Learn how to describe things
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Intro |
|---|
| Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 15 - Describing Things in Hebrew. I’m your host, Shira! |
| Amir: Shalom, I’m Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to describe things in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place at David and Sarah’s house. |
| Shira: The conversation is between David, Peter and Sarah. |
| Amir: It is informal. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
| [Informal] |
| Peter: בוקר טוב! ממש חם היום! הקיץ בישראל חם מאוד, נכון? |
| (Boker tov! Mamash ħam ha-yom. Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam me'od, nakhon?) |
| David: גם הקיץ בקליפורניה חם. |
| (Gam ha-ka'itz be-kaliforniyah ħam.) |
| Peter: נכון |
| (nakhon) |
| Sarah: הקיץ בישראל חם ולח. |
| (Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam ve-laħ.) |
| Peter: ולח? |
| (ve-laħ?) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly. |
| Peter: בוקר טוב! ממש חם היום! הקיץ בישראל חם מאוד, נכון? |
| (Boker tov! Mamash ħam ha-yom. Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam me'od, nakhon?) |
| David: גם הקיץ בקליפורניה חם. |
| (Gam ha-ka'itz be-kaliforniyah ħam.) |
| Peter: נכון |
| (nakhon) |
| Sarah: הקיץ בישראל חם ולח. |
| (Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam ve-laħ.) |
| Peter: ולח? |
| (ve-laħ?) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Peter: בוקר טוב! ממש חם היום! הקיץ בישראל חם מאוד, נכון? |
| (Boker tov! Mamash ħam ha-yom. Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam me'od, nakhon?) |
| Shira: Good morning! It's really hot today. Summer in Israel is very hot, right? |
| David: גם הקיץ בקליפורניה חם. |
| (Gam ha-ka'itz be-kaliforniyah ħam.) |
| Shira: Summer in California is also hot. |
| Peter: נכון |
| (nakhon) |
| Shira: Right. |
| Sarah: הקיץ בישראל חם ולח. |
| (Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam ve-laħ.) |
| Shira: Summer in Israel is hot and humid. |
| Peter: ולח? |
| (ve-laħ?) |
| Shira: And humid? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Amir: Summer is not the only time when it’s hot in Israel. |
| Shira: It’s definitely not. In the spring, we have something special called a Sharav. |
| Amir: Something special? Ha! I guess you could call it that. It’s a really hot wind that blows up from the Arabian Desert. |
| Shira: It makes the weather extremely hot and dry compared to the normal spring weather. |
| Amir: Often it brings lots of dust with it too. |
| Shira: It can be very dangerous actually when there is a dust storm with the sharav. Most Israelis will close all their windows and doors and hang out inside until it passes. |
| Amir: Fortunately, they only last a few days and then it’s cooler and sometimes it will even rain afterward. |
| Shira: It’s only really in the spring that they happen, so you just have to be ready to spend some time inside when they do come. |
| Amir: The weather is so nice in Israel most of the time, that we spend most days outside anyway, so being inside once in a while because of a Sharav is not too bad. |
| Shira: The temperatures are in the 90s and 100s during a Sharav, so it’s not so nice to be outside. |
| Amir: Most houses have air-conditioning in at least one room, so just park yourself next the air-conditioning with a good book and you will be all set. |
| Shira: Still it’s no fun, but we manage to get through it. Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Amir: בוקר (boker) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Morning. |
| Amir: בוקר (boker) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: בוקר (boker) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next. |
| Amir: בוקר טוב (boker tov) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Good morning. |
| Amir: בוקר טוב (boker tov) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: בוקר טוב (boker tov) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next. |
| Amir: ממש (mamash) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Really. |
| Amir: ממש (mamash) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: ממש (mamash) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next. |
| Amir: חם (kham) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Hot. |
| Amir: חם (kham) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: חם (kham) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next. |
| Amir: קיץ (kayitz) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Summer. |
| Amir: קיץ (kayitz) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: קיץ (kayitz) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: And last? |
| Amir: לח (lach) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Humid, damp. |
| Amir: לח (lach) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לח (lach) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Shira: Let's take a closer look at the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is בוקר (boker). |
