Learn how to introduce yourself
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com, Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 2 - Introducing Yourself in Hebrew. I'm your host, Shira. |
| Amir: And I’m your host Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to introduce yourself in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place at a party. |
| Shira: It’s between two people who have never met before. |
| Amir: Although this is an informal conversation, the same conversation could be used in a formal setting too. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUES |
| A: שלום, קוראים לי טל. |
| (Shalom, kor’im li Tal.) |
| B: שלום, אני יעל. |
| (Shalom, ani Ya’el.) |
| A: נעים מאוד. |
| (Na’im me’od.) |
| B: נעים מאוד גם לי. |
| (Na’im me’od gam li.) |
| Shira: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| A: שלום, קוראים לי טל. |
| (Shalom, kor’im li Tal.) |
| B: שלום, אני יעל. |
| (Shalom, ani Ya’el.) |
| A: נעים מאוד. |
| (Na’im me’od.) |
| B: נעים מאוד גם לי. |
| (Na’im me’od gam li.) |
| Shira: Let’s hear the conversation with the English translation. |
| A: שלום, קוראים לי טל. |
| (Shalom, kor’im li Tal.) |
| Sherah: Hello, I'm called Tal. |
| B: שלום, אני יעל. |
| (Shalom, ani Ya’el.) |
| Sherah: Hello, I'm Yael. |
| A: נעים מאוד. |
| (Na’im me’od.) |
| Sherah: Nice to meet you! |
| B: נעים מאוד גם לי. |
| (Na’im me’od gam li.) |
| Sherah: Nice to meet you too! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Amir: So, what cultural insight are we sharing with our listeners in this lesson, Shira? |
| Shira: Let’s talk about the Sabra. |
| Amir: Oh, you mean the צבר (tzabar). The plant or the person? |
| Shira: Both! |
| Amir: Well, the plant, the צבר (tzabar), is a kind of cactus that grows in Israel. It is tough and has needles, but the fruit is very delicious. |
| Shira: That’s right, it’s delicious and sweet. You can find it in supermarkets in Israel when it’s in season. Don’t worry, they remove the needles when they harvest it! |
| Amir: A long time ago people began to refer to native-born Israelis as Sabras, or צברים (tzabarim). |
| Shira: That’s right, and on your first trip to Israel, you will probably notice that Israelis are really tough on the outside. |
| Amir: We are! You have to be to live in a place like Israel. We’re not afraid to stand up for what we want! |
| Shira: But, truly, on the inside, Israelis are some of the warmest and friendliest people I know. |
| Amir: When you get to know us, we're pretty nice and welcoming, actually. |
| Shira: (laughs) So, this is the reason that native-born Israelis have come to be known as Sabras or צברים (tzabarim). They are tough on the outside, but very sweet on the inside. Shall we go to the vocabulary for this lesson? |
| Amir: Sure! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Shira: First, we have… |
| Amir: לקרוא (li-kro) [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: to call/called |
| Amir: לקרוא (li-kro) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לקרוא (li-kro) [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Amir: לי (li) [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: to me, for me |
| Amir: לי (li) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לי (li) [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Amir: אני (ani) [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: I |
| Amir: אני (ani) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: אני (ani) [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Amir: נעים (na'im) [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: nice, pleasant (masc.) |
| Amir: נעים (na'im) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: נעים (na'im) [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Amir: מאוד (me'od) [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: very |
| Amir: מאוד (me'od) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: מאוד (me'od) [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Amir: גם (gam) [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: also |
| Amir: גם (gam) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: גם (gam) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Sherah: Let's have a closer look at the usuage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Amir: The first word/phrase we’ll look at is.... |
| Shira: Let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is לקרוא (li-kro). |
| Amir: Li-kro is the infinitive form, meaning “to call”. If you are looking for it in the dictionary, it will be in the masculine singular form in the past tense, קרא (kara). |
| Shira: At this point, you only need to learn one conjunction for this verb, the masculine version for the present tense, kor'im. |
| Amir: We will discuss this word further in the grammar section of this lesson. |
| Shira: Our next word is לי (li) which means “to me” or “for me”. |
| Amir: This word is made up of two parts, the first part ל (l) means “to” or “for” and you will only see it attached to other words. |
| Shira: Many prepositions in Hebrew are prefixes and are never detached from a word, ל- (l-) is one of these prepositions. |
