Learn how to use the same verb in the past, present, and future
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah: Hello and welcome back to hebrewpod101.com! This is Lower Beginner Series Season 1, Lesson 13 - Talking About Your Studies in Hebrew. I’m Sherah. |
| Amir: And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah: In this lesson, you will learn how to use the same verb in the past, present and future. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place in Anna’s dorm room. |
| Sherah: It’s between Anna and Ofir. |
| Amir: The speakers are friends, so they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| Sherah: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| אנה: מה אתה לומד? |
| Anna: Mah atah lomed? |
| אופיר: עכשיו אני לומד מתמטיקה. שנה שעברה למדתי מוסיקה. |
| Ofir: Akh'shav ani lomed matematikah. Shanah she-av'rah lamad'ti musikah. |
| אנה: למה אתה לא לומד מוסיקה עכשיו. |
| Anna: Lamah atah lo lomed musikah akh'shav? |
| אופיר: כי אין עבודה בזה. אולי בהמשך אלמד סטטיסטיקה. |
| Ofir: Ki ein avodah be-zeh. Ula'i ba-hem'shekh el'mad statistikah. |
| אנה: זה נשמע לי מאוד משעמם! |
| Anna: Zeh nish'ma li me'od mesha'amem. |
| Sherah: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time, slowly. |
| אנה: מה אתה לומד? |
| Anna: Mah atah lomed? |
| אופיר: עכשיו אני לומד מתמטיקה. שנה שעברה למדתי מוסיקה. |
| Ofir: Akh'shav ani lomed matematikah. Shanah she-av'rah lamad'ti musikah. |
| אנה: למה אתה לא לומד מוסיקה עכשיו. |
| Anna: Lamah atah lo lomed musikah akh'shav? |
| אופיר: כי אין עבודה בזה. אולי בהמשך אלמד סטטיסטיקה. |
| Ofir: Ki ein avodah be-zeh. Ula'i ba-hem'shekh el'mad statistikah. |
| אנה: זה נשמע לי מאוד משעמם! |
| Anna: Zeh nish'ma li me'od mesha'amem. |
| Sherah: Now, let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| אנה: מה אתה לומד? |
| Anna: Mah atah lomed? |
| Anna: What do you study? |
| אופיר: עכשיו אני לומד מתמטיקה. שנה שעברה למדתי מוסיקה. |
| Ofir: Akh'shav ani lomed matematikah. Shanah she-av'rah lamad'ti musikah. |
| Ofir: Right now, I study mathematics. Last year, I studied music. |
| אנה: למה אתה לא לומד מוסיקה עכשיו. |
| Anna: Lamah atah lo lomed musikah akh'shav? |
| Anna: Why don't you study music now? |
| אופיר: כי אין עבודה בזה. אולי בהמשך אלמד סטטיסטיקה. |
| Ofir: Ki ein avodah be-zeh. Ula'i ba-hem'shekh el'mad statistikah. |
| Ofir: Because there isn't work in it. Maybe in the future I will study statistics. |
| אנה: זה נשמע לי מאוד משעמם! |
| Anna: Zeh nish'ma li me'od mesha'amem. |
| Anna: That sounds very boring to me. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah: Okay, so let’s talk a bit about studying in Israel. When I arrived in Israel, I discovered that having an University degree is very important. |
| Amir: It is - if you don’t have a degree it’s hard to find a job. |
| Sherah: It isn’t hard to find places to study though, there is at least one University in each of the major cities in Israel. |
| Amir: Right, and there are many small colleges all over the country. |
| Sherah: Now, what is the difference between a college and a university in Israel? |
| Amir: Well, universities can give doctorate degrees and colleges can’t. |
| Sherah: Okay, that makes sense. Well, another interesting thing is that people go to university later than students in other countries, because of their Army service. |
| Amir: Yes, most people serve in the army and then a year or two later they go to university. |
| Sherah: That means that they start university at around 22. |
| Amir: Right about the time that many American students are finishing their first degree. |
| Sherah: True. One other difference is that most people live close enough to their university that they can still go home on weekends, or even commute during the week. |
| Amir: That’s true. I went home almost every weekend. |
| Sherah: Lucky you! Ok, let’s move on to the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Sherah: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| Sherah: The first word we shall see is... |
| Amir: שנה שעברה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: last year |
| Amir: שנה שעברה [slowly - broken down by syllable] שנה שעברה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: למה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: why |
| Amir: למה [slowly - broken down by syllable] למה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: מתמטיקה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: math, mathematics |
| Amir: מתמטיקה [slowly - broken down by syllable] מתמטיקה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: מוסיקה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: music |
| Amir: מוסיקה [slowly - broken down by syllable] מוסיקה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: כי [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: because |
| Amir: כי [slowly - broken down by syllable] כי [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: אולי [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: maybe, perhaps |
| Amir: אולי [slowly - broken down by syllable] אולי [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: בהמשך [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: in the future, later |
| Amir: בהמשך [slowly - broken down by syllable] בהמשך [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: סטטיסטיקה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: statistics |
| Amir: סטטיסטיקה [slowly - broken down by syllable] סטטיסטיקה [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: משעמם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: boring |
| Amir: משעמם [slowly - broken down by syllable] משעמם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: And last... |
