Learn how to use the verb group huf'al
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah:Hello and welcome back to Hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, Lesson 17 - Don’t Let An Injury Stop You in Israel! I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir:And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you'll learn about the passive verb group Huf’al. |
| Amir:The conversation takes place in the Levi family home. |
| Sherah:It’s between Ma’ayan and Dan. |
| Amir:The speakers are family, and they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah:Everybody loves a pool party! And Israel is really hot in the summer. |
| Amir:One of the ways we like to cool off is by going to the local pool. |
| Sherah:In the bigger cities there are usually several pools to choose from. |
| Amir:Most of these pool centers have an indoor lap pool, and an outdoor lap pool, and a smaller pool for children. |
| Sherah:If you're outside of the big cities, most small communities also have a pool. |
| Amir:Yes, but these pools are often closed in the winter. |
| Sherah:Right, they usually don’t have an indoor pool. They do usually have a large pool and small wading pool for children. |
| Amir:They also have grass areas and places to picnic for families. |
| Sherah:Pools usually have season passes and day passes for those who want to come only for the day. |
| Amir:Private pools used to be rare in Israel, but they're becoming more popular lately. |
| Sherah:Yes, they're scattered all over the country now, both above-ground and underground pools. Okay, now let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| 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 phrase we want to talk about is מסיבת יום הולדת, and this means “birthday party”. |
| Amir:The first word in this smichut is מסיבה meaning “party” or “banquet”. |
| Sherah:Right, the last letter of this word has been changed to ‘ת because it’s in a smichut, so it becomes מסיבת. |
| Amir:The second word of the smichut is יום הולדת, and this means “day of birth”. |
| Sherah:Another smichut that uses מסיבה is מסיבת עיתונאים. |
| Amir:Yes, it’s not technically a party. מסיבת עיתונאים means a press conference. |
| Sherah:Literally, this means a “journalists’ party”. |
| Amir:The next word we want to talk about is לכסות. |
| Sherah:This word means “to cover”, “to coat”, “to veil,” or “to hide”. |
| Amir:This can mean to physically cover something, like לכסות את הראש. |
| Sherah:This is what we say when religious women cover their heads. |
| Amir:It can also be used in a more figurative way like לכסות את ההוצאות |
| Sherah:This means to “cover the expenses”. |
| Amir:Other expressions that use this word are לכסות עליו meaning “to cover him up”. |
| Amir:The last word we want to talk about is לדאוג. This means “to worry”, “to care,” or “to be anxious” |
| Sherah:Let’s give examples of all three of these definitions. The first is “anxious”. |
| Amir:For "anxious", you could say something like הוא דואג על אבא כי הוא מאוד חולה meaning “He’s anxious about Dad because he’s really sick”. |
| Sherah:Notice that the preposition על follows the verb. This carries the meaning of “worry” or “being anxious”. |
| Amir:When you want the verb to carry the meaning of "taking care" of someone, the verb needs to be followed by the preposition -ל. |
| Sherah:So, an example sentence of this would be הוא דואג לאבא. הוא מביא לו אוכל כל יום "He's taking care of Dad. He brings him food every day." Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah:In this lesson you’ll learn about the passive verb group Huf’al. |
| Amir:In Hebrew, each active group of verbs has a special relationship with one passive group of verbs. |
| Sherah:And just like Pi’el and Pu’al, the active group Hif’il has a special relationship with the passive verb group Huf’al. |
| Amir:If a verb in the verb group Hif’il has a passive form, it will be found in the verb group Huf’al. |
| Sherah:Huf’al verbs only have a past, present, and future tense. They don’t have an imperative tense or an infinitive. |
| Amir:In the present tense, Huf’al verbs are characterized by the “mu-” that precedes the root. |
| Sherah:In the past, “hu-” precedes the root. |
| Amir:In the future, there is a “u” sound that follows the pronoun prefix. |
| Sherah:All verbs in Huf’al have an active counterpart in the Hif’il verb tense. |
| Amir:The opposite is not true though. Verbs in Hif’il don't always have a passive form. |
| Sherah:To look at Huf’al in the present tense, let’s take a look at our sample sentence. |
| Amir:In the dialogue, Ma’ayan says למתי אתה מוזמן? |
| Sherah:Ma’ayan is asking Dan when he's invited to the party. She uses the verb מוזמן. |
| Amir:מוזמן agrees with אתה. |
| Sherah:This is the masculine singular form of the verb in the present tense. |
| Amir:The feminine singular is מוזמנת. |
| Sherah:The masculine plural is מוזמנים, and the feminine plural is מוזמנות.: |
| Amir:Here, the preposition על ידי after the verb is not here because the agent of action, Evan, was mentioned in previous sentences and doesn’t need to be repeated. |
| Sherah:על ידי is often dropped in Huf’al sentences. Because of the nature of the sentence, there is often no need to include the agent. |
| Amir:Let’s look at the change from active to passive. We’ll use the sample sentence אני מוזמן לבוא ביום שישי because it’s not a question. |
| Sherah:We’ll start with the active of this sentence. |
| Amir:The active of this sentence would be... אבן מזמין אותי לבוא ביום שישי. |
| Sherah:"Evan is inviting me to come on Friday." It starts with the one doing the action, Evan. |
| Amir:After the subject, we have the verb מזמין. It agrees with the subject in the masculine singular. |
| Sherah:Then we have אותי. This is “me” as a direct object, so it's actually a combination of את, the preposition needed before a direct object, and the pronoun suffix for “me”.: |
| Amir:Following אותי, we have another verb in the infinitive, לבוא meaning “to come”. |
| Sherah:The rest of the sentence is ביום שישי, meaning “on Friday”. Let’s take a look at the passive again. |
| Amir:The passive is... אני מוזמן לבוא ביום שישי. |
| Sherah:Dan is now the subject, so it starts out with אני or “I”.: |
| Amir:אני is followed by מוזמן, which is the passive counterpart of להזמין and it's in the masculine singular because it agrees with the new subject. |
| Sherah:After the verb, we have a second verb in the infinitive, לבוא which means “to come”. |
| Amir:There's no agent of action in this sentence because the agent, Evan, was mentioned earlier in the dialogue and doesn't need to be repeated. |
| Sherah:If there was an agent of action included in the sentence, it would've used the preposition על ידי. |
| Amir:The sentence would then be אני מוזמן על ידי אבן לבוא ביום שישי. |
| Sherah:Let’s look at sample sentences in the past and the future as they move from active to passive. Amir will give the Hebrew, and I will give the English. We’ll start with the past tense. |
| Amir:Active... המנהל הכתיב את המכתב |
| Sherah:"The manager dictated the letter." |
| Amir:...and now the passive. המכתב הוכתב על ידי המנהל. |
| Sherah:"The letter was dictated by the manager." Let’s see some sentences in the future. |
| Amir:The active is... המנהל יחליט על התקציב. |
| Sherah:"The manager will decide on the budget." |
| Amir:And the passive... התקציב יוחלט על ידי המנהל. |
| Sherah:"The budget will be decided by the manager." |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah:Ok, that’s it for this lesson. Come see us at HebrewPod101.com and talk to us about what you’ve learned here. |
| Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone, |
| Sherah:Bye! |
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