# ακόμα as "still" or "more"



## OssianX

Ritsos has a sentence, "Είταν τότε [after the accidental death of a child] που μιλούσαμε ακόμη για ποίηση."  Context usually makes the meaning of ακόμα clear enough, but here I can't tell whether it's "we still talked about poetry" or "we talked more about poetry" -- was the event a new inducement to talk about poetry, or more or less the end of our talking about poetry?  Is the sentence ambiguous, or am I (as I do too often!) making up a difficulty that doesn't really exist in the Greek?

The poem is called "ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΠΡΙΝ" which I suppose could mean either "Years Ago" (but isn't that usually "πριν από χρόνια"?) or "Years Before."  If that's true (??), then I suppose the choice is probably linked with the choice about "μιλούσαμε ακόμη."


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## elliest_5

Oh there's a poem I know! I think that it's pretty clear that ακόμα means still. 

Actually, ακόμα means "more" only in very specific contexts, in particular in combination with something denoting an amount  ("λίγο/πολύ ακόμα"= some/much more, "ακόμα δύο/τρία" two/three more) and I think that literally it is more accurate to relate "ακομα" to the word "even"  (I think that more uses of "ακoμα" correspond to the uses of "even" rather than the uses of more)

Χρόνια πριν means years ago. You'd need a further component (like an event) in order to translate it as "before" (before+ what?)


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## OssianX

Thanks, elliest_5.  That's pretty much what I thought, but I was far from sure and it's good to have confirmation.  I'm still slightly puzzled, because at least in English "still" comes rather oddly after "It was then" (at the beginning of the sentence).  Does that really mean something like "It was from then on," "It was after that"?  I'm not aware of τότε having those meanings -- but then, there's an awful lot I'm not aware of.

I'm curious: where did you come across this poem?  The book is comes from is not a widely known one among Ritsos's 100+.


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## elliest_5

OssianX said:


> Thanks, elliest_5.  That's pretty much what I thought, but I was far from sure and it's good to have confirmation.  I'm still slightly puzzled, because at least in English "still" comes rather oddly after "It was then" (at the beginning of the sentence).  Does that really mean something like "It was from then on," "It was after that"?  I'm not aware of τότε having those meanings -- but then, there's an awful lot I'm not aware of.
> 
> I'm curious: where did you come across this poem?  The book is comes from is not a widely known one among Ritsos's 100+.


I think "ήταν τότε" here means "(it was) back then (that)  we  still..." 

At the final year of highschool we had a section in literature with the general theme "poetry about poetry" (poems that contain comments about poetry) and our teacher had given it to us as a parallel text.


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## OssianX

elliest_5 said:


> I think "ήταν τότε" here means "(it was) back then (that)  we  still..."
> 
> At the final year of highschool we had a section in literature with the general theme "poetry about poetry" (poems that contain comments about poetry) and our teacher had given it to us as a parallel text.



I understand about ήταν τότε, I think: something like "At that time…"  Thank you.

Interesting about the school encounter with this poem!  No translation of it into English has been published as far as I know.  It think it's wonderful.  (But then, I'm obsessed with this whole book.)


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## an-alfabeto

I copy you from ΜΕΛ the uses of *ακόμη*, just in case you need them. 

*ακόμη* κ. *ακόμα* επιρρ.
1. με χρονική σημασία δηλώνει: α) ότι μια πράξη συνεχίζεται (σε καταφατικές προτάσεις): κοιμάται ακόμη - ακόμα κάθεται στην άκρη του δρόμου β) ότι μια πράξη πρόκειται ή επρόκειτο να γίνει (σε αρνητικές προτάσεις): ακόμη δεν φάνηκε - όταν φτάσαμε, δεν ήταν έτοιμοι ακόμη.
2. με ποσοτική σημασία: α) με αριθμητικά ή επίθ. για να δηλωθεί προσθήκη: πάρε ακόμη 2.000 για να σου φτάσουν - δεν πήρες αρκετό, πάρε ακόμη λίγο β) με τον συνδ. *και* πριν ή μετά από όνομα για επίταση έννοιας: ακόμα και οι συγγενείς του αδιαφόρησαν - όλοι θα δώσουν λόγο στη δικαιοσύνη ακόμη και ο πρωθυπουργός rolleyes:) γ) με συγκριτικό επίθ. ή επίρρ. για να δηλωθεί το περισσότερο: έγινε ακόμη αυστηρότερος - όσο μεγαλώνει γίνεται ομορφότερη δ) με τοπικά επιρ.: ακόμα πάνω -ακόμα δεξιά (πιο πάνω - πιο δεξιά)


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## OssianX

Thanks, an-alfabeto.  What _is_ ΜΕΛ?


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## an-alfabeto

OssianX said:


> Thanks, an-alfabeto. What _is_ ΜΕΛ?


 
Μείζον Ελληνικό Λεξικό: a pretty good dictionary of Modern Greek, with synonyms, opposites, adverbs, some phrases, proper nouns, abbreviations and (I think the better for no native speakers) search by phonetic when you don’t know the spelling. You can download it for free, but I can’t tell which of the links are safe. Have a look.


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## OssianX

Thanks, an-alfabeto.  I didn't know about this.  Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a version that runs on the Mac.  But the search did lead me to this: 

http://www.magenta.gr/index.php/Software/Electronic-Dictionaries-for-MacOS-X/

It seems decent, and it will be handy to have a G-E/E-G dictionary on the computer that does not require me to be online.  So thanks.


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