Θέλω (I want…)

Remember the meaning of Τι κάνεις; and Τι κάνετε;?

Both of these questions mean ‘How are you doing?’. The only difference is in politeness (or the number of people being addressed).

Τι κάνεις; is used to ask one person how they are.

Τι κάνετε; is used to ask several people, or to address one person politely.

Like κάνω/κάνεις (I do/you do), θέλω/θέλεις (I want/you want) is an example of a regular verb in Modern Greek.

What about the waiter’s question, Τι θέλετε, παρακαλώ; (What do you want, please?)?

Judging by the ending, can you guess whether the waiter is asking one or several people for their order?

Just like Τι κάνετε; the question Τι θέλετε; ends with –ετε, which tells us that the waiter is speaking politely, perhaps to a group.

Modern Greek has two main types of active verbs; Group A and Group B.

Group A verbs, like κάνω and θέλω, end with an unstressed –ω.

Group B verbs, like παρακαλώ, end with a stressed –ώ.

Here are all of the different endings of θέλω:

Note that you’ve already seen half of the endings of Group A verbs: –ω, –εις, and –ετε should all look familiar.

Listen to Eva from Omilo pronounce all of these forms, with example sentences:

Now, referring to the table at the top of page 35 in Ελληνικά Τώρα (Greek Now) 1+1, complete the exercises on that page, describing what different people want.

Next, try exercises A and B on page 11, and exercise Γ on page 12 of the Ελληνικά Τώρα (Greek Now) 1 workbook.

In addition to θέλω (I want) and θέλεις/θέλετε (you want), another very useful form to remember is θέλει (it wants).

Watch this Linguatree video (using subtitles!) about the hidden uses of θέλει:

At this stage, stick to practicing describing what people want. But it’s good to keep this additional use of θέλει (similar to how we might say ‘the plant wants watering’ in English) in mind – it’s like getting two verbs for the price of one!