lessons 39 and 40: adjectives

lessons 39 and 40


שבת

 

 

have a look at the exercises:

 

http://www.memrise.com/course/80807/modern-hebrew-for-beginners-2-2/

יום שישי                  yom shishi                       Friday

שבת                       shabbat                             Saturday

תשע עשרה              tsha' essreh                        nineteen

עשרים                    essrim                                 twenty

יפה                         yafeh                                  beautiful (masc.)

יפה                         yafah                                  beautiful (fem.)

איש                         ish                                      man

אשה                        ishah                                  woman

איש יפה                   ish yafeh                            a beautiful man

אשה יפה                  ishah yafah                         a beautiful woman

מענין                        me'anyen                            interesting (masc.)

מענינת                      me'anyenet                         interesting (fem.)

ספר מענין                 sefer me'anyen                    an interesting book

עיר מענינת                 'ir me'anyenet                      an interesting city

הספר מענינת             ha sefer me'anyen               the book is interesting

העיר מענינת               ha'ir me'anyenet                 the city is interesting

הספר המענינת           hasefer hame'anyen             the interesting book

העיר המענינת             ha'ir hame'anyenet              the interesting city

about sentence structure, the indefinite article 'a' and the verb 'to be' in the present tense: 

this is quite an interesting, puzzle like aspect of Hebrew grammar we are dealing with today because of all the omissions we have to subtitute:


We already learned that the present tense of the verb 'to be' is omitted in Hebrew, it is around but nor visible, like a under cover agent, and you have to add it in in your head, to understand what's going on. Especially if your native language is English or German or French and similar ones where it needs to be explicitly stated. If your lanaguage is Russian however I have been told that it works like Hebrew in this instance.

so a sentence like 'ha 'ir yafah' needs to be translated with 'the city is beautiful'

Also, you already know, the indefinite article does not exist in Hebrew, it is implied. So wherever so see a noun on its own, just remember that it would have an 'a' if it were to be translated into English.

'sefer tov' needs to be translated with 'a good book'

And finally when you do have the definite article and it appears in front of the noun and in front of the adjective you have to puase and say to yourself: oups! this is special, it means that there is no verb missin here, it means the the noun and the adjective are linked closely together in a descriptive mode:

'ha 'ir ha yafah' needs to be translated with 'the interesting city'. This time the omission is in English because we don't say 'the city the interesting'

So, when encountering adjectives and nouns together you have to think of a lot of things in the beginning (later on you'll just understand it instinctively):

- nouns and adjectives have a gender: 'ir is femnine, sefer is masculine.

- adjectives need to take on the same gender as the noun they accompany. sefer tov (both masc.)

- if there is no definite article the indefinite article is implied. 'ir yafah = a beautiful city

- if there is no verb, but a definite article, chances are high that an under cover 'to be'
   in the present tense is around:  ha 'ir yafah = the city is beautiful

- if both the noun and the adjective is accompanied by a definite article then there is
  no undercover 'to be' around and it's a purely descriptive clause. ha'ir hayafah = the beautiful city

- and last but not least, adjectives come after the noun, exactly opposite to English
  sefer tov = a book good = a good book

That's quite a lot in the beginnig and I only mention it all here to be systematic. But it really isn't all that difficult, it just needs practising a little and we'll get a lot more examples in the posts to come. Never let yourself be intimidated by grammar. Grammar is just a very nice tool to help us understand the structures behind what's going on in a language. It saves huge amounts of effort and time. Imagine you would have to learn every single thing by heart without understanding the rules... it would be an endless tasks.

shalom and lehitra'ot to you all and erev tov!
Anna