Learn how to talk about existence
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Intro |
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| Shira: Hello and welcome to Hebrewpod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 20, Talking about Existence in Hebrew. I’m your host, Shira! |
| Amir: Shalom, I’m Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn to talk about existence in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place in Peter’s rental car. |
| Shira: It’s between David, Peter and Sarah. |
| Amir: And it’s informal. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation |
Lesson conversation |
| David: (קירקור קיבה) אני רעב! |
| ((kir'kur ke'ivah) Ani ra'ev.) |
| Peter: יש דרייב ת'רו שמה. אתה אוהב עוף מטוגן? |
| (Yesh drive thru shamah. Atah ohev of metugan?) |
| Sarah: עוף... מטוגן... |
| (of... metugan...) |
| Peter: את לא אוהבת? |
| (At lo ohevet?) |
| Sarah: יש לי אלרגיה. |
| (Yesh li alergiyah.) |
| Peter: יש לך אלרגיה לעוף? |
| (Yesh lakh alergiyah le-of?) |
| Sarah: כן, לצערי. |
| (Oh, Ken, le-tza'ari.) |
| David: פטר, היזהר, יש חתול על הכביש. |
| (Peter, hizaher! Yesh ħatul al ha-k'vish.) |
| Peter: אוה, כן, תודה. |
| (Oh, Ken, todah!) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly. |
| David: (קירקור קיבה) אני רעב! |
| ((kir'kur ke'ivah) Ani ra'ev.) |
| Peter: יש דרייב ת'רו שמה. אתה אוהב עוף מטוגן? |
| (Yesh drive thru shamah. Atah ohev of metugan?) |
| Sarah: עוף... מטוגן... |
| (of... metugan...) |
| Peter: את לא אוהבת? |
| (At lo ohevet?) |
| Sarah: יש לי אלרגיה. |
| (Yesh li alergiyah.) |
| Peter: יש לך אלרגיה לעוף? |
| (Yesh lakh alergiyah le-of?) |
| Sarah: כן, לצערי. |
| (Oh, Ken, le-tza'ari.) |
| David: פטר, היזהר, יש חתול על הכביש. |
| (Peter, hizaher! Yesh ħatul al ha-k'vish.) |
| Peter: אוה, כן, תודה. |
| (Oh, Ken, todah!) |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| David: (קירקור קיבה) אני רעב! |
| ((kir'kur ke'ivah) Ani ra'ev.) |
| Shira: (stomach rumbles) I'm hungry! |
| Peter: יש דרייב ת'רו שמה. אתה אוהב עוף מטוגן? |
| (Yesh drive thru shamah. Atah ohev of metugan?) |
| Shira: There's a drive-thru over there. Do you like fried chicken? |
| Sarah: עוף... מטוגן... |
| (of... metugan...) |
| Shira: Fried chicken? |
| Peter: את לא אוהבת? |
| (At lo ohevet?) |
| Shira: You don't like it? |
| Sarah: יש לי אלרגיה. |
| (Yesh li alergiyah.) |
| Shira: I'm allergic... |
| Peter: יש לך אלרגיה לעוף? |
| (Yesh lakh alergiyah le-of?) |
| Shira: You have an allergy to chicken? |
| Sarah: כן, לצערי. |
| (Oh, Ken, le-tza'ari.) |
| Shira: Yes, unfortunately. |
| David: פטר, היזהר, יש חתול על הכביש. |
| (Peter, hizaher! Yesh ħatul al ha-k'vish.) |
| Shira: Peter, be careful! There is a cat in the road. |
| Peter: אוה, כן, תודה. |
| (Oh, Ken, todah!) |
| Shira: Oh, Yes, thank you! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Shira: I think since this dialogue was about a drive-thru, we should talk about fast food in Israel. |
| Amir: Or lack thereof? |
| Shira: There is a fair amount of fast food restaurants in Israel. Give McDonalds some credit! |
| Amir: Okay, we do have McDonalds all over Israel and there is Burger King and Pizza Hut among others. We even have our own fast food chain called Burger Ranch. |
| Shira: What there aren’t a lot of though, are Drive-thrus. |
| Amir: Right, only McDonalds really has drive-thrus. |
| Shira: So, Israelis aren’t crazy about fast food, but it does exist in Israel. |
| Amir: It could be that fast food is really expensive in Israel and we make comparatively less than our American counterparts, so we don’t want to fork over the money too often. |
| Shira: I think you’re on to something there. Fast food in North America is cheap, a lot cheaper than it is in Israel. |
| Amir: There’s plenty of other good food we can buy for that much money, so we prefer our fresher, not processed fast food, like falafel and shwarma. |
| Shira: All in all, the food is the same in these places with a few additions, such as the McKabob at McDonalds. |
| Amir: Some of these fast food places are kosher, which means that they sell dairy and meat in separate sections of the restaurant or they just stick to one or the other. |