| Amir: The second part of this word is י (i) and it is a suffix meaning “me”. |
| Shira: So, together these two parts mean “to me” or “for me”. |
| Amir: Our next word is אני (ani). Ani means “I”. |
| Shira: Ani is used just like “I” in English. |
| Amir: Here is an example of Ani used in a sentence, אני אוהב אותך (ani ohev otkha). |
| Shira: Ah, thank you! That was “I love you.” |
| Amir: Very useful! The next word is נעים (na'im), which means “nice” or “pleasant”. |
| Shira: Na’im can be used to tell someone it was nice to meet them, but it can also be used to describe something that feels nice, like a massage. |
| Amir: Very versatile! The next word is מאוד (me'od) and this means “very”. |
| Shira: Most often this word comes after the word that it modifies. This may take a while to get used to if you are an English speaker. Let’s give our listeners an example of this. |
| Amir: אני רץ מהר מאוד. (Ani ratz maher me'od.) |
| Shira: “I run very fast.” |
| Amir: Our last word is גם (gam). Gam means “also”. |
| Shira: An example of gam is - Ani gam ohev ratz. |
| Amir: Shira said, “I also love to run”. |
| Shira: I do! Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Shira: In this lesson you will learn how to introduce yourself in Hebrew. |
| Amir: Okay, for this we say קוראים לי… (kor’im li…) |
| Shira: Right. This phrase involves an important concept that you will need to learn in Hebrew. |
| Amir: That concept is how to talk about something that people in general do or something that people always do. |
| Shira: In English, you would express this as “one does something” or you would say it in a passive tense. |
| Amir: In Hebrew though, you use the masculine plural form of the verb and drop the subject. |
| Shira: Let’s see this demonstrated with our phrase kor’im li… We’ll have to break down the phrase in order to do that. |
| Amir: So the first word is kor’im, which means “call” or technically “they call”. |
| Shira: Right, the word for “they” is not present in the sentence, it is implied. |
| Amir: The second word in the sentence is li, and in this case it means “to me”. |
| Shira: All together we have “they call to me” or “they call me”, קוראים לי (kor’im li). In English, it would be “I am called” because you would use the passive to express such a concept. It could also be translated as, “they call me” or “one calls me”. |
| Amir: At the end of the sentence you would say your name, like korim li Amir and you would have just told someone your name. |
| Shira: Let’s go further with this grammar subject to demonstrate how it works. Let’s use the word לדבר (le-daber), which means “to speak”. |
| Amir: Okay, so first we need to conjugate this verb into the masculine, plural form as we said, which is מדברים (medabrim). Using this in a sentence, we could say, מדברים גרמנית בגרמניה (medabrim germanit be-germania.) |
| Shira: When we break this down we have, medabrim, or “they speak”. As we said earlier, the subject “they” does not appear in Hebrew when you are talking about an action that people in general do. |
| Amir: After medabrim, we have germanit, or “German” , in other words the German language, as you may have already guessed. |
| Shira: And the last word is be-germania, “in Germany”. |
| Amir: So, here we are talking about something that people in Germany do in general, “They speak German in Germany.” |
| Shira: Let’s go back to the sentence from our lesson, kor’im li… Now it’s your turn, you say korim li and then your name. Ready? (Pause) |
| Amir: There was another way to say your name in the sample conversation and this one is extremely simple. |
| Shira: All you do is say ani, or “I”, and then your name. In English, this would be “I am…” and then your name. |
| Amir: You may have noticed that there is a word missing in this sentence. Our sentence in Hebrew only contains two words, “I” and the name of the person speaking. |
| Shira: That’s right, in Hebrew there are no words for the verb “to be” in the present tense. |
| Amir: The verb “to be” is implied or understood in the present tense. It may seem a little like cave men talk in the beginning, but you will get used to it. |
| Shira: You can use this same idea when telling someone your profession. You say ani and then your profession. Amir, do you want to demonstrate? |
| Amir: Sure, אני מהנדס מכונות. (Ani mehan'des makhabat.) |
| Shira: Amir just told you that he is a mechanical engineer. |
| Amir: Now it’s your turn. Tell us your name, ani… (pause) |
| Shira: This second way of telling your name is more informal and it’s usually used in response to someone, rather than as an introduction. |
| Amir: So, listen and repeat after me as I go through these two forms of how to introduce yourself in Hebrew. |
| Shira: Make sure to add your name at the end of the sentence! |
| Amir: קוראים לי… (kor’im li…) |
| Shira: And you can say this in response to someone when they introduce themselves |
| Amir: אני… (ani…) |
| Shira: Great work!!! Okay, that’s it for this lesson. |
Outro |
|---|
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| Shira: See you next time! |
| Amir: להתראות! |
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