Learn how to say yes and ask for something politely
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Intro |
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| Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 5 - Can You Take my Order in Hebrew? I’m your host, Shira. |
| Amir: Shalom. I’m Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to say “yes” and ask for something in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place at a restaurant. |
| Shira: It’s between a customer and a waitress. |
| Amir: This conversation is more formal because you usually ask for things politely in a restaurant. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation |
Lesson conversation |
| A: ערב טוב. |
| (Erev Tov.) |
| B: שלום, אפשר לקבל תפריט? |
| (Shalom, ef’shar lekabel tafrit?) |
| A: ודאי |
| (Vada’i) |
| B: סליחה, אפשר כוס מים, בבקשה? |
| (Sliħah’ ef’shar kos mayim, be-vakashah?) |
| A: מיד. |
| (Mi-yad.) |
| B: סליחה, אפשר להזמין? |
| (Sliħah, ef’shar lehaz’min?) |
| A: כן. |
| (Ken.) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly. |
| A: ערב טוב. |
| (Erev Tov.) |
| B: שלום, אפשר לקבל תפריט? |
| (Shalom, ef’shar lekabel tafrit?) |
| A: ודאי |
| (Vada’i) |
| B: סליחה, אפשר כוס מים, בבקשה? |
| (Sliħah’ ef’shar kos mayim, be-vakashah?) |
| A: מיד. |
| (Mi-yad.) |
| B: סליחה, אפשר להזמין? |
| (Sliħah, ef’shar lehaz’min?) |
| A: כן. |
| (Ken.) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| A: ערב טוב. |
| (Erev Tov.) |
| Shira: Good evening. |
| B: שלום, אפשר לקבל תפריט? |
| Shira: Hello. Is it possible to get a menu? |
| A: ודאי |
| (Vada’i) |
| Shira: Certainly. |
| B: סליחה, אפשר כוס מים, בבקשה? |
| (Sliħah’ ef’shar kos mayim, be-vakashah?) |
| Shira: Excuse me, is it possible to get a glass of water? |
| A: מיד. |
| (Mi-yad.) |
| Shira: Right away. |
| B: סליחה, אפשר להזמין? |
| (Sliħah, ef’shar lehaz’min?) |
| Shira: Excuse me, is it possible to order? |
| A: כן. |
| (Ken.) |
| Shira: Yes. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| So, since part of our topic for this lesson is saying “yes”, we thought our cultural insight should be the unique way that Israelis say “no”. |
| Amir: “Tsk” |
| Shira: What was that? You don’t want to talk about that? |
| Amir: “Tsk” |
| Shira: Ohh, I see, you are demonstrating. |
| Amir: Yes, we could say lo which is “no” in Hebrew, but it’s so much easier just to do tsk. |
| Shira: I agree – it’s much easier and faster too. |
| Amir: Israelis will use this tsk when they don’t need to explain why they’re saying “no” or if they are in the midst of something else. |
| Shira: It’s fun to practice this. Tsk. Try it, Listeners! Tsk. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Shira: Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. First we have: |
| Amir: ערב (erev) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Evening |
| Amir: ערב (erev) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. ערב (erev) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: טוב (tov) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Good |
| Amir: טוב (tov) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. טוב (tov) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: קיבל (lekabel) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To receive |
| Amir: קיבל (lekabel) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. קיבל (lekabel) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: תפריט (tafrit) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Menu |
| Amir: תפריט (tafrit) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. תפריט (tafrit) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: ודאי (Vada'i) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Certainly |
| Amir: ודאי (Vada'i) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. ודאי (Vada'i) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: כוס (kos) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Glass. |
| Amir: כוס (kos)[slowly - broken down by syllable]. כוס (kos) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: מים (mayim) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Water |
| Amir: מים (mayim) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. מים (mayim) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: מיד (miyad) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Right away |
| Amir: מיד (miyad) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. מיד (miyad) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: להזמין/הזמין (Le-haz’min/hiz’min) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To order |
| Amir: להזמין/הזמין (Le-haz’min/hiz’min) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| להזמין/הזמין (Le-haz’min/hiz’min) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: And last: |
| Amir: כן (ken) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Yes |
