Greek Past Tenses: Making Peace with Aoristos and Paratatikos

If you have been learning Greek for a while, you’ve probably reached that magical (and sometimes mysterious) moment when you want to talk about something that already happened.

That’s when two important Greek tenses appear: Aoristos and Paratatikos —> the most used Greek past tenses.

They sound fancy, but they are just your new storytelling friends. And once you get to know them, you’ll start sounding a lot more like a native Greek speaker

Meet Mr. Aoristos (Αόριστος) – The Simple Guy

Aoristos means Simple Past in Greek. He’s direct, efficient, and never overcomplicates things.
He is the tense for completed actions —> things that happened once and are now done.

✏️ Example:
Έφαγα ένα σουβλάκι. → I ate a souvlaki.

That’s it. You ate it. Finished. No drama. Aoristos tells you what happened,  fast and clean,  and then moves on.

He’s the Greek grammar equivalent of “mission accomplished.”
Read more