| Amir: להישמע/נשמע [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: to sound |
| Amir: להישמע/נשמע [slowly - broken down by syllable] להישמע/נשמע [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Sherah: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is שנה שעברה. |
| Amir: שנה שעברה means “last year”. |
| Sherah: Technically, you could say that it means “the year that passed”. |
| Amir: Right, it starts out with שנה meaning “year” and then we have שעברה or “that passed”. |
| Sherah: Note that there is agreement between שנה and עברה, both are in the feminine. |
| Amir: In Israel, we use two calendars, the Jewish calendar and the Gregorian calendar. |
| Sherah: Right, when Amir says that they use two calendars, they really do. |
| Amir: Most religious Jews use the Jewish calendar more than the Gregorian calendar. |
| Sherah: Everyone else uses the Gregorian calendar more, but life in Israel is still lived according to both. |
| Amir: So, when you say שנה שעברה you can use it to refer to either year, the one according to the Jewish calendar or according to the Gregorian calendar. |
| Sherah: The next word we want to talk about is בהמשך or “in the future”. |
| Amir: This is made up of two words, -ב and המשך. ‘Be’ means “in” and המשך means “continuance”. |
| Sherah: You can use this word on its own, like in the sentence היא תספר יותר בהמשך - “She will tell more in the future.” |
| Amir: Or, you could use it to connect to another word like בהמשך התוכנית which means “later in the program”. |
| Sherah: The last word that we want to talk about is נשמע or להישמע which means “to sound” or “is heard”. |
| Amir: We use this verb in the expression זה נשמע טוב meaning “that sounds good”. |
| Sherah: There’s also a very popular slang expression that almost everyone uses to greet one another. |
| Amir: You mean מה נשמע - the translation would be “what sounds?” |
| Sherah: Right, but Israelis use it to mean “what’s going on?” Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah: In this lesson you will learn how to use the verb ללמוד , “to study”, in all three tenses. |
| Amir: We’re going to look at three different sentences from the dialogue for this, one in the present, one in the past and one in the future. |
| Sherah: We want to show you how a verb changes in these three tenses. |
| Amir: The verb that we are going to be demonstrating this with is ללמוד which means “to study”. |
| Sherah: Right, ללמוד is considered a regular verb in the פעל verb group. |
| Amir: פעל verbs are the most common verbs used in Hebrew and they have the simplest conjugation. |
| Sherah: Let’s start with the present tense. Ofir says אני לומד מתמטיקה “I study mathematics”. |
| Amir: לומד is the conjugation that he uses in the present tense. |
| Sherah: The root of ללמוד is ל-מ-ד and in the present tense there is a vav inserted between the first and second letters of the root. |
| Amir: Right, the simplest form of of the verb “to study” is לומד like Ofir used. To conjugate for other subjects, you would use the normal present tense endings. |
| Sherah: Right, like לומדת, לומדים and לומדות - “study” in the feminine singular and plural forms. |
| Amir: Listeners, repeat all forms after me לומד [pause] לומדת [pause] לומדים [pause] לומדות [pause] |
| Sherah: Okay, next up is the past tense. Here is the sentence that Ofir uses in the past - שנה שעברה למדתי מוסיקה. “Last year I studied music.” |
| Amir: The verb here is למדתי. “I studied.” |
| Sherah: In the past tense, normal פעל verbs use the root letters of the verb with “ah” vowels in between them as the verb stem, here it’s למד, and then they add on the past tense suffixes according to the agreement with the subject. |
| Amir: For example, Ofir wanted to say “I studied” so the suffix for “I” is תי- so the verb stem למד becomes למדתי.. |
| Sherah: Here are the conjugations for ללמוד singular forms in the past tense. Listeners, repeat them after Amir. |
| Amir: “I” - למדתי [pause] “you - masculine” למדת [pause] “you - feminine” למדת [pause] “he” למד [pause] “she” למדה |
| Sherah: And here are the plural forms. |
| Amir: “We” למדנו [pause] “you - masculine” למדתם [pause] “you - feminine” למדתן [pause] “they” למדו [pause] |
| Sherah: So, the last tense to tackle is the future tense. |
| Amir: With ללמוד, the verb stem in the future is also just the root letters. “I will study” is אלמד - the “eh” has been added to the verb stem for the first person conjugation. |
| Sherah: And, in the future tense, we use both prefixes and suffixes to conjugate the verbs. Repeat after Amir as he takes you through the singular conjugations for ללמוד in the future. |
| Amir: “I” - אלמד [pause] “you - masculine” תלמד[pause] “you - feminine” תלמדי[pause] he ילמד [pause] she תלמד |
| Sherah: If you noticed, the “you” masculine singular and the “she” conjugations are the same in the future. So now, here are the plural conjugations. |
| Amir: “We” נלמד [pause] “you - plural” תלמדו [pause] “they” ילמדו [pause]. |
| Sherah: We hope that hearing the different conjugations of ללמוד has helped you to understand a little more about how a verb transitions from one tense to another in Hebrew. |
| Amir: Hebrew is very logical and the patterns of the verbs sound the same from verb to verb. |
| Sherah: Once you get the rhythm of the language, it’s easier to conjugate verbs. |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah: Ok, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: Now that you’ve listened to this lesson, please visit HebrewPod101.com and tell us about your past, present and future. |
| Sherah: Thanks everyone! |
| Amir: |
| Sherah: Bye! |
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