Lesson 4.3 · Verbs
The present
Action going on now, or going on as a rule.
The last letter of a verb says when. If it ends in
-ō, it is happening now — or happening
repeatedly, or generally true:
That is the whole present tense. Here it is for all six persons — and note that only the middle letter moves:
agapamō | I love | agapanō | we love |
agapasō | you love | agapavō | ye love |
agapatō | he / she / it loves | agapalō | they love |
Three English tenses in one
English splits this into "I love", "I am loving" and "I do love". One form covers all three here, and the context decides which sounds best in English:
nis agapanō, hoti autos prōtos agapata nin.
We love, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
agapanō ends in -ō: it is going on now.
agapata ends in -a: that one is past, and
it is the next lesson but one.
In the Greek — a tense about kind, not just time
Greek's present is really about ongoing action — action viewed as in progress — and only secondarily about the present moment. That is why it is often best translated "is loving" rather than "loves", and why it turns up in past narrative ("and he says to them…") where English would use a past tense. Lesson 4.6 takes this up properly.