Learn how to make negative sentences in Hebrew
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Intro |
|---|
| Michael: How do you say "no" in Hebrew? |
| Lenny: And how do I make negative sentences? |
| Michael: At HebrewPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Hagar has to take her son, Hadar, to the dentist, but Hadar hasn't prepared himself yet, so she asks him |
| "Are you ready?" |
| Hagar Horowitz: ?אתה מוכן (Ata mu’khan?) |
| Dialogue |
| Hagar Horowitz: ?אתה מוכן (Ata mu’khan?) |
| Hadar Horowitz: .לא, אני לא מוכן. אני לא רוצה ללכת (Lo, ani lo mu’khan. ani lo ro’tse la’lekhet.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Hagar Horowitz: ?אתה מוכן (Ata mu’khan?) |
| Michael: "Are you ready?" |
| Hadar Horowitz: .לא, אני לא מוכן. אני לא רוצה ללכת (Lo, ani lo mu’khan. ani lo ro’tse lalekhet.) |
| Michael: "No, I'm not ready. I don't want to go." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say "no" and make negative sentences in Hebrew. First, let’s review how to make a simple negative sentence. In Hebrew, you make a negative sentence with the use of the word |
| Lenny: אין (e’in) |
| Michael: which is primarily used to describe the lack of something and is the opposite of the word |
| Lenny: יש (yesh) |
| Michael: which means "there is" or "there are" in Hebrew. For example, if you want the negation for |
| Lenny: יש מבחן מחר. (yesh miv’khan makhar.) |
| Michael: "There’s a test tomorrow," you say |
| Lenny: אין מבחן מחר. (e’in miv’khan makhar.) |
| Michael: "There’s no test tomorrow." Here, we only replaced "there is" |
| Lenny: יש (yesh) |
| Michael: with "there is none" |
| Lenny: אין (e’in) |
| Michael: Let’s hear that once again |
| Lenny: יש מבחן מחר. (yesh miv’khan makhar.) |
| Michael: That’s just one of the ways to make a negative sentence in Hebrew. The word "no" in Hebrew is |
| Lenny: לא (lo) |
| Michael: This is the primary word you use for all things negative in Hebrew, and it doesn’t just take the function of "no" but of other negative expressions, too, such as "don’t" and "won’t." To use it, you only need to place it after the subject in the sentence and before the word or phrase it is negating. For instance, we have the statement "I’m a student" or |
| Lenny: אני סטודנטית. (a’ni stu’den’tit.) |
| Michael: To negate this, we say |
| Lenny: אני לא סטודנטית. (a’ni lo stu’den’tit.) |
| Michael: meaning, "I’m not a student." Let’s hear that once again. |
| Lenny: אני לא סטודנטית. (a’ni lo stu’den’tit.) |
| Michael: Now, here’s an example where the Hebrew negation takes the function of both "no," and "don’t": |
| Lenny: לא, אני לא רוצה. (lo, a’ni lo ro’tsa.) |
| Michael: This means, "No, I don’t." Let’s hear that once again. |
| Lenny: לא, אני לא רוצה. (lo, a’ni lo ro’tsa.) |
| Michael: Now, what if you want to tell people not to do something? In this case, we use the word |
| Lenny: אל (al) |
| Michael: placing it before the future tense of the verb. Here are a couple of examples: |
| Lenny: אל תרוץ (al ta’ruts) |
| Michael: This means, "Don’t run." Let’s try that again. |
| Lenny: אל תרוץ (al ta’ruts) |
| Michael: Here’s another example: |
| Lenny: אל תסעי לשם לבד. (al tis’i le’sham le’vad.) |
| Michael: or "Don’t drive there alone." Let’s listen to that one more time. |
| Lenny: אל תסעי לשם לבד. (al tis’i le’sham le’vad.) |
| [Recall] |
| Michael: This time, let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Hadar says "No, I'm not ready. I don't want to go?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Lenny as Hadar Horowitz: .לא, אני לא מוכן. אני לא רוצה ללכת (lo, a’ni lo mu’khan. a’ni lo ro’tse la’lekhet.) |
| Michael: Here, we see how Hadar used the same word for "no" and "not," which was |
| Lenny: לא (lo) |
| Michael: As mentioned, this word is what you’ll primarily use when making negative sentences in Hebrew, and it functions not only as "no," but as other negative words and phrases, which in the case of our dialogue was the word "not." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned how to make a negative sentence in Hebrew, particularly how to say "no." To do so, we use the word |
| Lenny: לא (lo) |
| Michael: which mainly means "no," "don’t," or "won’t." We can also use the word |
| Lenny: אין (e’in) |
| Michael: which is used to describe the lack of something, or in English, "there is none." And, finally, if we want to tell people not to do something, we can do that with the use of the word |
| Lenny: אל (al) |
| Michael: which also functions as the word "don’t." |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: There are instances when it’s inappropriate to answer too directly in the negative form. In some cases, saying "no" in this manner can make you come off as rude or impolite. If you want to say "no" in Hebrew without being too direct, you can do so by adding a word between the negation and the verb. That word is |
| Lenny: כל כך (kol-kakh) |
| Michael: which means "so much." For instance, instead of saying "I really hate this place," you can say something like, |
| Lenny: .אני לא אוהב את המקום הזה כל כך (ani lo ohev et ha'makom ha'ze kol - kakh.) |
| Michael: literally "I don’t like this place so much." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Lenny: !להתראות (le’hitra’ot!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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