν in την before certain consonants. Before σ (as in συγκοινωνία), τη συγκοινωνία is very common, so you get στη συγκοινωνία.
You may also see στην συγκοινωνία; it’s not “wrong,” just a different choice about keeping the -ν.
In this context, η συγκοινωνία means transportation / public transport / transit (buses, metro, etc.).
It can be confusing because it’s related historically to “connection,” but in everyday modern Greek συγκοινωνία commonly refers to public transport.
Greek often expresses “ask (someone) to do something” as:
ζητάω από + person + να + verb
So ζητάω από τη φίλη μου literally is “I ask from my friend…,” meaning “I ask my friend…”. It’s a common Greek structure.
Sometimes, but it changes what it sounds like. Without από, ζητάω τη φίλη μου can easily be understood as “I look for my friend / I request my friend” (depending on context), and it’s less clearly “I ask my friend to…”.
Using από makes the “asking someone” structure very clear and idiomatic.
να introduces a clause that works like an English infinitive (“to…”) or a “that…” clause. Modern Greek doesn’t use an infinitive the way English does, so instead of “I ask my friend to pick me up,” Greek uses να:
ζητάω … να με πάρει = “I ask … to pick me up.”
να με πάρει uses the perfective form (often associated with a single, complete action): “to pick me up (one time, as a completed act).”
να με παίρνει would be imperfective and could suggest a repeated/ongoing action, like “to be picking me up / to pick me up regularly.”
With a specific “come get me” action, να με πάρει is the normal choice.
Here με is the object pronoun meaning me (“pick me up”).
Greek object pronouns typically come before the verb: με πάρει = “pick me up.”
They’re two different words that just happen to look the same:
- με (pronoun) = me
- με (preposition) = with / by (means of)
So με το αυτοκίνητο means “by car / with the car.” Context usually makes it clear which one it is.
Greek commonly uses με + vehicle to express by (means of) a vehicle:
με το αυτοκίνητο = “by car.”
You can express “in the car” as location with στο αυτοκίνητο, but here the meaning is about the means of transport, so με is the natural choice.
Greek possessives like μου/σου/του/της normally come after the noun:
η φίλη μου = “my friend.”
Placing it before the noun is generally not the standard neutral pattern in Modern Greek.
η φίλη is “(female) friend.” For a male friend you’d say ο φίλος μου.
So you’d get: ζητάω από τον φίλο μου να με πάρει… (“I ask my (male) friend to pick me up…”)
They are the same verb.
- ζητάω is very common in everyday speech (more “spoken” feel).
- ζητώ is also correct and can sound a bit more formal or concise (though it’s not unusual either).