Learn how to exchange currency
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah: Hi everyone, and welcome back to HebrewPod101.com. This is Beginner Season 1 Lesson 15 - Exchanging Currency in Israel. Sherah Here. |
| Amir: שלום I'm Amir. |
| Sherah: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to exchange money in Hebrew. The conversation takes place at a bank. |
| Amir: It's between Nitzan and a clerk. |
| Sherah: The speakers are in a casual setting, so they’ll be using informal Hebrew. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
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| ניצן: יש לי 200 דולר ואני רוצה להמיר אותם לשקלים. |
| פקידה: בסדר גמור. |
| ניצן: מה הוא שער חליפין? |
| פקידה: השער היום הוא 3.4 שקל לדולר. |
| ניצן: הוא נמוך היום. |
| פקידה: כן, נכון.... בבקשה. |
| ניצן: תודה. שיהיה לך יום יפה. |
| פקידה: היום יפה באמת. |
| Sherah: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| ניצן: יש לי 200 דולר ואני רוצה להמיר אותם לשקלים. |
| פקידה: בסדר גמור. |
| ניצן: מה הוא שער חליפין? |
| פקידה: השער היום הוא 3.4 שקל לדולר. |
| ניצן: הוא נמוך היום. |
| פקידה: כן, נכון.... בבקשה. |
| ניצן: תודה. שיהיה לך יום יפה. |
| פקידה: היום יפה באמת. |
| Sherah: Listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Nitzan: I have $200 and I want to convert them to NIS. |
| Clerk: Fine. |
| Nitzan: What is the exchange rate? |
| Clerk: The exchange rate today is 3.4 shekels to the dollar. |
| Nitzan: It's low today. |
| Clerk: Yeah, it is.... here you go. |
| Nitzan: Thank you. Have a nice day! |
| Clerk: It is a truly nice day. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah: The currency we use in Israel today, the New Israeli Shekel, has been in existence since January 1st, 1986. |
| Amir: It was introduced as a replacement for the old Israeli Shekel. |
| Sherah: The old shekel became hyper-inflated, so they introduced the new shekel at a rate of one new shekel to one thousand old shekels. |
| Amir: Most people spell shekel with a “k” in English, but the official spelling is actually with a “q”. |
| Sherah: And the abbreviation in English is NIS. |
| Amir: In Hebrew, we call the shekel שקל חדש, meaning “new shekel”. |
| Sherah: The abbreviation for the shekel in Hebrew is shin for shekel and ħet for חדש. |
| Amir: We say it ש”ח for short. |
| Sherah: The symbol for the shekel is a shin and a ħet intertwined. |
| Amir: If you need to know the international code for our currency, it’s ILS. |
| Sherah: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Sherah: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Amir: דולר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: dollar |
| Amir: דולר[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: דולר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: להמיר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: to exchange |
| Amir: להמיר[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: להמיר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: שער חליפין [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: conversion rate |
| Amir: שער חליפין[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: שער חליפין [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: נמוך [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: low |
| Amir: נמוך[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: נמוך [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: שקלים [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Israeli Shekel |
| Amir: שקלים[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: שקלים [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: בסדר גמור [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: fine |
| Amir: בסדר גמור[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: בסדר גמור [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: שער [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: gate |
| Amir: שער[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: שער [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next we have.. |
| Amir: נכון [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: correct, true |
| Amir: נכון[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: נכון [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Sherah: Let's take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Amir: להמיר |
| Sherah: meaning "to exchange" |
| Amir: It can also mean “to convert”. |
| Sherah: It’s mainly used in two situations, when talking about exchanging money or when talking about converting to another religion. |
| Amir: It’s part of the hif’il verb group, but it’s irregular. |
| Sherah: It’s conjugated like other verbs with two strong letters in the hif’il verb group. |
| Amir: One expression using this verb is להמיר את דתו, meaning “to convert” or “to change one’s religion” |
| Sherah: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Amir: Sure. For example, you can say.. אני המרתי כסף לשקלים |
| Sherah: ..which means "I exchanged money to shekels." Okay, what's the next word? |
| Amir: שער חליפין |
| Sherah: meaning "exchange rate". |
| Amir: The first word of this phrase is שער and it can have several different meanings. |
| Sherah: Right, it can mean “rate” as it does in this expression. |
| Amir: But can also mean “gate”. |
| Sherah: In soccer it is used to refer to “the goalpost”. |
| Amir: In publishing, it can mean the “title page” or the “front page” of a magazine. |
| Sherah: The second word of the phrase, חליפין means “exchange”. Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Amir: Sure. For example, you can say.. שער החליפין להיום הוא ארבעה שקלים לדולר אחד. |
| Sherah: .. which means "The exchange rate for today is four shekels to one dollar." Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Sherah: In this lesson you will learn to exchange money and how to ask about the exchange rate in Hebrew, using הוא and היא for “it”. In Hebrew, there are two ways to say “it”. |
| Amir: Though we usually use the word זה or זאת, you can also use הוא and היא. |
| Sherah: הוא and היא refer to all nouns, not just people. |
| Amir: When used to refer to non-human nouns, it translates as “it”. |
| Sherah: We heard an example of this in the dialogue, when Nitzan said the exchange rate is low today. |
| Amir: Right, he said, הוא נמוך היום |
| Sherah: The translation of this sentence is “it’s low today” and הוא is the pronoun used to refer to the noun,שער חליפין, a masculine noun. |
| Amir: Since this is a masculine noun, the pronoun we must use is הוא. |
| Sherah: If the noun it was replacing was a feminine noun, the pronoun היא would have been used instead. An interesting note is that in Hebrew, more often than not, animals are referred to by “he” and “she” instead of “it”. |
| Amir: For instance, if we are talking about a female rabbit, or ארנבת, we would refer to it as היא, or “she”. |
| Sherah: This is instead of “it” or זאת. |
| Amir: For instance, if we were talking about the rabbit we could say, הארנבת לבנה. היא קופצת מאוד גבוה |
| Sherah: This means “The rabbit is white. It jumps very high.” Here היא is translated as “it”. |
| Amir: Here’s another sample sentence - הספר על השלחן. הוא ספר היסטוריה. |
| Sherah: This means, “The book is on the table. It’s a history book.” |
| Amir: Here again, the history book is referred to as “he” or הוא and not “it”. |
| Sherah: If you’re familiar with other languages with gender-specific nouns, this should come naturally to you. |
Outro |
| Sherah: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Amir: תודה |
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