Learn how to use the dual plural form of nouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah:Hello and welcome back to Hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, Lesson 13 - What’s Wrong with That Israeli Player? I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir:And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you'll learn about the dual plural form for nouns. |
| Amir:The conversation takes place at the Levi family house in the evening. |
| Sherah:It’s between Gadi and his daughter Li’el. |
| Amir:The speakers are family, and they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah:Israeli soccer fans are known to be very dedicated to their teams. |
| Amir:But there's one team that has taken this to an extreme and allowed racism and politics to enter the stands. |
| Sherah:They've been known to use anti-Arab chants. |
| Amir:This is unfortunate. They also walked out of the stadium once when one of their muslim players scored a goal. |
| Sherah:These incidents are far from the norm in Israeli soccer though. |
| Amir:Most teams are very supportive of their players no matter if they're Jewish or not. |
| Sherah:Many teams have players from other countries. |
| Amir:And players from different religions as well. |
| Sherah:And most fans support their players for being soccer players and don’t let racism or political opinions influence how they feel about their team. |
| Amir:Fortunately, this is true. |
| 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 we want to talk about it נגד |
| Amir:This can mean “against”, “opposite” or “versus”. |
| Sherah:It carries the meaning of "opposition," so it can’t be used exactly like in English. |
| Amir:Right, you can’t use it for a phrase like “lean against the wall”. |
| Sherah:You can use it in sports when you want talk about who is playing whom. Like "Germany versus Holland" would be גרמניה נגד הולנד. |
| Amir:Or in wars like ארצות הברית נגד הטאליבן meaning "The United States against the Taliban". |
| Sherah:The next word we want to talk about is להזיז meaning “to move”. |
| Amir:It’s part of the hif'il verb group, and so it carries the meaning of causing something to move. |
| Sherah:There are two expressions we use that have this verb in them. |
| Amir:Right, the first one is להזיז הרים or "to move mountains." |
| Sherah:It means to do the impossible. |
| Amir:The second expression is לא מזיז לו or “it doesn’t impress him” |
| Sherah:Of course the לו can be changed to לי for “me” or לנו for “us” |
| Amir:For example, you could say האוכל לא מזיז לי “the food doesn’t impress me”. |
| Sherah:The last expression we want to talk about is בדקה התשעים. |
| Amir:This means “at the last minute”. |
| Sherah:The literal translation is “at the ninetieth minute”. |
| Amir:You could say, הוא הגיע בדקה התשעים. |
| Sherah:“He arrived at the last minute”. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah:In this lesson you’ll learn about nouns that take a dual plural ending. |
| Amir:We have a special plural ending for nouns that often come in pairs. |
| Sherah:This ending is יים, and it’s like the masculine ending ים- with an added yod.: |
| Amir:This ending is added to both masculine and feminine nouns. |
| Sherah:Right, so that means that you need to know the gender of the word, because you probably won’t be able to tell from the word when it has the dual plural ending. |
| Amir:Our sample sentence from the dialogue is תסתכלי על הרגליים של השחקן הזה |
| Sherah:In this sentence, Gadi used the word רגליים, which is "legs" and sometimes even "feet" in Hebrew. |
| Amir:This is one word with a dual plural ending that you'll use a lot.: |
| Sherah:Right, in fact, many body parts that are typically referred to in pairs have a dual plural ending and no normal plural ending. |
| Amir:There are a few different groups of nouns that use dual plural endings, so let’s go through those. |
| Sherah:Sure, the first group is expressions of time. |
| Amir:Expressions of time have a singular form, a plural form, and then a dual plural form, so they have three different forms.: |
| Sherah:Right, one example of this is “day”. The three forms are יום for “one day”, ימים for “days” and יומיים for "two days." |
| Amir:Another example with an expression of time is for “month”, which is חודש, "months" is חודשים and "two months" is חודשיים. |
| Sherah:While we're talking about expressions of time, we should mention that when you have a feminine noun that ends in heh, you use the construct noun form for it. |
