Learn how to use Hebrew verb "to be" in the past and future tenses
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner Series Season 1, Lesson 24 - Hiking Through the Israeli Desert. I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir: And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah: In this lesson, you will learn the verb “to be” in the past tense. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place in the negev in the afternoon. |
| 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: איפה אנחנו?יפה פה, לא הייתי פה אף פעם. |
| Anna: Eifo anaħ’nu? Yafeh po, lo hayiti po af pa’am. |
| אופיר: אנחנו בנגב. זה מדבר. עכשיו בקיץ אין פה צמחים אבל בחורף שעבר היו אפילו פרחים. |
| Ofir: Anaħ’nu ba-negev. Zeh midbar. Akh’shav ba-ka’itz ein po tz’maħim aval ba-ħoref she-avar hayu afilu p’raħim. |
| אנה: היו פרחים בנגב? |
| Anna: Hayu p’raħim ba-negev? |
| אופיר: כן, אחרי הגשם יהיו עוד פרחים . |
| Ofir: Ken, aħare’i ha-geshem yi’hiyu od p’raħim. |
| אנה: מתי יורד גשם? |
| Anna: Mata’i yored geshem. |
| אופיר: הגשם מתחיל לרדת בסתיו. אולי נהיה פה בחורף הבא כדי לראות. |
| Ofir: Ha-geshem mat’ħil la-redet ba-stav. Ula’i ni’hiyeh po ba-horef ha-ba k’de’i lir’ot. |
| אנה: כן, מתי אפשר לחזור? |
| Anna: Ken, mata’i ef’shar laħ’zor? |
| Sherah: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time, slowly. |
| אנה: איפה אנחנו?יפה פה, לא הייתי פה אף פעם. |
| Anna: Eifo anaħ’nu? Yafeh po, lo hayiti po af pa’am. |
| אופיר: אנחנו בנגב. זה מדבר. עכשיו בקיץ אין פה צמחים אבל בחורף שעבר היו אפילו פרחים. |
| Ofir: Anaħ’nu ba-negev. Zeh midbar. Akh’shav ba-ka’itz ein po tz’maħim aval ba-ħoref she-avar hayu afilu p’raħim. |
| אנה: היו פרחים בנגב? |
| Anna: Hayu p’raħim ba-negev? |
| אופיר: כן, אחרי הגשם יהיו עוד פרחים . |
| Ofir: Ken, aħare’i ha-geshem yi’hiyu od p’raħim. |
| אנה: מתי יורד גשם? |
| Anna: Mata’i yored geshem. |
| אופיר: הגשם מתחיל לרדת בסתיו. אולי נהיה פה בחורף הבא כדי לראות. |
| Ofir: Ha-geshem mat’ħil la-redet ba-stav. Ula’i ni’hiyeh po ba-horef ha-ba k’de’i lir’ot. |
| אנה: כן, מתי אפשר לחזור? |
| Anna: Ken, mata’i ef’shar laħ’zor? |
| Sherah: Now, let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| אנה: איפה אנחנו?יפה פה, לא הייתי פה אף פעם. |
| Anna: Eifo anaħ’nu? Yafeh po, lo hayiti po af pa’am. |
| Anna: Where are we? It's nice here; I've never been here. |
| אופיר: אנחנו בנגב. זה מדבר. עכשיו בקיץ אין פה צמחים אבל בחורף שעבר היו אפילו פרחים. |
| Ofir: Anaħ’nu ba-negev. Zeh midbar. Akh’shav ba-ka’itz ein po tz’maħim aval ba-ħoref she-avar hayu afilu p’raħim. |
| Ofir: We are in the Negev. It's a desert. Now in the summer, there aren't any plants, but last winter there were even flowers. |
| אנה: היו פרחים בנגב? |
| Anna: Hayu p’raħim ba-negev? |
| Anna: There were flowers in the Negev? |
| אופיר: כן, אחרי הגשם יהיו עוד פרחים . |
| Ofir: Ken, aħare’i ha-geshem yi’hiyu od p’raħim. |
| Ofir: Yes, after the rain, there will be more flowers. |
| אנה: מתי יורד גשם? |
| Anna: Mata’i yored geshem. |
| Anna: When does it rain? |
| אופיר: הגשם מתחיל לרדת בסתיו. אולי נהיה פה בחורף הבא כדי לראות. |
| Ofir: Ha-geshem mat’ħil la-redet ba-stav. Ula’i ni’hiyeh po ba-horef ha-ba k’de’i lir’ot. |
| Ofir: The rain will start to fall in autumn. Maybe we will be here next winter in order to see. |
| אנה: כן, מתי אפשר לחזור? |
| Anna: Ken, mata’i ef’shar laħ’zor? |
| Anna: When can we return? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Amir: In the dialogue, they’re on a hike, so let’s talk about hiking in Israel! |
| Sherah: Israelis love to hike. If you venture out hiking in Israel, you are very likely to end up on the Israel National Trail. |
| Amir: Or שביל ישראל as we call it. |
| Sherah: The trail runs from North to South and is almost 1,000 kilometers long. |
| Amir: The trail is marked by an orange, white and blue striped sign. |
| Sherah: It can be hiked in either direction and you can hike it in pieces or all at once. |
| Amir: If you do hike it all at one time, it will take you between 35 to 50 days. |
| Sherah: The north and central areas are very populated, so it’s easy to find food and places to stay there if you aren’t camping. |
| Amir: But the south is desert and it’s hard to find places to buy food, so if you hike down south you need to plan ahead. |
| Sherah: The best times to hike it are in the spring and fall. Listeners, if you go to Israel, why not check it out! 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: מתי [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: when |
| Amir: מתי [slowly - broken down by syllable] מתי [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: עכשיו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: now |
| Amir: עכשיו [slowly - broken down by syllable] עכשיו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: מדבר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: desert |
| Amir: מדבר [slowly - broken down by syllable] מדבר [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: קיץ [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: summer |
| Amir: קיץ [slowly - broken down by syllable] קיץ [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: חורף [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: winter |
| Amir: חורף [slowly - broken down by syllable] חורף [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: צמח [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: plant |
