Learn how to use the irregular verb לרדת meaning "to go down" to talk about the weather
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah: Hi everyone, and welcome to HebrewPod101.com. This is Beginner Season 1 Lesson 1 - What’s the Weather Like in Israel? Sherah Here. |
| Amir: שלום and I'm Amir. |
| Sherah: In this lesson, you’ll learn about conjugating the irregular verb לרדת meaning “to go down”, and using it with weather terms. The conversation takes place at the office of Sivan and Doron. |
| Amir: It's between Sivan and Doron |
| Sherah: The speakers are in a casual setting, so they will be using informal Hebrew. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| סיוון: שלום, אתה חדש פה? שמי סיוון. |
| דורון: כן. קוראים לי דורון. נעים מאוד. |
| סיוון: נעים מאוד. אתה רוצה לרדת לאכול איתי בחוץ? |
| דורון: יורד גשם? |
| סיוון: לא יש שמש. |
| דורון: בסדר. מזג האוויר נעים היום. |
| סיוון: נכון לא חם ולא קר. |
| (הם יוצאים החוצה) |
| דורון: אבל יש רוח חזקה!!! אולי זה לא רעיון טוב לאכול בחוץ. |
| Sherah: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| סיוון: שלום, אתה חדש פה? שמי סיוון. |
| דורון: כן. קוראים לי דורון. נעים מאוד. |
| סיוון: נעים מאוד. אתה רוצה לרדת לאכול איתי בחוץ? |
| דורון: יורד גשם? |
| סיוון: לא יש שמש. |
| דורון: בסדר. מזג האוויר נעים היום. |
| סיוון: נכון לא חם ולא קר. |
| (הם יוצאים החוצה) |
| דורון: אבל יש רוח חזקה!!! אולי זה לא רעיון טוב לאכול בחוץ. |
| Sherah: Listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Sivan: Hello, are you new here? My name is Sivan. |
| Doron: Yes. My name is Doron. Very nice to meet you. |
| Sivan: Nice to meet you. You want to come down and eat outside with me? |
| Doron: Is it raining? |
| Sivan: No, it's sunny. |
| Doron: Okay. The weather is nice today. |
| Sivan: Right, not hot and not cold. |
| (They go out) |
| Doron: But there's a strong wind!!! It may not be a good idea to eat outside. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah: So, there’s this joke in Israel that there are only really two seasons, summer and winter. |
| Amir: It’s true, our transitional seasons are not very dramatic. It usually goes from cold to hot and vice versa pretty quickly. |
| Sherah: Right, it’s either very hot and sunny or cold and rainy. |
| Amir: I’d say the weather is pretty pleasant most of the year, but we do have some extreme weather at times. |
| Sherah: On the hot side, we have something called a Sharav. |
| Amir: That’s what we call it in Hebrew, but it’s also called a Hamsin. |
| Sherah: It’s a hot dry wind that comes from Northern Africa and brings sand with it. |
| Amir: It’s very uncomfortable and can cause breathing issues. People are often advised to stay inside during a Sharav. |
| Sherah: On the cold end, we have something you don’t usually connect with Israel, snow! |
| Amir: Higher altitude places like Jerusalem and the Golan heights get snow every few years. |
| Sherah: There is one place where it snows every year and that is Mount Hermon. |
| Amir: Right, that’s in the northern part of the Golan heights. We even have a ski resort there. The ski resort is usually open for skiing 2-4 weeks a year. |
| Sherah: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Sherah: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Amir: לרדת [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: to come down |
| Amir: לרדת[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לרדת [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: גשם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: rain |
| Amir: גשם[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: גשם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: בחוץ [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: outside |
| Amir: בחוץ[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: בחוץ [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: שמש [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: sun |
| Amir: שמש[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: שמש [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: מזג האוויר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: weather |
| Amir: מזג האוויר [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: מזג האוויר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: חם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: hot |
| Amir: חם[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: חם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: קר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: cold |
| Amir: קר[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: קר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: רוח [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: wind |
| Amir: רוח[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: רוח [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: חזק [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: strong |
| Amir: חזק[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: חזק [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: And last we have... |