| Amir:That means that you drop the ה- and replace it with a ת- before adding the dual plural ending. |
| Sherah:And example of this is שעה or “hour”, the plural is שעות or "hours". |
| Amir:For שעה to take the dual plural ending, you drop the ה- and replace it with ת-, and it becomes שעת. And then you add the dual plural ending שעתיים, which means “two hours”. |
| Sherah:I have to say that this grammar subject is one of my favorites in Hebrew. I really love the fact that you can talk about a pair of something just by adding a certain ending. |
| Amir:It doesn’t work for every noun, but we do use it often for certain things, like our second group of words, which is body parts. |
| Sherah:As we said earlier, body parts that are usually referred to in pairs usually take a dual plural ending. |
| Amir:There are a few exceptions to this, like the plural form of “lungs” which is ריאות. |
| Sherah:Most of the other pairs of body parts do use the dual plural ending. |
| Amir:Right, and with these they only use the dual plural ending, they don’t have a normal plural ending. |
| Sherah:Most of these words appear to be masculine in their singular form, but they're actually feminine. Exceptions to this are מותן or "hip" and שד which is "breast." |
| Amir:The rest are feminine, so remember this when you want to use an adjective with them. |
| Sherah:So, let’s give some examples of body parts with adjectives, so you can hear what they sound like. Amir will give the Hebrew and I will give the translation.: |
| Amir:First is רגליים קרות |
| Sherah:"Cold feet" |
| Amir:עיניים יפות |
| Sherah:"Beautiful eyes." The last group of words we want to talk about are an assorted group, some of them make sense and others don’t. |
| Amir:Right, one that makes sense was used in the dialogue and that's משקפיים or "glasses." You're basically saying “two lenses” in Hebrew. |
| Sherah:One that doesn’t make sense is שמיים, which is the Hebrew word for “sky”. This word is always used with the dual plural form. |
| Amir:מים is another word like this and you always use it in the plural as well. |
| Sherah:So, now for a few examples, one for each of these three groups. Amir will give the Hebrew, and I'll give the translation. |
| Amir:First is הם התחתנו לפני שנתיים |
| Sherah:"They married two years ago." |
| Amir:יש לו שיניים יפות |
| Sherah:"He has beautiful teeth." |
| Amir:השמיים כחולים היום |
| Sherah:"The sky is blue today." In Hebrew, this is plural “the skies are blue today”. |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah:Ok, that’s all for this lesson. Come see us at HebrewPod101.com and leave us a comment about what you’ve learned here. |
| Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone, להתראות |
| Sherah:Bye! |
Comments
HideHello Listeners! Please, write here a Hebrew noun that uses a dual plural ending.
Hi מתן,
Thank you for your comment!😄
It is important to drink cold water in summer indeed!
Happy learning!
Yours,
Tal
Team Hebrewpod101.com
זה חשוב לשתות מים קרים בקיץ
Hi Brandon,
Thank you for your comment!😄
"כל שנה אני הולך לרופא שיניים" - A'ni holekh le'rofe shinaim kol shanah - I'm going to the dentist every year.
It is indeed important to go for a check up at least once a year!😁
Have a pleasant learning!
Yours,
Tal
Team Hebrewpod101.com
כל שנה אני הולך לרופא שיניים
Hi Yitzchak,
Thanks for posting this question!
This phrase is inspired by football (American: soccer) which is played 90 minutes. Saying "in the 90th minute" - בדקה התשעים is a common way to say "in the last moment" in Hebrew.
One could also simply say "ברגע האחרון" (ba-rega ha-akharon)
Yours,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
Why is "at the last moment" 'בדקה התשעים?
Hi קמילה and אנה!
Thank you very much for sharing your work with us! very well done!
Please allow me to note a few corrections:
@Camilla -
איפה המשקפיים שלי? אני לא מוצאת אותם ואני לא יכולה לרכב *על האופניים* בלעדיהם.
אני אהיה מוכנה בעוד דקה.. *בעוד* חמש דקות... בסדר, בעוד שעתיים.
כשיורד גשם, מים יורדים *מהשמיים*.
@Anna -
*לפני* שבועיים הייתי *בקונצרט*, בעוד *יומיים* אצא לטיול ומחרתיים אבקר בתערוכה. - a few typos
היו לו עיניים *כחולות*, שיניים לבנות וידיים חזקות.
הלכתי לקניון כדי לקנות משקפיים חדשים אבל קניתי נעליים יפות ועכשיו צריך לקנות גרביים מתאימים. - shoes are feminine
Keep up the great work!
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
ליפני שבועיים הייתי בקונצרת, בעוד יוםיים אצא לטיול ומחרתיים אבקר בתערוכה.
היו לו עיניים קחולות, שיניים לבנות וידיים חזקות.
הלכתי לקניון כדי לקנות משקפיים חדשים אבל קניתי נעליים יפים ועכשיו צריך לקנות גרביים מתאימים.
