Learn how to use personal pronouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah: Hello and welcome to hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Beginner Series Season 1, Lesson 12 - How to Use Hebrew Feminine Grammar. I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir: And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use feminine grammar. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place in Anna’s dorm room in the evening. |
| Sherah: The conversation is between Anna, Ofir and Anna’s roommates. |
| Amir: The speakers are friends, so they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| Sherah: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| אופיר: מה אתן עשיתן היום? |
| Ofir: Mah aten asiten ha-yom? |
| אנה: אנחנו עבדנו ולמדנו. |
| Anna: Anaħ’nu avad’nu ve-lamad’nu. |
| אפיר: אתן עובדות באותו מקום בקיבוץ? |
| Ofir: Aten ov’dot be-oto makom ba-kibbutz? |
| אנה: לא, אני עובדת במכבסה והן ברפת. |
| Anna: Lo, Ani ovedet ba-mikh’basah ve-hen ba-refet. |
| אופיר: ברפת? מסכנות! |
| Ofir: Ba-refet? Mis’kenot! |
| אנה: איפה אתה עובד? |
| Anna: Eifo atah oved? |
| אופיר: אני לא עובד, אני לומד באוניברסיטה. |
| Ofir: Ani lo oved, ani lomed ba-universitah. |
| Sherah: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time, slowly. |
| אופיר: מה אתן עשיתן היום? |
| Ofir: Mah aten asiten ha-yom? |
| אנה: אנחנו עבדנו ולמדנו. |
| Anna: Anaħ’nu avad’nu ve-lamad’nu. |
| אפיר: אתן עובדות באותו מקום בקיבוץ? |
| Ofir: Aten ov’dot be-oto makom ba-kibbutz? |
| אנה: לא, אני עובדת במכבסה והן ברפת. |
| Anna: Lo, Ani ovedet ba-mikh’basah ve-hen ba-refet. |
| אופיר: ברפת? מסכנות! |
| Ofir: Ba-refet? Mis’kenot! |
| אנה: איפה אתה עובד? |
| Anna: Eifo atah oved? |
| אופיר: אני לא עובד, אני לומד באוניברסיטה. |
| Ofir: Ani lo oved, ani lomed ba-universitah. |
| Sherah: Now, let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| אופיר: מה אתן עשיתן היום? |
| Ofir: Mah aten asiten ha-yom? |
| Ofir: What did you (plural) do today? |
| אנה: אנחנו עבדנו ולמדנו. |
| Anna: Anaħ’nu avad’nu ve-lamad’nu. |
| Anna: We worked and studied. |
| אפיר: אתן עובדות באותו מקום בקיבוץ? |
| Ofir: Aten ov’dot be-oto makom ba-kibbutz? |
| Ofir: Do you work in the same place in the kibbutz? |
| אנה: לא, אני עובדת במכבסה והן ברפת. |
| Anna: Lo, Ani ovedet ba-mikh’basah ve-hen ba-refet. |
| Anna: No, I work in the laundry, and they work in the dairy. |
| אופיר: ברפת? מסכנות! |
| Ofir: Ba-refet? Mis’kenot! |
| Ofir: The dairy? Poor girls! |
| אנה: איפה אתה עובד? |
| Anna: Eifo atah oved? |
| Anna: Where do you work? |
| אופיר: אני לא עובד, אני לומד באוניברסיטה. |
| Ofir: Ani lo oved, ani lomed ba-universitah. |
| Ofir: I don't work. I study at university. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah: Well, I thought we should talk about timing in Israel... |
| Amir: I’m not sure I follow, what do you mean by that? |
| Sherah: Well, the timing of major life events is a little different than in other countries. |
| Amir: Oh, you mean like University and the army and such? |
| Sherah: Exactly, when Israelis finish high school, they go on to do their army service, or their national service. Men serve for 3 years and women for two. |
| Amir: The army or national service is something that is required for most of the population of Israel. |
| Sherah: But because you have these 2-3 years in the army, the timing of life events like going to University is a little different from other countries. |
| Amir: Right, in other countries you go to University when you are 18 or 19. In Israel, you go when you’re around 21 or 22. |
| Sherah: Most people take a half year or year break to travel the world after the army, so this makes the timing even later. |
| Amir: We usually don’t finish University until we are in our mid-20s, so we tend to marry later as well. |
| Sherah: I think another thing is that almost all Israelis go to University or a college after the army, so later timing is pretty universal. |
| Amir: Well, it’s extremely difficult to find a job without a degree in Israel, so most people choose to go to university. |
| Sherah: And it’s not too expensive. It’s quite a bit cheaper than studying in the States, but it is more expensive than in some European countries. |
| Amir: I think the result is that we have a very different atmosphere in our Universities. |
| Sherah: That’s true, the difference from 18 to 22 is usually pretty big. Well, now let’s move on to the vocabulary. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Sherah: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Sherah: The first word we shall see is... |
| Amir: היום [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: today |
| Amir: היום [slowly - broken down by syllable] היום [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: אנחנו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: we |
| Amir: אנחנו [slowly - broken down by syllable] אנחנו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: אתן [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: you (pl.,fem.) |
| Amir: אתן [slowly - broken down by syllable] אתן [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: איפה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: where |
| Amir: איפה [slowly - broken down by syllable] איפה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: אותו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: the same |
