lesson 70: mini dialogue 3 'erev tov'

lesson 70
mini dialogue number 3

erev tov

Erev tov. Mah atem rotzim?
                                                       Shalom.
                                                       Kafeh ve ougah bevakashah.
 
                                                                                                           Yesh ougat gvinah?

Ken. Ougat gvinah ve ougat shokolad.

                                                                                                           Ougat gvinah bishvili
                                                                                                           ve kos ma'im.

Tov. Ve bishvilcha?

                                                       Ougat shokolad ve kafeh im chalav.



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now take a minute to try and remember all the words we already learned

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and here are the new ones:

erev = evening
kos = glass
ma'im = water

bishvil
bishvil means for
and then you just add the personal ending
(it's exactly the same method as with the direct object endings: oti, otcha, otach, oto, otah ...)

bishvili                  for me
bishvilcha             for you (masc.)
bishvilech             for you (fem.)
bishvilo                 for him
bishvilah               for her

bishvilenou           for us
bishvilchem          for you (plural masc.)
bishvilchen           for you (plural fem.)
bishvilam              for them (masc.)
bishvilan               for them (fem.)


                                                                                                         

lesson 69: present tense plural (3)

lesson 69

 

achshav anee mevin!

now I understand (masc.)

to complete the plural forms of our twenty verbs in the present tense, we still have to do five more.   Again they work in the same way and again they have a few quirks as verbs just tend to have in any language:

mevin - mevinah - mevinim - mevinot             understand

gar - garah - garim - garot                                live / reside

tzarich - tzrichah - tzrichim - tzrichot             need / must / have to

yachol - yecholah - yecholim - yecholot           can

ba - ba'ah - ba'im - ba'ot                                  come



and some examples:

anachnou ba'aim

aten garot be Tel Aviv?

hem tzrichim lishtot ma'im

anachnou mevinim aval lo rotzim lavo

hen lo yecholot lavo be yom rishon


future lessons:
over the next few lesson we'll be doing the plural forms of verbs in the past tense, quite a few dialogues and a lot more vocabulary. And then after a while the future tense of our 20 verbs.

lesson 68 mini dialogue 2

lesson 68
mini dialogue number 2

                                          Aifo hayit? Ra'it mah hasha'ah?
                                          Slicha! Anee mitzta'er!
                                          Mah karah?
                                          Hayou be'ayot biglal hashvitah be Tel Aviv.
                                          Eiso shvitah?
                                          Hashvitat autobousim. Lo shamata hachadashot?


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now take some time to figure out what it means before you look at the translation


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 Where were you? Did you see what time it is?

 Excuse me. I am sorry!

 What happend?

 There were problems because of the strike in Te Aviv

 Which strike?

 The bus strike. Didn't you hear the news?

 

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and a little bit of grammar:

remember the constructed forms used for composite nouns in adding a 't'? here's another example:

shvitah + autobus = shvitat autobus

exactly like

ougah + gvinah = ougat gvinah

lesson 67: present tense plural (2)

lesson 67

 

more plural

 

anachnou ro'im otcha

 

Another boring post today, I am afraid. But sometimes grammar just needs to be worked through.
So far this blog has done quite a bit of grammar with very little vocabuary and that's why I am planning a few posts for the near future that will concentrate on new vocabulary. Together with tips and tricks on how to learn a lot of words fast.

OK, so here's today's group of verbs and they all work in the same way in the present tense plural:

ro'eh - ro'ah - ro'im - ro'ot                        see

rotzeh - rotzah - rotzim - rotzot                want

osseh - ossah - ossim - ossot                       do

shoteh - shotah - shotim - shotot               drink

koreh - korah - korim - korot                   happen


and some examples:

anachnou rotzim lalechet lekolno'a
aten rotzot ougah?

anachnou ossim klum
hen ossot mashou chacham     

anachnou shotim bira
hen shotot kafeh ve chalav?

anachnou ro'ot ha yam
atem ro'im ha bait?

lesson 66: present tense plural (1)

lesson 66

 

anachnou korim

 