איפה המשקפיים שלי? אני לא מוצאת אותם ואני לא יכולה לרכב באופניים בלעדיהם.
אני אהיה מוכנה בעוד דקה.. בחמש דקות... בסדר, בשעתיים. 😎
כשיורד גשם, מים יורדים משמיים.
ללכת ברגליים זה טוב לבריאות.
Hi Jacqui,
Thank you for posting your work and your question!
Good work! most of it is correct, but there are several necessary corrections:
1- Small typo in "fit" - the word "מתאימות" is written with a yod.
2- Missing article and typo on "open" - the fixed phrase is "היא **פתחה את העיניים הגדולות והיפות** שלה ."
(corrected part marked with an asterisk)
3- 'supposed' is "אמור", "small" is written with a 'tet' - הוא לא אמור להזיז אפילו אצבע *קטנה* אחת.
"Suppose" has two meanings in English, which have two different words in Hebrew.
"Suppose" as "I suppose it's too late already" is: להניח as in - אני מניח שכבר מאוחר מדי
"Suppose" as "he is not supposed to move" is: אמור as in - הוא לא אמור לזוז
Glad to assist! Keep up the great work 👍
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
His fat feet don't fit into these narrow shoes.
הרגליים השמנות שלו לא מתאמות לנעליים הצרות האלה.
She opened her big beautiful eyes and cried tears of joy.
היא פתכה עיניים הגדולות ויפות שלה ובכתה דמעות של שמחה.
He's not suppose to move even one little toe.
הוא לא מניח להזיז אפילו אצבע קתנה אחת.
Also would you please explain the difference of the words "מניח" and "אמור" and give a couple of sample sentences with these words. Thank you.
Hi Jeannet,
1. your are right, there's a slight mismatch between the audio and the script. Basically they're both correct. the script is more like "it's nice how he does that with his legs" and the audio is more like "it's nice! how does he do that with his legs?"
I'll pas it to the content team along with the romanization mistake.
2. Every correction we get helps us make our lessons clearer and better. So don'y hesitate to report any typos or mistakes! we appreciate you taking the time to do so!
yours,
Idit
Team HebrewPod101.com
5th sentence of line by line dialogue: וואו! יפה, איך שהוא עושה את זה עם הרגליים...מדהים!
The Hebrew gives 'shehu ose' but in the audio I hear 'hu ose' without the 'she', are both correct?
A minor thing: teh 2nd line gives 'Za hasof ...' in stead of 'Ze hasof ...'
Do you want me to report those kind of typo's in the romanization? Or rather not?
Hi Ollie and Sam,
Thanks for commenting!
@Ollie - always happy to help! One note - lezaveg is written לזווג with two vavs.
@Sam - 'Nire' is indeed the correct pronounciation, but both versions are common in Hebrew and used in this manner frequently... Good catch though!
Yours,
Roi
Team Hebrewpod101.com
Hey there, does Shira pronounce נראה incorrectly in line 7? Shouldn't it be Nire?
תודה רבה רועי עבור התיקונים שלך
1. Have to remember to match number and definiteness between nouns and adjectives!
אני חייב לזכור לזבג מספר ויידוע בין שמות עצם ושמות תאור
Hi Ollie,
Good work! a few small corrections -
.הזזנו את הטלוויזיה למקום נוסף כדי שנוכל לחבר אותה לאינטרנט instead of "כדי אנו יכולים" .
.הוא עבר לדירה זולה יותר אחרי התביעה היקרה - sdira - דירה is a feminine verb (therefor זולה), the expensive lawsuit - two "the" are needed - הדירה היקרה.
Yours,
Roi
Team Hebrewpod101.com
We moved the TV to another place so we could connect it to the internet.
.הזזנו את הטלוויזיה למקום נוסף כדי אנו יכולים לחבר אותה לאינטרנט
He moved into a cheaper apartment after the expensive lawsuit.
.הוא עבר לדירה זול יותר אחרי התביעה יקרה
תודה רבה רועי ?
Hi Ollie,
No worries - you are making huge progress with every comment! :)
Both words are translated into "moving" in English, but להזיז means "to move something" - some object from place to place.
לעבור - means moving as in "moving into a new apartment".
Happy to help,
Roi
Team Hebrewpod101.com
It's the little things that get me :)
Also another question: Are להזיז and לעבור synonymous? If not, how do they differ?