Learn how to give commands and requests in the negative
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah:Hello and welcome back to Hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, Lesson 15 - Watch Out For The Pothole on That Israeli Road! I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir:And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you'll learn to give commands and requests in the negative. |
| Amir:The conversation takes place on the way to Dan’s friend’s house. |
| Sherah:It’s between Dan and Li’el. |
| Amir:The speakers are family, and they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah:Cycling is a great way to get around in Israel. |
| Amir:It is, and it’s also a great way to see the natural landscape of Israel. |
| Sherah:It’s actually a very popular sport among Israelis. |
| Amir:Yes, we have lots of trails and paved bicycle paths. Lots of Israelis also ride road bikes, and you can see them out there on the main roads. |
| Sherah:I wouldn’t recommend that though because Israelis are pretty crazy drivers. |
| Amir:Riding where there is a lot of traffic is not a good idea, especially if you’re not used to Israeli drivers. : |
| Sherah:And wearing a helmet is the law, so make sure you have one on. |
| Amir:Just as important as wearing a helmet is making sure you have enough water with you when you ride. |
| Sherah:Yes, this is especially true if you're riding in the negev as it’s quite hard to find water down there. |
| Amir:I definitely enjoy riding in Israel, especially off-road. |
| Sherah:Well, the good news is the government keeps putting money into improving our bike paths, so it just keeps getting better. |
| 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 is לרכב. |
| Amir:This word means to “ride” or to “mount”. |
| Sherah:It can be used in three different situations. The first is riding a bicycle. |
| Amir:For that, you'd say הוא רוכב על אופניים or “he rides bicycles”. The second situation is riding a horse. |
| Sherah:And that would be הוא רוכב על סוס. The last situation you use it in is for riding a motorcycle. |
| Amir:This is הוא רוכב על אופנוע or “he's riding a motorcycle”. |
| Sherah:The next word we want to talk about is related to the first, and it is אופניים, meaning “bicycle”. |
| Amir:This noun is a dual plural noun in Hebrew, so all references to a bicycle in Hebrew are plural. |
| Sherah:The base for this word is אופן, which means “wheel”, so אופניים is basically “two wheels”. |
| Amir:There are some interesting words related to אופן like אופנוע, which means “motorcycle”. |
| Sherah:That’s a really interesting word because, like in English, it is a mix of אופניים, or "bicycle," and מנוע meaning “motor”. |
| Amir:Another word is אופני כושר or a “fitness bike”. |
| Sherah:We call that a "stationary bike" in English. |
| Amir:There is also a אופניים דו-מושביים, which literally means “a bike with two seats”. It’s a tandem bike.: |
| Sherah:The last expression we want to talk about is יותר מהיר which means “faster” in Hebrew. The literal translation would be “more fast”. |
| Amir:Right, this is how we make a comparative adjective in Hebrew. We add “more” or יותר in front of the adjective or sometimes behind it. |
| Sherah:And then we use the preposition -מ before whatever we are comparing the subject to. |
| Amir:An example of this is נועם הוא יותר מהיר מטל.. |
| Sherah:In English, that's “No’am is faster than Tal”. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah:In this lesson you’ll learn about negative commands. |
| Amir:We already covered positive commands in an earlier season. |
| Sherah:Yes, we did. Let’s do a little review of how we formed a positive command. |
| Amir:The imperative has a special tense in Hebrew. |
| Sherah:Right, it's somewhat like the future tense, but doesn't use the ‘ת- prefix. |
| Amir:The vowel pattern is often different from the future conjugations as well. |
| Sherah:For instance, if I were to tell you to go over there, I would say לך לשם. |
| Amir:And I would say לכי לשם to you, and if I were to tell you and someone else to go over there, I would say לכו לשם. : |
| Sherah:When you want to negate a command, you do it a little differently. : |
| Amir:Right, we don’t use the imperative form when negating it, we use the future second person form. |
| Sherah:Let’s look at the first sample sentence from the dialogue to see how a negative imperative sentence is formed. : |
| Amir:The first sentence from the dialogue is אל תלך לבית שלו |
| Sherah:Li’el is telling Dan “don’t go to his house”. The sentence begins with the word אל. |
| Amir:אל means “don’t,” and it’s a word that's only used in this situation. |
| Sherah:Right, אל can only be used for commands, it isn’t a synonym for לא. The next word in the sentence is תלך, which is “you will go”. This verb is in the future tense, but saying אל תלך is translated as “don’t go”. The rest of the sentence is לבית שלו meaning “to his house”. |
| Amir:The next sentence from the dialogue is אל תגידי לי מה לעשות |
| Sherah:This starts out in the same way with אל, but the conjugation of the verb is different because it's Dan talking to Li’el, so he must use “you” in the feminine singular. |
| Amir:This is a classic thing that children say, isn’t it? |
| Sherah:Yes, it is. אל תגידי לי מה לעשות is definitely something children say. As you can see from these two sentences, the only thing that changes is the verb. |
| Amir:It agrees with the subject, "you". : |
| Sherah:The last negative command from the dialogue is אל תרכב שם or “don’t ride there”.: |
| Amir:Here the subject is "you" in the masculine singular. |
| Sherah:There are only three possibilities of verb conjugations that we use with negative commands. Masculine singular, feminine singular, and masculine plural. |
| Amir:The only one we didn’t see in the dialogue is masculine plural.: |
| Sherah:Right, so let’s look at examples of all three forms. Amir will give the Hebrew, and I'll give the English.: |
| Amir:We’ll start with the masculine singular אל תקנה גלידה. |
| Sherah:"Don’t buy ice cream." |
| Amir:Feminine singular אל תקני גלידה. |
| Sherah:"Don’t buy ice cream." |
| Amir:Plural אל תקנו גלידה |
| Sherah:"Don’t buy ice cream." Wow, in English it’s pretty simple. |
| Amir:It is. In Hebrew, it's just the verb that changes according to who you're talking to. |
| Sherah:That’s all there is to it! |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah:Ok, that’s all for this lesson. Come see us at HebrewPod101.com, and talk to us about what you’ve learned here. And don’t forget to check the lesson notes. |
| Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone, |
| Sherah:Bye! |
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