| Amir: רעיון [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: idea |
| Amir: רעיון [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: רעיון [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Sherah: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is... |
| Amir: יורד גשם |
| Sherah: meaning "it’s raining". |
| Sherah: In Hebrew, there’s no verb for “to rain” like there is in English. |
| Amir: Right, instead we say “rain is coming down” or יורד גשם |
| Sherah: יורד is “coming down” and גשם is “rain”. |
| Amir: The order is different from what you would say in English. The verb יורד comes first and then the noun גשם. |
| Sherah: You can also use this same form of expression with snow, or שלג. |
| Amir: And for that you would say יורד שלג. |
| Sherah: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Amir: Sure. For example, you can say.. יורד גשם היום. |
| Sherah: ...which means "It’s raining today". |
| Sherah: Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| Amir: רוח חזקה |
| Sherah: meaning "strong wind". |
| Sherah: The first word of this phrase is רוח which means “wind”, but can also mean “spirit”. |
| Amir: The second word is חזקה, meaning “strong”. |
| Sherah: חזקה is in agreement with the word רוח, which is a feminine word. |
| Amir: Right, רוח doesn't have a traditional feminine ending, so it might confuse you. |
| Sherah: It’s one of those irregular words you just have to know. The plural of רוח is רוחות. |
| Amir: So, if you were to make this phrase plural, you would say רוחות חזקות meaning “strong winds”. |
| Sherah: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Amir: Sure. For example, you can say.. יש רוח חזקה על ההר. |
| Sherah: ... which means "There’s a strong wind on the mountain." |
| Sherah: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Sherah: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about the weather. As we saw in the vocabulary section, to say “it’s raining” we use the phrase יורד גשם. |
| Amir: The verb used in this phrase is לרדת, which is an irregular verb. |
| Sherah: Right, it’s part of the pa’al verb group but you can see from the infinitive, that it doesn't follow the typical pa’al verb pattern. |
| Amir: That’s because the first root letter is yod and it’s a weak letter. |
| Sherah: So, in the infinitive and in the future tense, that yod disappears. In the infinitive, we compensate for the missing yod by placing a tav at the end of the word. |
| Amir: Fortunately, in the present tense לרדת behaves like a normal pa’al verb. |
| Sherah: The root letters are yod/resh/dalet. So let’s hear the masculine and the feminine conjugations of לרדת |
| Amir: The masculine singular is יורד. |
| Sherah: The same as in our phrase יורד גשם because it agrees with גשם a masculine noun. |
| Amir: The feminine singular is יורדת. |
| Sherah: So, as we talked about in the vocab section, you can say יורד גשם or יורד שלג which means "it`s raining" or “it’s snowing”. |
| Amir: You can also say יורד ברד or “it’s hailing”, although that doesn't happen too often in Israel. |
| Sherah: These are all expressions where the noun follows the verb. |
| Amir: And they’re all expressions that use the masculine singular form of the verb. |
| Sherah: How about some other expressions that we can use when talking about the weather? How would you say “the temperature is going down”? |
| Amir: For that you’d say הטמפרטורה יורדת |
| Sherah: Here the noun leads the sentence and we have the feminine form of the verb. |
| Amir: You could also say הלחות יורדת or “the humidity is coming down”. |
| Sherah: Again this sentence uses the feminine form of the verb and the noun leads the sentence. |
| Amir: In the dialogue, Sivan also used the infinitive form of the verb when she said, אתה רוצה לרדת לאכול איתי בחוץ |
| Sherah: Which means “do you want to come down to eat outside with me?” |
| Amir: In using this verb, Sivan asks Doron if he wants to come downstairs with her. |
| Sherah: The verb לרדת has many uses. You can use it to talk about the weather, or talk about coming downstairs... |
| Amir: Or to talk about getting off a bus or plane. For example סיוון יורדת מהמטוס. |
| Sherah: which means “Sivan is coming down from the plane.” |
| Amir: Another way you can use it is by saying the price of something has come down. For example you could say המחיר של תפוחים יורד. |
| Sherah: Which means “The price of apples is coming down.” Another use for this verb is to talk about going down south. |
| Amir: You can say something like אני יורדת לאילת ביום ראשון |
| Sherah: That would be “I am going down to Eilat on Sunday.” Do you have another example sentence for us? |
| Amir: Sure, טליה יורדת מהאוטובוס |
| Sherah: "Talia is getting off the bus." |
| Amir: And the last sample sentence is: בני יורד לקומה שלוש |
| Sherah: Benny is going down to the third floor. |
Outro |
| Sherah: Okay, everybody that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Amir: תודה |
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