| Amir: כן (ken) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. כן (ken) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Shira: Let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is טוב (tov). |
| Amir: Tov means “good”. |
| Shira: And since it’s an adjective, it has four forms טוב, טובה, טוֹבִים, טוֹבוֹת (tov, tovah, tovim, Tov). |
| Amir: Tov can also be used as “okay” but you only need the simple form for that. |
| Shira: The next word is אפשר (Ef'shar). |
| Amir: It means “possible” and it’s the focus of our grammar section, so we’ll discuss it in depth in a few minutes. |
| Shira: The next word is לקבל (lekabel). |
| Amir: Le-kabel means “to receive” or “to get”. |
| Shira: Next up, we have ודאי (Vada'i) or “certainly”. |
| Amir: It can also be translated as “sure”. After that we have מיד (Mi-yad). |
| Shira: This means “right away”. |
| Amir: Next we have another verb, להזמין (Le-haz'min), it means “to order”. |
| Shira: You can use this verb at a restaurant or when you’re ordering something from the Internet. |
| Amir: And our last word is כן (ken). |
| Shira: Ken means “yes”, but it can also be used to emphasize a point. |
| Amir: That’s right. You can say something like אני כן רוצה להבין אותך (Ani ken rotzeh le-havin ot'cha). |
| Shira: Amir said, “I do want to understand you”. In this case, it would be used like “do” or “does” in English. |
| Amir: Another example would be היא כן הולכת למסיבה (hi ken holekhet la-mesibah). |
| Shira: “She is going to the party”. Those examples should help you to understand additional ways that you can use כן (ken). Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
| Shira: In this lesson you will learn how to ask for something politely in Hebrew. |
| Amir: To ask for something in Hebrew, we use the word אפשר followed by the infinitive form of a verb. |
| Shira: Exactly. This is pretty easy because you don’t have to think about subject and verb agreement in this case. |
| Amir: Right. It’s the same no matter who you’re talking to. Ef’shar doesn’t change. |
| Shira: So, as we said in the vocab section, ef’shar means “possible”. |
| Amir: When we use ef’shar in this way, there are two additional words that are understood from the context, "it" and "is." |
| Shira: Right. When you begin the sentence with ef’shar, you’re really saying “it is possible”. If you use voice inflection to turn the sentence into a question it would be , “is it possible”. |
| Amir: So then you add the infinitive form of the verb that you want to use. |
| Shira: In our dialogue, the first sentence we had was “Is it possible to get or to receive?” |
| Amir: אפשר לקבל… (Ef'shar le-kabel…) |
| Shira: Right! And then you just add what you want to receive. Our character wanted a menu. |
| Amir: אפשר לקבל תפריט? (ef’shar lekabel tafrit?) |
| Shira: Let’s look at another example. How about we ask someone if they can move to another table. We start off with אפשר. |
| Amir: “To move” is לעבור (la-avor). So far we have, אפשר לעבור (Ef'shar la-avor). |
| Shira: The rest of the sentence is לשולחן אחר (le-shul'cħan acħer) or “to another table”. |
| Amir: אפשר לעבור לשולחן אחר? (Ef'shar la-avor le-shul'cħan acħer?) |
| Shira: There was one sentence in the dialogue that didn’t have an infinitive verb after אפשר (Ef'shar). |
| Amir: That’s right, אפשר כוס מים (Ef'shar kos mayim?) |
| Shira: Exactly. You can useאפשר plus an item or items that you want. In the dialogue, this would be translated as “is it possible to get a glass of water” but in Hebrew the verb “to get” is implied. |
| Amir: In Hebrew, you’re just saying “possible glass water”, everything else is understood. |
| Shira: Let’s try another example. How about asking for some salt, מלח (melacħ)? |
| Amir: אפשר מלח? (Ef'shar melacħ?) |
| Shira: Keep in mind that Hebrew is very frugal when it comes to the amount of words in a sentence. |
| Amir: If something can be understood without extra words, they won’t be included. |
| Shira: Right. Let’s move on to the other topic of this lesson, answering in the affirmative. |
| Amir: For this, a simple “yes” will suffice כן (ken). |
| Shira: But in our dialogue there were a couple of other ways to answer in the affirmative. |
| Amir: Correct. The waitress first answered with ודאי (vada'i). |
| Shira: Or “certainly”. And when she wanted to reply that she would do something right away, what did she say? |
| Amir: She said מיד (mi-yad). |
| Shira: Okay, Listeners, now it’s your turn. You can use these affirmative answers as well on a daily basis! So please try it out! |
Outro |
| Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: After listening to this lesson, why not visit HebrewPod101.com and leave us a comment! |
| Shira: See you next time! |
| Amir: Le-hit’ra’ot! |
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