lessons 41 + 42: past tense

lessons 41 + 42

 

shalom

ירושלים

This is the first lesson of the third memrise course unit:

http://www.memrise.com/course/82286/modern-hebrew-for-beginners-3/

A big step foreward: we're now entering the realms of the past tense and I am afraid that means quite a bit of grammar at first. But everything will be repeated over and over again until you don't find it difficult  any more but only boring ;-)



the past tense

the past tense in Hebrew is formed by adding specific endings to the basic form of the verb in question. The basic form however is already a past tense form, the one that does not have an ending: the third person masculine past tense. i.e. he said, he worked, he was, he ate, he loved.... . This form is the one you will find in a dictionary when looking up a new word and that's why it's so incredibly important. In the average European language traditions you'll have to look for the infinitive when searching in a dictionnary, in Hebrew you will have to know the third person singular masculine form. And for that you have to know your consonants:



the root consonants

a well behaved Hebrew verb has three root consonants, here a few examples:

k - t - b    for  to write
l - m - d   for  to learn
' - h  - v    for to love

these three root consonants can be found in every tense:  past, present and future. What changes are the vowels and the pre- and suffixes but the three root consonants, they stay put. This is something I'll be coming back to again and again in future posts so don't worry if you find it strange at first.

it can be visualised like this: first take a regular verb and then subtitute the consonants with an X and you get the basic structure, the basic principle, of how verb conjugation works:

root                        present tense                   past tense
consonants            masculine sg.                  3rd p.sg. masculine

l - m - d         :        l - o - m - e - d       :          l - a - m - a - d
X - X - X                X - o - X - e - X                 X - a - X - a - X



the first person singular past tense

it's simple now, you take the third person singular past tense and add a -ti

'ahavti, katavti, halachti, ra'iti., lamadti...  and so on
I loved, I wrote, I walked, I saw, I learned...
here, for once Hebrew doesn't distinguish between masculine and feminine.


in Hebrew it is not necessary to add the personal pronoun singular to the past tense because, contrary to the present tense, it is already evident in the verb ending. But to make things easier for beginners I think it doesn't hurt to keep the personal pronouns for a while.


the verb 'to be'

The verb to be, omitted in the present tense comes out into the daylight in the past tense.
And of course, like in most languages, 'to be' is not regular. The 3rd p. sg. masc. is hayah and the first person sg. is hayiti so this is something you'll have to learn individually since the rules won't help much.


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and here the list of new words and new forms for the memrise exercises:

אתמול                                 etmol                                            yesterday

לקרות                                 likrot                                              to happen

?מה קרה                             mah karah                                    what happened?

?מה קרה אתמול                   mah karah etmol                           what happened yesterday?

להיות                                  lihiot                                               to be

מה אתה רוצה להיות              mah ata rotzeh lihiot ?                  what do you want to be?           

אני הייתי                              anee hayiti                                     I was

אני הייתי בלונדון                    anee hayiti belondon                     I was in London

אני ראיתי                             anee raiti                                        I saw

אני ראיתי הים                       anee raiti hayam                            I saw the sea

אני הלכתי                            anee halachti                                  I went

אתמול אני הלכתי לקולנוע       etmol anee halachti lekolno'a        yesterday I went to the cinema