Learn about using modal verbs and also the Hebrew word she
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Sherah:Hello and welcome back to hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, Lesson 9 - Make sure you buy a good present for that Israeli Bar Mitzvah! I’m your host, Sherah! |
| Amir:And I’m Amir. |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to request something of someone using modal verbs in Hebrew. |
| Amir:The conversation takes place at the Levy family house in the afternoon. |
| Sherah:It’s between Ma'ayan and Dan. |
| Amir:The speakers are a mother and son, so they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Sherah:In Israel and in Jewish communities all over the world, having a Bar Mitzvah is considered a big rite of passage for boys. |
| Amir:When a boy turns 13, they are considered a full fledged member of the Jewish community. |
| Sherah:That means that they are responsible for doing all 613 laws from the Torah. |
| Amir:Part of this rite of passage involves reading from the Torah on the first shabbat after turning 13. |
| Sherah:Many people also have a party with family and friends to celebrate. |
| Amir:Sometimes this is even a big event that is catered at an event center. |
| Sherah:For families who are not religious, they may still elect to have their son read from the Torah in the synagogue. |
| Amir:Or they might just have a party. |
| Sherah:At the party, most people give money as gifts for a Bar Mitzva. |
| Amir:But the other children may give different gifts to the child having the bar mitzvah. |
| 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 קניון. |
| Amir:This is the word for “shopping center” or “mall”. |
| Sherah:It’s mostly used for enclosed shopping centers and not really for strip malls. |
| Amir:קניון is derived from the verb לקנות which means “to buy”. |
| Sherah:In Haifa, they have a mall that plays on the word קניון and canyon. They call the mall “The Grand Kanyon”. |
| Amir:They call it that because it is built in a wadi, which is kind of like a canyon. |
| Sherah:The next word that we want to talk about is סתם. |
| Amir:Oooo, stam is a slang word that has several meanings and it’s really hard to translate into English, because there really isn’t any equivalent. |
| Sherah:Some of the possible translations are “just like that”, “for no reason” and even “just kidding” |
| Amir:Yes, you can use it in a lot of different ways. |
| Sherah:The last word we want to talk about is מספיק. |
| Amir:מספיק means “enough” or “sufficient”. Sometimes it is used in school for what Americans call a “C” grade. |
| Sherah:Many Israelis just use this one word when they want to tell someone they’ve had enough. מספיק! Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to request that someone do something using modal verbs. |
| Amir:Normally when you want to talk about wanting to do something, you use a modal verb like רוצה followed by a verb in the infinitive. |
| Sherah:Right, like אני רוצה לשחק כדורגל. “I want to play soccer.” |
| Amir:When you want to ask someone else to do something, the structure of the sentence changes a bit. |
| Sherah:Right, because you are adding another subject, “you”, the sentence splits into two parts. |
| Amir:So, let’s look at a sample sentence from this lesson to give us a starting point. The sentence is: אני רוצה שקודם תלך לקניון |
| Sherah:The translation of the sentence is “I want you to go to the mall first”. Or translated directly, “I want that first you will go to the mall”. |
| Amir:So, let’s break down this sentence. It begins the same way with אני רוצה |
| Sherah:Yes and then we have the word ...ש for then. After this we have קודם meaning “first”. This word is not critical to the structure. |
| Amir:Right and this word can be omitted. |
| Sherah:And then we have the key part of the sentence, which is the verb conjugated in the future tense. The pronoun “you” is understood from the conjugation of the verb. |
| Amir:So we have subject אני and then the modal verb רוצה then -ש and then a verb in the future conjugated in the second person. אני רוצה שתלך |
| Sherah:“I want you to go.” Translated word for word, it would be “I want that you will go.” So that is the basic structure for requesting something of someone. You can add information on as it’s needed in the sentence. |
| Amir:Another example of this structure from the dialogue is: אני מקווה שתקנה משהו איכותי |
| Sherah:“I hope that you will buy something of quality.” We see the same thing here: אני מקווה is the subject and modal verb. I hope. |
| Amir:Then we have -ש or “that”. |
| Sherah:And lastly the verb in the future plus any other information needed תקנה משהו איכותי “you will buy something quality”. |
| Amir:Right, so see if you can hear all the parts in this last example from the dialogue: אני מבקש שתתני לי מספיק כסף למתנה כזאת |
| Sherah:“I request that you will give me enough money for a present like that.” There was a lot of info there. Let’s start with the subject and the verb אני מבקש. |
| Amir:And then there is -ש which is easy enough. Last is the verb in the future תתני or “you will give”. |
| Sherah:Okay, so now that you have the structure down let’s expand on that. You can also change the time of the first part of the sentence to change the meaning a bit. Let’s use our first sample sentence to look at the changes you can make. |
| Amir:The sample sentence is אני רוצה שתלך לקניון. You can change the first part to the past and say רציתי שתלך לקניון. |
| Sherah:Now the sentence means “I wanted that you would go to the mall” or “I wanted you to go to the mall” in natural English. |
| Amir:Now let’s change the first part to the future: ארצה שתלך לקניון |
| Sherah:“I will want that you will go to the mall” or “ I will want you to go to the mall” |
| Amir:In English, the verbs “to request” and “to hope” use a similar structure as the structure we shared with you here. |
| Sherah:Yes, but as we saw when comparing the English and the Hebrew “to want” does not. You would say that differently. |
Outro |
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| Sherah:Ok, that’s all for this lesson. Please visit us at HebrewPod101.com and leave a comment about what you’ve learned in this lesson. |
| Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone, |
| Sherah:Bye! |
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