Learn how to ask what something is
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Intro |
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| Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 11 - What is this Delicious Israeli Dish? I’m your host, Shira. |
| Amir: Shalom, I’m Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to ask what something is in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place at David and Sarah’s house. |
| Shira: And it’s between Sarah, David and Peter. |
| Amir: The dialogue is informal. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
| Sarah: בבקשה, תתכבדו! |
| (Be-vakeshah, tit'kab'du!) |
| Peter: יופי! |
| (Yofi!) |
| Sarah, David and Peter: בתיאבון. |
| (Be-te'avon.) |
| Peter: מממממ... טעים. שרה, מה זה? |
| (Mmmmmm... ta'im. Sarah, mah zeh?) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly. |
| Sarah: בבקשה, תתכבדו! |
| (Be-vakeshah, tit'kab'du!) |
| Peter: יופי! |
| (Yofi!) |
| Sarah, David and Peter: בתיאבון. |
| (Be-te'avon.) |
| Peter: מממממ... טעים. שרה, מה זה? |
| (Mmmmmm... ta'im. Sarah, mah zeh?) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Sarah: בבקשה, תתכבדו! |
| (Be-vakeshah, tit'kab'du!) |
| Shira: Be my guest. Help yourselves! |
| Peter: יופי! |
| (Yofi!) |
| Shira: Great! |
| Sarah, David and Peter: בתיאבון. |
| (Be-te'avon.) |
| Shira: Bon Appetit! |
| Peter: מממממ... טעים. שרה, מה זה? |
| (Mmmmmm... ta'im. Sarah, mah zeh?) |
| Shira: Mmmm, delicious. Sarah, what is this? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Amir: So what cultural point can we talk about in this lesson? בתיאבון (Be-te'avon)? |
| Shira: That sounds good to me. Saying בתאיבון (Be-te'avon) is like saying “ Bon Appetit.” |
| Amir: But Israelis have this habit of saying בתיאבון (Be-te'avon) whenever and wherever they see you eating. |
| Shira: Right. Normally, you would say “Bon appetit” when you sit down and eat with other people. At least that’s what I was used to before coming to Israel. |
| Amir: No, no, you could be sitting on a bench somewhere, thinking that you’re all by yourself eating a sandwich and suddenly, out of nowhere, you will hear בתאיבון (Be-te'avon). |
| Shira: Or maybe you’re at work and you’re sitting at your desk, having your 10 o’clock snack and one of your co-workers walks by and says בתאיבון (Be-te'avon). |
| Amir: For us it’s totally normal. If you see someone eating, you call out בתאיבון (Be-te'avon). |
| Shira: For me it was weird to be interrupted all the time in the beginning. I was there, minding my own business and stuffing my mouth and then someone comes and says בתאיבון (Be-te'avon). So then I have to stop and say תודה (toda). |
| Amir: But eventually you did get used to it! |
| Shira: Yes, I did. But I don’t say it to everyone I see eating of course. In some things I just have to stay American. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Shira: Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. First we have: |
| Amir: להתכבד/התכבד (le-hit'kabed /hit'kabed) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To help one’s self |
| Amir: להתכבד/התכבד (le-hit'kabed /hit'kabed) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. |
| להתכבד/התכבד (le-hit'kabed /hit'kabed) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: מה (mah) |
| Shira: What. |
| Amir: מה (mah) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. מה (mah) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next. |
| Amir: יופי (yofi) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Great or beauty. |
| Amir: יופי (yofi) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. יופי (yofi) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: בתאבון (Be-te'avon) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Bon appetite. |
| Amir: בתאבון (Be-te'avon) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. בתאבון (Be-te'avon) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: And last: |
| Amir: טעים (ta'im) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Delicious. |
| Amir: טעים (ta'im) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. טעים (ta'im) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Shira: Let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of these words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is להתכבד (Le-hit'kabed). |
| Amir: להתכבד (Le-hit'kabed) is an interesting word because it literally means “to be honored” but it has come to mean “help yourself”. |
| Shira: Well, another translation of it is “to be entertained”, and that would be by food, of course. |
| Amir: In the dialogue, Sarah uses the future form of this verb, which is sometimes used in place of the command form to invite people to do something. |
| Shira: Our next word is יופי and this is both a noun and an interjection. |
| Amir: In our dialogue, it means “great”. |
| Shira: It can also mean “beauty” like the “beauty” of something. |
| Amir: So, the next word we want to discuss is בתאיבון (Be-te'avon). |
| Shira: We talked about this word in our cultural insight. So here we want to break the meaning down for you. |
| Amir: This phrase is broken down into two parts, ב- (Be-), which means “with” and תאיבון (te'avon), which means “appetite”. |
| Shira: So the literal translation is “with appetite”. |
| Amir: Our last word is טעים meaning “delicious” or “tasty”. |
| Shira: Okay, let’s move on to the grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to ask what something is in Hebrew. |
| Amir: When asking what something is in Hebrew, we say ?מה זה |
| (Mah zeh?) |
| Shira: Mah means “what” and zeh means “this”. |
| Amir: Remember that the present tense of “to be” is understood in Hebrew if there isn’t another verb, so what you are saying is “what is this?” |
| Shira: Zeh refers to something that is masculine, but since you probably won’t know the gender of what you’re asking about, you can use zeh all the time. |
| Amir: That’s right. The feminine for zeh is zot. |
| Shira: The only time that you won’t be able to use zeh is when you have more than one thing that you’re asking about. |
| Amir: In that case, you would need to use אלה (eleh), which is the plural equivalent to זה (zeh). |
| Shira: So when you want to ask about more than one thing, you would say מה אלה? (Mah eleh?) |
| Amir: Yes, מה אלה. (Mah eleh?) There’s also a feminine version for the plural, אלו (elu), but don’t worry about that for now. You won’t need that very often. |
| Shira: Right, all feminine plural forms of words in Hebrew you won’t use as often as all the others. |
Outro |
| Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. See you next time! |
| Amir: Le-hit’ra’ot! |
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