| Shira: I hate to say it, but I miss eating a cheeseburger from McDonalds. I haven’t found one that sells them in Israel yet. |
| Amir: You know, there have been many fast food restaurant chains that have tried to start up in Israel, but people are not so interested in their food that it would make it worth their while, and they often close down. |
| Shira: One that I was sorry to see go was Starbucks. It’s not exactly fast food, but similar. Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Amir: רעב (ra'ev) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Hungry. |
| Amir: רעב (ra'ev) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: רעב (ra'ev) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: יש (yesh) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: There is. |
| Amir: יש (yesh) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: יש (yesh) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: עוף (of) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Chicken. |
| Amir: עוף (of) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: עוף (of) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: מטוגן (metugan) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Fried. |
| Amir: מטוגן (metugan) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: מטוגן (metugan) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: אלרגיה (alergiyah) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Allergy. |
| Amir: אלרגיה (alergiyah) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: אלרגיה (alergiyah) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: לצערי (Le-tza’ari) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Unfortunately. |
| Amir: לצערי (Le-tza’ari) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לצערי (Le-tza’ari) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: להיזהר/נזהר (le-hizaher) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To be careful. |
| Amir: להיזהר/נזהר (le-hizaher) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: להיזהר/נזהר (le-hizaher) [natural native speed] |
| Amir: כביש (K’vish) [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Street. |
| Amir: כביש (K’vish) [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: כביש (K’vish) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Shira: Let's look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Amir: We’ll start with the word מטוגן (metugan). |
| Shira: מטוגן (metugan) is the adjective “fried”. It’s derived from the verb לטגן (le-tagen) or “to fry”. |
| Amir: Fried chicken is not something that we eat in Israel, it’s more of an American thing. We do fry flattened chicken breasts and we call them “schnitzel”. |
| Shira: מטוגן (metugan) can also be used to mean “sauteing” in Hebrew. It’s basically anything that is cooked in oil or butter, even if it’s a small amount. |
| Amir: The next word is לצערי (Le-tza’ari), which means “unfortunately”. |
| Shira: This phrase is made up of three parts, ל- (le-) meaning “to”, צער (tza'ar) meaning “sorrow” and י (i) meaning “my”. So, you are literally saying “to my sorrow”. |
| Amir: We would use this word when we want to express our regret that we can’t do something or that something happened. |
| Shira: Like if I were to ask Amir if he can come to my birthday party on Sunday, but he has other plans with his family, although he really would like to come. |
| Amir: I would say, אני לא יכול לבוא, לצערי. (Ani lo yachol lavo, le-tza’ari). |
| Shira: “I can’t come, unfortunately.“ |
| Amir: The next word is להיזהר (le-hizaher), or “to be careful”. |
| Shira: This verb is part of the נפעל verb group which has a lot of passive verbs in it. You will recognize these verbs by the נ' that precedes the root of the verb in the conjugations. |
| Amir: When you want to tell someone to be careful, you say זהירות! (zehirut!) |
| Shira: זהירות (zehirut) is the simplest way to tell someone to be careful because you don’t have to worry about conjugations, it works for everyone. |
| Amir: The next word is כביש (K’vish). |
