Learn about using the word etzel, which is a preposition that means "at"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah:Hello and welcome back to hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate Season 1, Lesson 6 - Will Grandma dance at your Israeli wedding? I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir:And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn about the word אצל in Hebrew. |
| Amir:The conversation takes place at Gadi’s niece’s wedding in the evening. |
| Sherah:It’s between Gadi and Ma’ayan. |
| Amir:The speakers are married so they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah:Weddings are always a fun and beautiful time. Weddings in Israel are usually huge celebrations, aren’t they! |
| Amir:Yes! But beware! Getting to the ceremony stage will either be easy or difficult. |
| Sherah:Right, it’s easy if you are from the same religion, but more difficult if you are not. |
| Amir:That’s because marriages are handled by different religious authorities and not by the state. |
| Sherah:Since there are so many different religions in Israel, it sometimes happens that people from different religions want to marry, and can only do so overseas, in which case it will be a civil wedding - only then will Israel will recognize it. |
| Amir:This happens if one person is Jewish and the other is not, and also if a muslim woman wants to marry a non-muslim man. |
| Sherah:If both people are Jewish, they must have an Orthodox Jewish wedding if they wish to marry in the country. |
| Amir:Sometimes this means that the couple must take classes about Jewish home life, if that’s required by the Rabbi who is marrying them. |
| Sherah:I think there is an advantage to marrying outside the country, because you can combine a wedding and a honeymoon all in one trip. |
| Amir:But it’s also nice to have a big Israeli wedding in the Israel. |
| Sherah:That’s true, it is. Okay, now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| 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 will look at is להצטרך. |
| Amir:להצטרך is a verb meaning “to need to” or “to have to”. |
| Sherah:This verb is a part of the verb group hit’pa’el. |
| Amir:This is one of the verbs in the hit’pa’el verb group where the first letter of the root changes place with the tav of the verb pattern. |
| Sherah:This is done so it’s easier to pronounce. Otherwise, you don’t hear all of the letters clearly. |
| Amir:This word also has an additional change, the tav changes to a tet. |
| Sherah:The last word we want to talk about is לבד. |
| Amir:לבד means “alone” or “by oneself”. |
| Sherah:This is a word that can take pronoun endings to change the meaning a bit. |
| Amir:For example, if you wanted to say “by myself” you would say לבדי. |
| Sherah:And if you wanted to say “by yourself”, you would say לבדך or לבדך Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the word אצל in Hebrew. |
| Amir:אצל is a word that you don’t have in English...here’s why. Although it means “by” or “at”, it is always attached to a person and not a place. |
| Sherah:You have it in French with chez and in German with bei, which both mean “by”, but somehow it didn’t catch on in the English language, except in old English. |
| Amir:Right, if you want to say “at” in terms of a place, you use -ב in Hebrew. |
| Sherah:So, our example sentence for this lesson is הייתי אצל נועם היום. “I was at Noam’s today.” |
| Amir:Since Ma’ayan was talking about a person, she used אצל. |
| Sherah:Right, if she had used -ב, she would have said בבית של נועם. Instead, she just says אצל נועם. |
| Amir:She is focusing on the person and not on the place. |
| Sherah:You can use the term when talking about going to someone’s house, or when going to the doctor or even when talking about studying with a certain teacher. |
| Amir:And just like other prepositions in Hebrew, you can add pronoun endings to it when you need to. |
| Sherah:When Gadi answered Ma’ayan, he used אצל combined with “them”. |
| Amir:He said, “היית אצלם היום?” |
| Sherah:“You were at them today?” is essentially what he said. ם- is the pronoun ending for “them”. Of course, in English, it would be translated as “you were at their house today?” |
| Amir:אצל takes all the normal pronoun endings that we have learned in previous lessons, so it won’t be hard for you to combine them. |
| Sherah:But here are a few of the more common ones you will come across so you can hear them. The first is “at me” or “at my house”. |
| Amir:אצלי |
| Sherah:Next is “at you”, first the masculine and then the feminine. |
| Amir:אצלך and אצלך |
| Sherah:And lastly, “at us”. |
| Amir:אצלנו |
| Sherah:So, as you can see אצל combines with pronoun endings in patterns that you probably already recognize. Before we go, we want to give you a few more example sentences with אצל so you can get a feel for the word. |
| Amir:Our first example sentence is הוא עובד אצל מנהל הבנק. |
| Sherah:Meaning - “He works under the bank manager.” We would probably translate this as “he works for the bank manager”. |
| Amir:Next is דינה לומדת אצל פרופ’ דורון |
| Sherah:Dina studies at Professor Doron. Meaning “Dina takes Professor Doron’s class” |
| Amir:And lastly אנחנו היינו אצל הרופא. |
| Sherah:“We were at the Doctor.” |
Outro |
|---|
| Sherah:Ok, that’s all for this lesson. See you next time. |
| Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone, להתראות |
| Sherah:Bye! |
| MARKETING PIECE |
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