Thursday 28 November 2013

Latkes for Hanukkah

 
חנוכה




To all my Jewish family and friends around the world I wish you...
 


Latkes for Hanukkah

6    medium potatos
1    onion
2    eggs
pinch of salt
cooking oil  (I personally like desodorised coconut oil best it doesn't burn so quickly)

finely shred the potatos and immediately cover them with water so that they won't oxidise
finely shred the onion
beat the eggs
drain the water from the potatos
wring the potatos and onion in a kitchen towel to get as much of the liquid out as possible

mix potatos, eggs and onion and add a little salt

preheat the oil  
fry the latkes: one tabelspoon = one latke 
don't try to fry too many at one time
and make sure the dough is spread out evenly to make them really crispy

eat as soon as possible while they are still very hot
enjoy with apple sauce and/or sour cream and/or pumpkin preserve
or whatever makes you happy
בתאבון
 
bete'avon
 
bon appetit




Wednesday 27 November 2013

RIP - Arik Einstein - Children of Life



אריק איינשטיין-ילדים של החיים

 yeladim shel hachai'im
 
Arik Einstein - Children of Life
 




no time for a real blog unfortunately but I really wanted to say how sad I am - he died far too soon

Monday 25 November 2013

George Bernhard Shaw in Hebrew






 
 האנשים שאומרים שאין אפשר לעשות משהו צריכים לא להפריע
 לאלו שעושים אותו
 
 ג'ורג' ברנרד שו


ha anashim she 'omrim she 'ain efshar la'asot mashehou tzrichim lo lehafri'a
le'alou she 'osim oto

(the 'e' in 'she' is pronounced as the 'e' in 'end' )

word by word translation:

the people who say that it is not (there is not) possible to do something should not interfere
with those who are doing it


proper English:

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it
  
George Bernard Shaw



Thursday 7 November 2013

lesson 92 - future tense first person plural

lesson 92
future tense : first person plural




                                          mah nishma'?
                                           lo ra' todah! ve at?
                                           kol beseder todah!

we already learned one future tense expression a long time ago:
mah nischma' literally means what will we hear
and it's the perfect example for the 1st person plural future tense.


we also came across boi' nikneh rak tutim in the ethnix song 'TUTIM' a few posts ago
literally come we will only buy strawberries or
come lets only buy strawberries which is a better translation because Hebrew mostly uses the future tense to express the imperative and we'll talk about this very soon.



many verbs build their 1st person plural future tense in this way:

ni + root consonats


(but of course there are other types as well which will be discussed soon. but first the easy ones)


nishma'        we will hear               ש  מ  ע               ni + SH  M   ע
 
nikneh          we will buy              ק  נ  ה                 ni +  K  N  H

nir'ah           we will see               ר  א  ה                ni + R  א   H     

nirtzeh         we will want             ר  צ  ה                ni+  R  צ  H

niktov          we will write             כ  ת  ב                 ni+  K  T  V

nilmad         we will learn              ל  מ  ד                 ni+  L  M  D

Wednesday 6 November 2013

lesson 91 - listening exercise - srugim

The last few month have been quite busy, moving house and getting started with my MA Applied Linguistics are only two of the many things I had to get sorted. Even now, I am not really settled yet and I don't know how often I'll be able to blog over the next few weeks. But I'll try. And for today, just a small listenig exercise:

lesson 91
listening exercise
   

listen to the first 35 seconds of this clip several times and try to hear the words and phrases listed below. I haven't covered everything, just the simpler things that are easier to understand. The secret lies in the repetition. To train an ear to make sense of a foreign language it's important to expose it to this language over and over and over again. Children have thousands of hours of audio input before they start speaking their first words. And I belive that in modern language teaching the importance of input is hugely underestimated. So please play along and listen to those 35 seconds as often as you can possibly bear it without starting to hate it ;-)





00: 01    (atah) lo shomer shabbat?                   you don't observe shabbat?         

00:06    az atah chiloni ligamri?                       so you are non-religious completely?

00:09    smolani?                                               left winger

00:12    yemani?                                                right winger

00:13    betach                                                   sure, certainly

00:14    lama betach?                                        why certainly?

00:17    mitzta'er                                                I am sorry (masc.)                          

00:19    chilonim                                               non religious people (plural)

00:21    beseder                                                  OK

00:25    kol ha erev                                            whole the evening  =  the whole evening

00:26   mah?                                                      what?

00:29   lo seh...                                                  no it's

00:31   seh lo...                                                  it's not...

00:34    chalon                                                   dream