| Amir: Boker is “morning”. |
| Shira: It’s spelled the same as another בוקר (boker) which means “cowboy”, the only difference is that the stress is on different syllables. |
| Amir: That leads us to our next phrase, בוקר טוב (boker tov) which means “Good morning”. |
| Shira: When someone says this to you, you can respond with בוקר טוב (boker tov). |
| Amir: But the traditional response is בוקר אור or “morning light”. |
| Shira: People will really be impressed with your Hebrew if you answer with בוקר אור. |
| Amir: The next word we want to discuss is חם. |
| Shira: חם means “hot”. It is used only for temperature though, it can’t be used for spicy like in English. |
| Amir: Something else important to know about this word is that you can’t use it like in English when you want to say you are hot. |
| Shira: Right, that’s a mistake that a lot of English speakers make in the beginning, they say אני חם. Instead you must say חם לי or “It’s hot to me”. |
| Amir: This goes for other adjectives as well, not just hot. The last word is לח (lach). |
| Shira: לח (lach) is “humid” or “damp”. |
| Amir: These last two words are adjectives and they have four different forms like all other adjectives. |
| Shira: And that leads us to to the Grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
| Shira: In this lesson you will learn how to describe something in Hebrew. |
| Amir: Which is where the adjectives come in. In order to describe something, you need to know some adjectives. |
| Shira: Our example sentence for this is הקיץ בישראל חם ולח (Ha-ka'itz be-yis'ra'el ħam ve-laħ). |
| Amir: We have two adjectives in that sentence, חם (kham) and לח (lach). |
| Shira: These adjectives need to agree with the subject of the sentence. Here it is “summer” or קיץ (kayitz) which is masculine singular. |
| Amir: Since the subject is masculine singular, the adjectives must be in their most basic form. |
| Shira: To agree with other types of nouns, you add on to this basic form according to the gender and number of the noun. Here are examples of how these two adjectives change according to the noun they agree with. First, is the masculine singular, like in the dialogue. |
| Amir: תנור חם (tanur ħam) |
| Shira: “A hot oven.” Next is feminine singular. |
| Amir: לחמניה חמה (laħ'maniya ħamah) |
| Shira: “A hot bun.” Now for the plural versions of these two. |
| Amir: תנורים חמים (tanurim ħamim) |
| Shira: “Hot ovens” |
| Amir: לחמניות חמות (laħ'maniyot ħamot) |
| Shira: “Hot buns.” And now some examples with the adjective לח (lach). First is the most basic version, the masculine singular. By the way, this is also the version that will appear in the dictionary. |
| Amir: מגבון לח (mag'von laħ) |
| Shira: “A damp wet wipe.” Next is feminine singular. |
| Amir: מגבת לחה (magevet laħah) |
| Shira: “A damp towel.“ And now the plural versions of these two. |
| Amir: מגבונים לחים (mag'vonim laħim) and מגבות לחות (magevot laħot) |
| Shira: If you noticed, these endings are similar to the endings for the nouns. For the feminine singular, we have ה', an “ah” or sometimes –ת or “et”. |
| Amir: For the masculine plural, we have ים (im) just like with masculine plural nouns. |
| Shira: And for the feminine plural, we have –ות. (ot) |
| Amir: This agreement must occur both when the adjective appears directly after the noun and when the adjective is just somewhere in the sentence. |
| Shira: We have examples for that as well. The first is when the adjective comes directly after the noun. |
| Amir: היא סטודנטית מצוינת. (Hi studentit metzuyenet.) |
| Shira: "She’s an excellent student." Here we have the other ending for feminine singular adjectives “et”. And now when the adjective describes the noun in the sentence. |
| Amir: הסטודנטית היא מצוינת. (Ha-studentit hi metzuyenet.) |
| Shira: "The student is excellent." It’s important that you remember that the adjective must agree on both cases, even when it’s not directly after the noun. |
| Amir: You’ll get the hang of it though, it will start to sound funny to you if you don’t make the nouns and adjectives agree. |
Outro |
| Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: After listening to this lesson, please visit us on HebrewPod101.com and describe yourselves to us in Hebrew. |
| Shira: Listeners, do you know the reason flashcards are so popular? |
| Amir: It's because they work. |
| Shira: We've taken this time-tested studying tool and modernized with flashcards. |
| Amir: Learn vocabulary using your eyes and ears. |
| Shira: It's simple and powerful. Save difficult and interesting words to your personal vocabulary list called My Word Bank. |
| Amir: Master words in your My Word Bank by practicing with flash cards. |
| Shira: Words in My Word Bank come with audio so you learn proper pronunciation. |
| Amir: While you're learning to recognize words by site. |
| Shira: Go to HebrewPod101.com now and try My Word Bank and flash cards today. See you next time! |
| Amir: Shalom! |
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