| Amir: אותו [slowly - broken down by syllable] אותו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: מקום [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: place |
| Amir: מקום [slowly - broken down by syllable] מקום [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: רפת [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: dairy farm |
| Amir: רפת [slowly - broken down by syllable] רפת [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: מסכן [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: unfortunate/miserable |
| Amir: מסכן [slowly - broken down by syllable] מסכן [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: אוניברסיטה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: university |
| Amir: אוניברסיטה [slowly - broken down by syllable] אוניברסיטה [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Sherah: Let’s take a closer look at some of the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is אותו. |
| Amir: This word is found in the sentence אתן עובדות באותו מקום בקיבוץ and it means “the same” |
| Sherah: There are two words with this spelling, so you have to find the meaning from the context of the sentence. In this lesson, we are only talking about the אותו that means “the same”. |
| Amir: This word needs to agree in gender with the noun is it modifying. מקום is masculine, so you use אותו. |
| Sherah: There are 4 versions - אותו, אותה, אותם and אותן. What you use depends on the gender and number of what you are comparing. |
| Amir: One phrase that we use a lot with this word is זה אותו דבר or “it’s the same thing”. |
| Sherah: The next word we want to talk about is רפת. |
| Amir: A ‘refet’ is a dairy where they keep cows for milking. |
| Sherah: In Israel, there are small ‘refets’ all over the country and they all sell their milk to the big dairy producers. |
| Amir: In one village, you could have 2 or 3 ‘refets’ and on a kibbutz you would have one large one. |
| Sherah: Our last word is מסכן and it means “miserable” or “wretched”. |
| Amir: Israelis use this a lot when they feel sorry for someone, and then they will call that person מסכן. |
| Sherah: You can also use this ironically if you are jealous that someone gets to do something fun that you don’t get to do. מסכן! Okay, now let’s move on to the Grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah: In this lesson, we will review using feminine grammar. This was one of the tougher things for me to pick up, just because I wasn’t used to having to separate everyone into male and female. |
| Amir: Right, in English you don’t have that at all. |
| Sherah: And in many European languages, you separate the nouns into genders, but when you’re talking to someone, you don’t have to think about whether they are male or female. |
| Amir: That’s what makes Hebrew different, but it is similar in other semitic languages. Arabic also has similar grammar. |
| Sherah: So, what we want to review in this lesson is feminine grammar, or the grammar that you use when you are talking to one or more girls or women. |
| Amir: Let’s start out with what Ofir asks the girls, מה אתן עשיתן היום? |
| Sherah: Because Ofir is talking to all women, he uses the pronoun אתן and the feminine plural ending -תן on עשיתן. Let’s take this sentence and change it to a singular “you” את. |
| Amir: Then the sentence would be מה את עשית היום? |
| Sherah: And if we wanted to ask what “they” did, when “they” is all women... |
| Amir: מה הן עשו היום?. |
| Sherah: With this last sentence, you use the pronoun הן, but the verb עשו is used for both הן and הם. So, for the masculine and the feminine. |
| Amir: Right, the hardest one to remember is the second person “you” plural in the feminine because that’s the version you’ll use the least. |
| Sherah: Right, it only takes one man to change the grammar, and then you have to use אתם. |
| Amir: That’s exactly why you use it so little. |
| Sherah: So let’s listen to some examples to get used to the feminine plural pattern. We’ll give you sentences for אתן and then sentences for הן. We’ll give you one sample sentence for the present, the past, and then the future for each. Take it away Amir. |
| Amir: Okay, first sentence - אתן חייבות לבוא לשיעור בזמן |
| Sherah: You have to come to class on time. |
| Amir: אתן הייתן בשיעור שלי אתמול. |
| Sherah: You were in my class yesterday. |
| Amir: אתן תבשלו ארוחת ערב היום. |
| Sherah: You will cook dinner today. |
| Amir: הן רצות במרוץ. |
| Sherah: They are running in the race. |
| Amir: הן הייו בקניון. |
| Sherah: They were at the mall. |
| Amir: הן יאמינו לו |
| Sherah: “They will believe him.” There are so many little things in the grammar that change from past, to present, to future. Sometimes the verbs are the same as with other pronouns and sometimes the verbs are different from all other pronouns. |
| Amir: My tip is to write down all the different conjugations of a verb to see the patterns throughout the language. |
| Sherah: I know that that really helped me. I’m the type of person who benefits from seeing the structure of things. |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah: Okay, well, that’s it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, everyone! |
| Amir: Make sure you check the lesson notes, and we’ll see you for the next lesson. |
| Sherah: Bye! |
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