If you’re an English speaker learning Greek, you may have come across phrases like:

ελπίζω ο καιρός να είναι καλός
I hope the weather will be good

…and found yourself scratching your head. Why, you might wonder, does “the weather” (ο καιρός) seem to be relegated to a spot before the connector να? In English, we’d say, “I hope that the weather is good,” keeping “the weather” after ‘that’. In Greek, though, να doesn’t play along with this structure.

It all comes down to understanding να for what it really is – a subjunctive marker, and not a conjunction.

Say Na Na Na – for Greek

The particle να is very picky about what it allows around it: να must precede the verb, forming a neat package with it, leaving no room for anything else in between. The only exception is the word μην, not. This structure – with ‘weather’ heading it – places the whole clause, ο καιρός να είναι καλός, as the object of ελπίζω (“I hope”).

In Greek, the construction feels natural, while to English speakers, it may look like ελπίζω is just left hanging without an obvious subject. But once we appreciate να as a subjunctive marker rather than a conjunction, the structure makes more sense.

Let’s look at a few other examples where this subjunctive magic word order comes into play:

Ελπίζω η Ελένη να έρθει σύντομα.
I hope Helen comes soon.

Ελπίζω ο γιατρός να είναι ευχαριστημένος.
I hope the doctor is happy.

Recognising να as a subjunctive marker – and that ‘hope’ takes a whole clause as its complement – transforms how we see these Greek structures. Instead of expecting conjunctions and noun placements as in English, we come to appreciate how να insists on a tidy verb clause, helping Greek verbs express hope, wishes, and desires in their own neat way.