Here is your first paradigm. Learn it properly and the next dozen come much more easily, because most of them are variations on it.
λύω — I loose, untie
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | λύω | λύομεν |
| 2nd | λύεις | λύετε |
| 3rd | λύει | λύουσι(ν) |
The stem is λυ-; everything after it is ending. The ν in brackets is a movable nu, added before a vowel or at a pause, and it carries no meaning at all — it is there for the ear.
Notice what you do not need. There is no word for I, you or we anywhere in that table. The ending carries it. When Greek does write out a pronoun as well, it is usually making a point of it.
εἰμί — the verb to be
Irregular, and about as common as a word can get. Learn it separately and learn it now.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | εἰμί | ἐσμέν |
| 2nd | εἶ | ἐστέ |
| 3rd | ἐστί(ν) | εἰσί(ν) |
οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἠγέρθη γὰρ
"He is not here, for he has been raised." Two verbs, and between them most of chapter 2: ἔστιν is present, ἠγέρθη is aorist passive with its augment showing.
ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς
"I am the bread of life." Here the pronoun ἐγώ is written out, even though εἰμι already says I. That is the emphasis I mentioned above, and in John's Gospel it is doing a great deal of work.
The present is not simply "now"
Greek tense encodes aspect first and time second. The present is imperfective: the action seen from inside, as going on or repeated.
So πιστεύει can be "he believes", "he is believing", or "he keeps on believing". The form does not settle which, and a translation has to choose. When a sermon leans hard on "keeps on believing", this is the grammar it is leaning on — and the honest thing to say is that the present allows it rather than requires it.
Because it is about aspect rather than time, one form covers several jobs that English splits between different constructions.
The simple present just states it: I loose.
The progressive present presents it as under way, and it is very common in narrative and in speech:
Κύριε, σῶσον, ἀπολλύμεθα
"Lord, save us — we are perishing." Not we perish. The disciples are in the middle of it.
The historical present is a past event told in the present tense, for vividness:
Καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς αὐτὸν λεπρὸς
"And a leper comes to him." The event is past; Mark writes ἔρχεται, present, and puts you in the room. He does this constantly, and many English translations quietly convert it to a past tense — so if you have only ever read this in English, you have never seen it.
None of these is a different tense. They are one form, and the sentence decides which reading it carries. That is what it means to say Greek encodes aspect first and time second.
The future: add σ
The future active is the present with a σ between stem and ending.
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | λύσω | λύσομεν |
| 2nd | λύσεις | λύσετε |
| 3rd | λύσει | λύσουσι(ν) |
When that σ meets a stop consonant they combine, and the combinations are worth knowing because they hide the stem: κ, γ, χ + σ → ξ (ἄγω → ἄξω); π, β, φ + σ → ψ (βλέπω → βλέψω); τ, δ, θ simply drop (πείθω → πείσω).
ποιήσω ὑμᾶς ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων
"I will make you fishers of men." ποιήσω is ποιέω with the future sigma; the contract verb has lengthened its final vowel first, which is a pattern you meet properly in chapter 19.
Some very common verbs have futures you will simply have to learn: εἰμί → ἔσομαι, γινώσκω → γνώσομαι, λαμβάνω → λήμψομαι, ὁράω → ὄψομαι. Notice they are middle in form. That is a preview of chapter 12, and not something to worry about yet.
Saying no
Greek has two negatives and they divide by mood, not by strength.
οὐ negates the indicative — a statement about what is:
Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις κύριον τὸν θεόν σου
"You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." A future indicative, so οὐ.
μή negates everything else — subjunctive, imperative, infinitive, participle:
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν
"And lead us not into temptation." That is a subjunctive, so μή. If you can see which negative a writer used, you already know something about the mood of the verb before you have parsed it.
That division holds about nine times in ten, and the commonest exception earns its keep. μή can open a question with an indicative in it, and when it does it tells you the speaker expects the answer no:
μή τι προσφάγιον ἔχετε;
"Do you have any fish?" ἔχετε is an indicative, and the negative is μή because of what the question is doing rather than because of the mood: it tells you Jesus expects the answer no. John supplies it in the next clause — Οὔ.
οὐ also changes shape to suit what follows: οὐ before a consonant, οὐκ before a smooth breathing, οὐχ before a rough one. Three spellings, one word.
What to watch for
The third person singular λύει and the second person singular λύεις differ by one letter, and you will read past that letter more than once. So will the future λύσει, which differs from the present λύει by the sigma alone.
There is no trick for this. It is why the grid drill exists, and why filling the table in from memory is worth more than reading it ten times.