Learn 15 must-know family words
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| שלום (Shalom) |
| everybody! Idit here. Welcome to Hebrew Top Words and today, we are going to talk about 15 must know family words. Let’s get started! |
| 1. |
| משפחה |
| (mish'pakhah) |
| "family" |
| זו תמונה של משפחתי. |
| (Zo tmu'na shel mish'pakh'ti.) |
| "This is a picture of my family." |
| 2. |
| אב ,אבא |
| (av, aba) |
| "father" |
| מי האבא של מריו? |
| (mi ha'aba shel mario?) |
| "Who is Mario's father?" |
| So in Hebrew, there are basically two ways for saying father or dad and one of them is |
| אבא |
| (aba) |
| which is the more natural one and normal one that people use and it can mean dad or daddy or father also. It’s like a real word. It’s not just like daddy! |
| אב |
| (av) |
| is a little bit more biblical and more formal and people don’t usually use it, but still, it’s an important word to know. Obviously, both of the words are very close with just a difference of one letter in the end so you can understand, but just so you’ll know that |
| אב |
| (av) |
| is a bit more serious I guess. |
| 3. |
| בעל |
| (ba'al) |
| "husband" |
| בעלי האהוב מבשל בשבילי. |
| (ba'ali ha'ahuv mevashel bishvili.) |
| "My beloved husband is cooking for me." |
| So actually now, a lot of women and especially I guess feminist women don’t want to use the word |
| בעל |
| (ba'al) |
| anymore because it does come from the word “owner” and of course, yes, it comes from the Bible and back then, men used to own women, but since we don’t live at that time anymore, many women just don’t say that word anymore and they say an equivalent to “my man” which is |
| אישי |
| (ishi). |
| 4. |
| בן |
| (ben) |
| "son" |
| הבן שלי סטודנט באוניברסיטה. |
| (Ha-ben sheli student be-universitah.) |
| "My son is a university student." |
| This is really easy. The word for son in Hebrew is just the same as the word for boy |
| בן |
| (ben). |
| 5. |
| אח |
| (aħ) |
| "brother" |
| .לאבא שלי יש שלושה אחים. |
| (Le-aba sheli yesh shlosha achim.) |
| "My father has three brothers." |
| This is also like a very easy word |
| אח |
| (aħ). |
| If you got your |
| ח |
| (ħ) |
| right then you will be fine. |
| 6. |
| דוד |
| (dod) |
| "uncle" |
| הדוד שלי רופא. |
| (Ha-dod sheli rofe.) |
| "My uncle is a doctor." |
| Another interesting factoid is that the word |
| דוד |
| (dod) |
| in the Bible doesn’t only mean uncle, but sometimes, it’s used as meaning “my love” especially in the Song of Songs and psalmy, but it doesn’t have anything to do like the word uncle and the word “my love / lover”. It has nothing to do with each other. |
| 7. |
| סבא |
| (saba) |
| "grandfather" |
| ירשתי את השעון הזה מסבא שלי. |
| (yarashti et ha’sha-on ha’ze mi’saba sheli.) |
| "I inherited this clock from my grandfather." |
| So as you can see, most of the words in Hebrew for family members are quite short and easy because you use them a lot. Family is very important in Jewish culture and Israeli culture is a very family oriented culture I guess so yeah, like even the word for dad and grandad are very similar. It’s |
| אבא |
| (aba) |
| and |
| סבא |
| (saba). |
| 8. |
| אמא |
| (ima) |
| "mother" |
| אמא ואבא שלי היו נשואים חמישים שנה. |
| (Ima ve-aba sheli hayu nesuyim chamishim shanah.) |
| "My mother and father were married for fifty years." |
| So again, for the word for mom or mother, the word |
| אמא |
| (ima) |
| is more common and used as mom, mommy, mother and the word |
| אמ |
| (em) |
| again is more biblical. It’s shorter, it’s more official, just the same as we’ve learned about father. |
| 9. |
| בת |
| (bat) |
| "daughter" |
| הבת שלנו פרופסור באוניברסיטה והבן שלנו איש עסקים. |
| (Ha-bat shelanu profesor ba-universita ve-ha-ben shelanu ish asakim.) |
| "Our daughter is a university professor, and our son is a businessman." |
| Again, very easy, the word for daughter is just the same as the word for a girl |
| בת |
| (bat). |
| 10. |
| אחות |
| (akhot) |
| "sister" |
| היא האחות הגדולה שלי והיא עורכת דין. |
| (Hi ha-achot ha-g'dolah sheli ve-hi orekhat din.) |
| "She is my older sister, and she is a lawyer." |
| אחות |
| (akhot) |
| as you can probably tell sounds very similar to actress with a suffix for a female. |
| 11. |
| אישה |
| (isha) |
| "wife" |
| היא אישה ואם. |
| (Hi isha ve-em.) |
| "She is a wife and a mother." |
| The word for a wife is the same as the word for a woman. It’s very simple. It’s like she’s my woman, she’s my wife, it’s the same. When a man says my wife, he would say...the most common way to hear it is |
| אישתי |
| (ishti). |
| 12. |
| חמות |
| (ħamot) |
| "mother-in-law" |
| אל תיתן לחמה שתלטנית לרדות בך. |
| (Al titen le`khama shtal`tanit lirdot be`kha.) |
| "Don’t be pushed around by an overbearing mother-in-law." |
| It’s not just the mothers everybody, okay. Also, there are two words for the word mother-in-law and they’re very similar |
| חותנת |
| (ħama) |
| and |
| חמות |
| (ħamot) |
| and they’re both used kind of interchangeably. |
| 13. |
| סבתא |
| (savta) |
| "grandmother" |
| סבתא מכינה את פאי התפוחים הטוב בעולם. |
| (Savta mekhina et pa'i ha`tapu`khim hatov ba'olam.) |
| "My grandmother makes the best apple pie in the world." |
| Well I guess American grandmothers. My grandmother made the best rice casserole in the world. |
| 14. |
| בת זוג |
| (bat-zug, ben zug) |
| "partner" |
| הרבה גברים צעירים מחפשים בת זוג |
| (harbe gvarim tseyirim mechapsim bat zug) |
| "Many young men are looking for a partner." |
| So in Hebrew, again, you always have the difference between male and female unlike English when partner can be both male and female so when you’re talking about a boy partner, it’s |
| בת זוג |
| (ben sug) |
| and a girl partner is |
| בת זוג |
| (bat-zug). |
| Like we’ve learned that |
| בן |
| (ben) |
| is “boy” and |
| בת |
| (bat) |
| is “girl” and also “daughter” and |
| בן |
| (ben) |
| is also “son. |
| It’s very simple. |
| 15. |
| דודה |
| (doda) |
| "aunt" |
| הדודה שלי אוהבת פרחים צהובים. |
| (Hadoda sheli ohevet prachim tsehubim.) |
| "My aunt likes yellow flowers." |
| Sometimes, we use the word for aunt in Hebrew also when we see just like a woman who’s a little bit older, maybe like in her 50s and she seems to, you know, have this older-woman vibe or when we say about somebody that she dresses older for her age or put some makeup that makes her look older than her true age then we can say that she looks like a |
| דודה |
| (doda), |
| she looks like an aunt. I don’t know why that is, but actually I think that’s a very accurate way to say it like, oh, she looks like a total aunt. |
| Okay, everybody, that’s it for today. Today, we’ve learned about 15 must know family words in Hebrew. Tell me about your family and who is your favorite family member and I’ll see you next time. Bye! |
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