| Amir: צמח [slowly - broken down by syllable] צמח [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: פרח [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: flower |
| Amir: פרח [slowly - broken down by syllable] פרח [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: גשם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: rain |
| Amir: גשם [slowly - broken down by syllable] גשם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: Next |
| Amir: אף פעם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: never |
| Amir: אף פעם [slowly - broken down by syllable] אף פעם [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: And last... |
| Amir: אפילו [natural native speed] |
| Sherah: even |
| Amir: אפילו [slowly - broken down by syllable] אפילו [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 word that we want to talk about is מדבר. |
| Amir: מדבר is “desert” or “wilderness”. |
| Sherah: In Israel, one מדבר is the Negev. |
| Amir: The Negev is the desert in the south of Israel and it takes up a third of the country’s area. |
| Sherah: There is also a small מדבר or desert next to it called מדבר יהודה . |
| Amir: In English, it’s called the Judean desert. It’s east of Jerusalem. |
| Sherah: The last word we want to talk about is אפילו. |
| Amir: This has a few different meanings, like “even”, “even if” or “even though”. |
| Sherah: אפילו can be used with אז to mean “even then”. |
| Amir: like in the sentence - אפילו אז הוא לא עבר את המבחן. |
| Sherah: Even then he didn’t pass the test. |
| Amir: You can also use it with לא which becomes אפילו לא and then it means “not so much as”. |
| Sherah: It’s a very useful word. Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah: In this lesson you will learn how to use the verb “to be” in the past tense. |
| Amir: So far in our lessons, we haven’t dealt with the verb “to be” להיות because we don’t use it in the present tense. |
| Sherah: The root of להיות is ‘heh - yod - heh’ or ‘heh-yod-yod’, so all the conjugations will revolve around these letters. |
| Amir: Our sample sentence from the dialogue is לא הייתי פה אף פעם. |
| Sherah: Right, Anna says “I’ve never been here”. The verb is הייתי and it incorporates the pronoun “I” into the suffix. So, הייתי means “I was”. |
| Amir: The basic verb stem that everything is built on in the past is היה. |
| Sherah: Yes, this is also the masculine singular conjugation. As you can see, the ‘heh’ of היה has been changed to a ‘yod’ and then the suffix תי has been added. |
| Amir: Another example of להיות in the past tense from the dialogue is ...אבל בחרף היו אפילו פרחי. …”but in the winter there were even flowers.” |
| Sherah: The verb in that sentence is היו, which is the third person plural conjugation and agrees with the implied subject “there”. “There were flowers”. |
| Amir: Here, the ‘heh’ of the base form has been dropped and replaced by a ‘vav’. |
| Sherah: In all of the past conjugations other than the base conjugation היה, the final ‘heh’ is dropped, and changed into ‘yod’, ‘tav’ or ‘vav’. |
| Amir: This is why it’s irregular. These letters regularly change around in other verbs as well. |
| Sherah: So, let’s go over the conjugations for להיות in the past tense. I will give the phrase in English and Amir will give the conjugation. First is “I was” - |
| Amir: הייתי |
| Sherah: You masculine were - |
| Amir: הָיִיתָ. |
| Sherah: You feminine were - |
| Amir: הָיִית |
| Sherah: He was - |
| Amir: הוא היה |
| Sherah: She was - |
| Amir: היא היתה. |
| Sherah: Were were - |
| Amir: היינו |
| Sherah: You were - masculine plural |
| Amir: הייתם. |
| Sherah: You were - feminine plural |
| Amir: הייתן |
| Sherah: They were |
| Amir: הם היו |
| Sherah: We gave you also the pronouns in the third person, but not in the other conjugations because you don’t need them in the other conjugations. The pronoun is incorporated into the suffix. |
| Amir: If you are wondering what להיות sounds like in the future, here are the two sample sentence from the dialogue. The first is אחרי הגשם יהיו עוד פרחים. |
| Sherah: Ofir says - “After the rain there will be more flowers.” He uses יהיו or “there will be”. |
| Amir: The second sentence is אולי נהיה פה בחורף הבא כדי לראות. |
| Sherah: “Maybe we will be here next winter in order to see.” The verb here is נהיה or “we will be”. So as you can see the future is also based around ‘heh yod heh’ and has prefixes and suffixes. Here are all the conjugations for the future tense. First is “I will be” - |
| Amir: אהיה |
| Sherah: You masculine will be- |
| Amir: תהיה. |
| Sherah: You feminine will be- |
| Amir: תהיי |
| Sherah: He will be- |
| Amir: הוא יהיה |
| Sherah: She will be- |
| Amir: היא תהיה. |
| Sherah: Were will be- |
| Amir: נהיה |
| Sherah: You will be- plural |
| Amir: תהיו. |
| Sherah: They will be |
| Amir: הם יהיו |
| Amir: Well, that was a lot of information! |
| Sherah: It was! We’ll let you guys process all that. |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah: That’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: Make sure you check the lesson notes, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Amir: Thanks everyone, |
| Sherah: Bye! |
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