 

 

Long promised and finally here: verb conjugation in the present tense: plural. As I said before it's fairly easy and thus a perfect opportunity to revise all the verbs we did so far.
 
today we will get started with the verbs who behave like lomed - lomedet in the present tense singular because they all work the same.

masculine: I, you, he read(s)      =    anee, ata, hou kore

feminine: I, you, she reads(s )  =     anee, at, hee koret

 

In the plural the masculine ending is always -im and the feminine always -ot

(the same as with nouns):

 

 masculine: we, you, they read   =    anachnou, atem, hem korim

feminine: we, you, they read   =  anachnou, aten, hen korot

             

 other verbs that work in the same way are:


medaber- medaberet    :     medabrim - medabrot            speak
'oved - 'ovedet               :     'ovdim - 'ovdot                        work
'ochel - 'ochelet             :     'ochlim - 'ochlot                       eat
kotev - kotevet              :      kotvim - kotvot                       write
holech - holechet           :      holchim - holchot                   go/walk
'omer - 'omeret             :      omrim - omrot                        say
'ohev - 'ohevet               :      ohavim - ohavot                      love
lomed - lomedet            :      lomdim - lomdot                     learn

now, if you look closely they all have little quirks (except for kore- koret), mostly they lose an 'e' before attaching the plural ending. It looks confusing at first but it is fairly regular. It's just one of those things one has to get used to and with a little practice it will look and sound completely normal in no time at all.

 and here some mini-sentences for every plural form:

anachnou medabrim anglit
hen medabrot ivrit
anachnou ovdim be Tel Aviv
aten ovdot be Haifa?
anachnou ochlim ougat pereg
hen ochlot tapouzim
anachnou kotvim sefer
hen kotvot iton
anchanou hochlim le kolno'a
le'an aten hochlot?
mah omrim be ivrit?
mah aten omrot?
anachnou ohavim ha yam
hen ohavot Israel
anachnou omrim ivrit
aten omrot anglit?

an experiment

or

how to introduce dialogues to this blog

                                                rotzah kafeh?
                                                ken, bevakashah.
                                                'im chalav?
                                                ken.
                                                kafeh im chalav!
                                                todah rabah!


nothing new here of course, just a little repetition in the form of a mini dialogue. So far this blog was totally focused on grammar and of course that's boring. I did it because I was so frustrated with all the books and other materials I came across. Bad explanations, not enough examples, breathtaking progression and vertigo inducing transfer. I need grammar in small chunks for myself with lots of examples and repetitive explanations. Otherwise it doesn't enter my brain. That's how this blog was born. But lately I have become bored myself with all the bland grammar and word lists. So I've been thinking what I could do to to make it all a bit more fun. With my limited abilities and means. And here's my first experiment. And yes, I know I can't draw and the photo isn't great either. But it's a beginning and I'll work on it.

lesson 65

 

 do you know Rony Edry and his amazing peace campaign?

 

here his TED talk:

and have a look at the facebook page:

 

https://www.facebook.com/israellovesiran

  

 

so how do we say We love you (plural)  in Hebrew?

 anachnou ohavim etchem!

and now comes the grammar, brace yourselves:

we did ohev - ohevet the present tense of to love very early on in this course. ohavim is the masculine plural form and has the plural ending -im we encountered -im already in the sentence mah omrim be ivrit? (how do we say in Hebrew). The  plural verb forms will be discussed in depth in the next lessons. For today we just need ohavim.

we learned to say I love you (singulr) quite a while ago:
anee ohev otach       anee ohev otcha       anee ohevet otach      anee ohevet otcha


and we did anachnou (and the others) in the last lesson
etchem is the direct object of  anachnou and that's why the atem becomes etchem

in grammatical terms the sentence looks like this:
we (the subject of the sentence) love (act on) you (the direct object of the sentence)

anachnou ohavim etchem!

we just revised the form of the direct object of the personal pronouns in the last lesson:

oti      = me
otcha = you (masc.)
otach = you (fem.)
oto     = him
otah  = her

and here are the new plural forms:

otanou = us
etchem = you (masc.)
etchen  = you (fem.)
otam    = them (masc.)
otan     = them (fem.)

it's a bit finicky to always distinguish between the masculine and the feminine forms. But in real life you don't need the feminine forms all that much because they're only used if the group you address or talk about is composed entirely of women. As in French, if there's one male you immediately switch to the masculine form. Languages arent very political correct. Most languages are in fact quite chauvinistic. But it really doesn't matter whether I like it or not, it is just as it is. And it makes our lives as learners much easier.

