# I missed you



## painkiller735

Hi all,
i wonder how we say 'i missed you' in *greek*?


----------



## linguist786

I'm taking a wild guess here, and natives will have to confirm (or diss!)

σας έχασα.


----------



## painkiller735

But i don't know all those letters so i don't know how they're read in greek.


----------



## Whodunit

linguist786 said:
			
		

> I'm taking a wild guess here, and natives will have to confirm (or diss!)
> 
> σας έχασα.


 
I'd read it as "zas echaza". However,, I'd use "σε" instead of "σας".


----------



## painkiller735

'zas echaza'...Thank you very much


----------



## Whodunit

painkiller735 said:
			
		

> 'zas echaza'...Thank you very much


 
Oops, I just realized that it should be "zaz echaza". "σ" and "ς" is the same letter. 

The "z" represents the pronunciation of soft "s" as in English "*z*ebra".


----------



## painkiller735

Hmm,ok then.!Thanks again


----------



## parakseno

I'd translate it as:

Μου λείπεις (mu lipis). Actually, μου έλειψες (mu elipses) since you used past.
Despina knows why .


----------



## modus.irrealis

I agree with parakseno's μου έλειψες. Σας έχασα means "I lost you" so I guess in some contexts it could mean "I missed you" but not in the usual sense.



			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> Oops, I just realized that it should be "zaz echaza". "σ" and "ς" is the same letter.
> 
> The "z" represents the pronunciation of soft "s" as in English "*z*ebra".


Acutally, Greek σ is never pronounced like "z" before a vowel (or between them). And another difference between Greek and German I've noticed is that the sound of Greek χ depends on the following vowel (so σας έχασα is [sas'exasa]), while in German it depends on the preceeding vowel, right?


----------



## Whodunit

modus.irrealis said:
			
		

> Acutally, Greek σ is never pronounced like "z" before a vowel (or between them).


 
I'm not aware of the correct Greek pronunciation, but "z" was supposed to stand for a soft s as in *z*oo. Would you say that the sigma is pronounced like the"s" in *s*o?



> And another difference between Greek and German I've noticed is that the sound of Greek χ depends on the following vowel (so σας έχασα is [sas'exasa]), while in German it depends on the preceeding vowel, right?


 
Yes, it does, but ... which are the two allophones in Greek? How do you pronounce/distinguish them? In German it is [χ] (after a,o, u) and [ç] (after e, i, ä, ö, ü, and all consonants).


----------



## modus.irrealis

Whodunit said:
			
		

> I'm not aware of the correct Greek pronunciation, but "z" was supposed to stand for a soft s as in *z*oo. Would you say that the sigma is pronounced like the"s" in *s*o?


Before vowels, yes. Sigma is like "z" in zoo only before voiced consonants, so σεισμός is pronounced [sizmos].



> Yes, it does, but ... which are the two allophones in Greek? How do you pronounce/distinguish them? In German it is [χ] (after a,o, u) and [ç] (after e, i, ä, ö, ü, and all consonants).


I've read that they're the same as in German. χ is [x] (my reference grammar uses this symbol, but I don't know if it differs from [χ]) in all cases except before ε, αι, ι, η, υ, οι, ει, where it's [ç].

I remember taking German in university for my humanities requirement and I had problems with words like machen since my tongue just didn't want to say [x] before a front vowel.


----------



## Whodunit

modus.irrealis said:
			
		

> Before vowels, yes. Sigma is like "z" in zoo only before voiced consonants, so σεισμός is pronounced [sizmos].


 
That's interesting. I didn't even know that sigma can represent two different sounds.



> I've read that they're the same as in German. χ is [x] (my reference grammar uses this symbol, but I don't know if it differs from [χ]) in all cases except before ε, αι, ι, η, υ, οι, ει, where it's [ç].


 
Same in German. FYI, [x] and [χ] are actually two different sounds, but most books use [x] only, unless there is [χ] in the same language (which I'd doubt), too. 



> I remember taking German in university for my humanities requirement and I had problems with words like machen since my tongue just didn't want to say [x] before a front vowel.


 
I thought it would be much more complicated to say Eichhörnchen.


----------



## janecito

modus.irrealis said:
			
		

> Before vowels, yes. Sigma is like "z" in zoo only before voiced consonants, so σεισμός is pronounced [sizmos].


 Wow, I didn't know that. I thought σ was pronounced as [z] only before [m] (μ) > κόσμος [kózmos], but looks like more voiced consonants (β, γ, δ, ζ, μ, ν, ρ). Had to check my Greek Grammar Book again. 

 My knowledge of Greek phonetics is still very poor, so I was trying to apply the Spanish one here.  I thought that wouldn't be so bad as I find these two languages phonetically incredibly similar. In Spanish the only S pronounced as [z] is the one standing before M, unlike in most of the other Romance languages that know the sonorization of (single) S ([z]) in all intervocalic positions (_it._ ca*s*a, _fr._ mai*s*on).


----------



## Zanos

janecito said:
			
		

> My knowledge of Greek phonetics is still very poor, so I was trying to apply the Spanish one here.  I thought that wouldn't be so bad as I find these two languages phonetically incredibly similar.



Greek and Spanish are really very similar(phonetically).I personally find it preety weird...
"I missed you = Μου έλειψες" which would actually be "Μου 'λειψες.." which sounds like {moúlipses}


----------