| Shira: This means “road” or “highway”. All the main highways in Israel are called by their number and כביש (K’vish) comes before that number. |
| Amir: Right, like כביש 6 (k'vish 6), or “highway 6.“ |
| Shira: That’s the only toll road in Israel. |
Lesson focus |
| Shira: Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. In this lesson you will learn how to talk about existence in Hebrew. |
| Amir: Is this going to be a deep lesson like the existence of God or something? |
| Shira: No, no! It’s a language concept actually. In English we use the phrase “there is” to demonstrate that something exists. What do you use in Hebrew? |
| Amir: יש (yesh). |
| Shira: Exactly. This is what we are talking about. In the dialogue, David calls out in the car יש חתול על הכביש. (Yesh ħatul al ha-k'vish.) He was saying that there is a cat on the road. He was calling Peter’s attention to the fact that the cat was there. |
| Amir: The cat exists and you’re going to run over it! |
| Shira: So, to tell someone that something exists, you use יש (yesh) in Hebrew. The nice thing about יש (yesh) is that it never changes with the noun. It’s always יש (yesh). |
| Amir: That makes it easy because you may be feeling like everything changes form on you in Hebrew compared to English. |
| Shira: Let’s give them some more examples of sentences with יש (yesh). |
| Amir: Okay, how about יש צלחת על השולחן. (Yesh tzalaħat al ha-shul'ħan.) |
| Shira: “There is a plate on the table.” Another one |
| Amir: יש כלבים בגינה. (Yesh k'lavim ba-ginah.) |
| Shira: “There are dogs in the yard.” |
| Amir: יש אוטו למכירה. (Yesh oto li-m'khirah.) |
| Shira: “There is a car for sale.” Great! Do you have one more for us? |
| Amir: יש שמש בחוץ. (Yesh shemesh ba-ħutz.) |
| Shira: “There’s sun outside” or essentially “It’s sunny outside.” So, as you see יש (yesh) stays the same no matter what the rest of the sentence is. |
| Amir: We also use יש (yesh) to show possession, the way that you use the verb “to have” in English. |
| Shira: Yes, there is no verb “to have” in Hebrew. Instead they say something like “there is to me” or יש לי (Yesh li). |
| Amir: For us it’s the normal way to say “I have” but maybe to the listeners it’s unusual. |
| Shira: In order to show possession you need יש (yesh) and then ל- and the pronoun or the name of the person whose possession it is. |
| Amir: This was in our dialogue as well. Sarah said יש לי אלרגיה (Yesh li Alergiyah.) |
| Shira: “I have an allergy.” Or “there is to me an allergy” if you want to break it down literally. Let’s take our example sentences from before and make them into possessive sentences so we have a better idea of how this works. |
| Amir: Okay, the first one is יש לך צלחת על השולחן (Yesh lakh tzalaħat al ha-shul'ħan.) |
| Shira: לך (lach) is “to you” in the feminine, so the sentence is “you have a plate on the table”. |
| Amir: Next is יש לנו כלבים בגינה. (Yesh lanu k'lavim ba-ginah.) |
| Shira: לנו (lanu) is “to us” so this means “we have dogs in the garden”. |
| Amir: The last example is יש לדוויד אוטו למכירה. (Yesh le-David oto li-m'khirah.) |
| Shira: “David has a car for sale.” |
| Amir: I think it’s easy this way because you don’t have to worry about conjugating any verbs, but what do I know, I grew up speaking this way. |
| Shira: I agree. There are some aspects of it that are easier. |
Outro |
| Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: After listening to this lesson, please visit HebrewPod101.com and tell us what exists in your world in Hebrew. Listeners, looking for a chi-chi to memorizing Hebrew vocabulary? |
| Shira: Have you checked out our video vocab series? |
| Amir: This themed video lessons combined visual cues with the voice of native speakers. |
| Shira: Just another effective method of learning and retaining thousands of vocabulary words. |
| Amir: So go to HebrewPod101.com. |
| Shira: Click on the video lessons tab. |
| Amir: And hit play. |
| Shira: It's that easy. |
| Amir: But don't take our word for it. |
| Shira: Try it yourself at HebrewPod101.com. See you next time! |
| Amir: Shalom! |
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