This was quite  bit of dry grammar today. Unfortunately we can't do without. But the next lessons will be easier again with lots of repetitions and lots of examples.

lesson 64



tapouzim

The next few lessons will all focus on the plural forms of our 20 verbs. The plural forms are really easy with totally regular endings. To get started we need the personal pronouns, so here we go:


we already know:

anee   = I
ata     = you (masc.)
at       = you (fem.)
hou    = he
hee     = she

and here comes the plural

anachnou = we
atem         = you (masc.)* 
aten          = you (fem.)*
hem          = they (masc.)
hen           = they (fem.)

* as in you guys. Since English makes no distinction between 2nd person singular and plural this is always a little ambiguous.

and of course the adjective has to be in accordance with the pronoun:

anachnou yafim      we are beautiful
atem gdolim            you are tall
aten gdolot              you are tall
hem chachamim     they are intelligent
hen chachamot       they are intelligent

and to find out more about pronouns and what they are all about watch this extraordinary TED talk 

 

'The Secret Life of Pronouns'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PGsQwAu3PzU

lehavin =  to understand

Before we go back to the present tense of verb conjugation (this time in the plural) I would like to do one more verb in the past tense because it is something one really needs on a day to day basis:

so how do you say I got it or more grammatically correct I understood in Hebrew? We did the verb lehavin a while ago. I understand = anee mevin (masc.) and anee mevinah (fem.).

the past tense plural

anee hevanti

atah hevanta
at hevant

hou hevin
hee hevinah

and here some examples:

hevanti   =   I understood
hevanti otcha   = I understood you (masc.)
anee lo hevanti   = I did not understand
anee lo hevanti oto   = I did not understand him

hevanta ?   = did you (masc.) understand ?
hevanta oti ?   = did you (masc.) understand me?
hevant ?   = did you (fem.) understand ?
hevant otah ?   = did you (fem.) understand her?

hou lo hevin   = he did not understand
hou hevin otcha   = he understood you (masc.)
hee hevinah   = she understood
hee hevinah otach   = she understood you (fem.)

lesson 63

possesive pronouns:

 

my friend the bear

 

chaver sheli ha dov

the possesive pronouns are really easy:

shel + personal ending

shel + i           sheli           my
shel + cha      shelcha       your (masc.)
shel + ach      shelach       your (fem.)
shel + o          shelo          his
shel + ah        shelah        her


chaver sheli        my friend
dov shelcha        your bear
bait shelach        your house
machshev shelo  his computer
sefer shelah         her book

lesson 62

 

The Dead Sea

Hi, I didn't blog for a while, I had to learn for an exam (nothing to do with Hebrew at all) and now I find it difficult to pick up the thread again. So today's lesson is going to be short and rather boring
I'm afraid.


The last lesson was about the idea of possession in the past but we only discussed the singular:

hayah li machshev   =   he was for me a computer   =    I had a computer

haytah li mechonit   =   she was for me a car   =   I had a car

and a new example:

hayah li ke'ef rosh   =   he was for me pain head   =   I had a headache

and now we have to progress to the plural: and again, it is the thing posessed that determines the form of the verb but since masculine and feminine are the same in the third person plural it's easier:


hayou li sfarim tovim   =   they were for me books good   =   I had good books

hayou li tmounot yafot   =  they were for me pictures beautiful   =   I had beautiful pictures


 that's it for today and I'll try to post more regualarly again now that I have more time.