Vacation
Free Heblish Challenge – August 2010 – This is not a lesson…

Hi from afar…

What’s this…Thursday without a lesson?!  Don’t worry; I have a little surprise for you. 

This time we don’t have to remember what we had in our previous lesson… we’ll do that in our next lesson, September 2rd.

Today’s menu: A coupon

As a special treat, below is a coupon for $20 off any one purchase at Goood Israeli Jewelry.  Redeem your coupon today and tomorrow only(!) – Thursday August 19, 2010 and Friday August 20, 2010. One coupon per customer.

To redeem your coupon, simply enter the code from the coupon in the “Notes” section of your order and $20 will be deducted from your total amount. You will receive an automated response which will not reflect your discount – but two days later when I process your order, I will send another e-mail confirming your $20 discount.

See you soon…

You are welcome to join our group on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=230884728509. 

Refresher

Free Hebrew lessons – August 2010 – Training – Day 35:

Hi,

It’s still hot outside, and I hope that most of you are sitting beside an air conditioner. (mazgan, in Hebrew).

In our previous lesson we learned that verbs in the present tense singular form remain the same, like:
I sit, you sit, he sits -
Ani yoshev,
ata yoshev,
hu yoshev or, in the feminine form:

I sit, you sit, she sits:  
Ani yoshevet,
at yoshevet,
hi yoshevet.

It’s almost the middle of August and some of you will be taking a short vacation… and I will, too.  Soooo, this lesson will be the last lesson for August, and it will be a refresher from our first lessons. I think it will be great to look backward and see how far we’ve come…

Today’s menu: some antique (old AND valuable) words…

Attention: The underlined letters represent the accent.

First, let’s watch the video for the “e” sound: The sound of the vowel E (13 seconds).
Wherever I use an “e,” this is the sound I want you to remember.

And now we’ll do the same for the “i” sound: The sound of the vowel I (18 seconds).

You can find a more detailed explanation for the above sounds in lesson 4.

Now, let’s see if you remember the following words from our first lessons:

Test yourself  (the answers are below):

1. Boker tov

2. Shalom

3. Lehitraot

4. Laila tov

5. Toda

6. Beseder

7. Eifo

8. Bevakasha

9. Sherutim (I’m sure you forgot the meaning of this word…)

10. Telephone

Answers:

1. Good morning – Boker tov.

2. Hello / hi – Shalom / hi (slang).

3. See you – lehitraot.

4. Goodnight – laila tov.

5. Thanks – toda.

6. Alright / OK – beseder.

7. Where – eifo.

8. Please – bevakasha.

9. Toilet – sherutim.

10. Telephone – telephone.

Not bad at all…

Now, let’s see how to pronounce the “a” sound in Heblish?
Watch this video: The sound of the vowel A (16 seconds)

And the “o” sound: The sound of the vowel O (14 seconds)

Hey, what about the “u” sound?
Watch this short video on YouTube: The sound of the vowel U (20 seconds)

Vocabulary:
   Meat – basar
   Side dishes – tosafot
   Fish – dag

   French fries – chips
   Pasta – pasta
   Vegetable salad – salat (or salat yerakot)
  
   Egg – beitsa
   Juice – mits
   Bracelet – tsamid

Now listen to the most important sound: The “het” and “haf” sounds:
In this video you will hear the ^ (het/haf) pronounced with each of the vowels. ^, ^a, ^e, ^I, ^o, ^u (12 seconds on Youtube)

Toda raba (thanks a lot)…

Personally, I think our little “refresher” today has been refreshing!  It’s good to go back and read over things you have already learned. 

While I’m gone, I would like for you to think about things you want to learn on free-Hebrew.  For instance, would you like to learn some simple Israeli songs?  Would you like to learn how to negotiate a price (bargain/haggle), in Hebrew?  That could come in handy when you visit Israel. Let me know your thoughts – because this website is all about YOU! 

Although I will be gone for two weeks, you might want to check our website during my vacation. You just might find I’ve left a little surprise for you… So don’t forget to look for it, next Thursday…  

Lehitraot in lesson 36…

You are welcome to join our group on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=230884728509.

Tenses

Free Hebrew lessons – August 2010 – Training – Day 34:

Shalom,

I really don’t understand why everybody says it’s hot. I’m sitting here at my computer, drinking a cup of hot tea, listening to beautiful music, the air conditioner is on… and everything is OK…

In our previous lesson we learned how to say maim (water) and shamaim (sky). We learned the word for “of / belonging to”, shel and its inflections, and we mentioned again the 3 tenses in Hebrew: past, present and future.

Today we’ll take another step ahead and learn 3 new words and their inflections.

Today’s menu: The present – singular form

Attention: The underlined letters represent the accent.

In Hebrew there are 7 different forms of verbs.

Let’s imagine seven different buildings, each building holds one form.  If you know how to conjugate one word in a building, you can do that for all the other “neighbors” (the other verbs in that building).

Hebrew is a very structured language, but I’m not sure if I’m going to teach you in the traditional way, like I learned in school. Now you might want to say, “goodbye Yaron, it was nice to meet you, see you one day – maybe…”

So what I’m going to do is, teach you the main rules which effect the most conjugations, or persons.

The present

Rule number 1
In the present – there are only 4 inflections for EVERY Hebrew verb:
- Singular for (m) – (m) means masculine
- Singular for (f) – (f) means feminine
- Plural for (m)
- Plural for (f)

Today we will learn only the singular form.

Where is the “it” subject pronoun?
You sometimes say that Hebrew is a difficult language, but I’m not sure about that… in English there is a subject pronoun “it,” but there is no “it” in Hebrew.

Dogs and men are the same… oh, wait… wait… I wanted to say… OK, dogs and men are the same … but I meant to say that human beings, animals and objects are the same, in Hebrew. There are no words like “it“, “which” or “who,” which can tell us if we are talking about a man or about his dog…

NOTE:  Remember, in Hebrew there is no word for “am/is/are” – it is inferred in “ani, ata, hu,” etc.  In other words, “ani” means “I” and/or “I am”; “ata” means “you” and/or “you are”; “hu” means “he” and/or “he is,” and so forth.  It takes a little getting used to for the English speaker, but it is really a great feature of the Hebrew language.

Today’s new words: sit, write & learn

Masculine:

I, you, he:
Sit – Ani yoshev, ata yoshev, hu yoshev.
Write – Ani kotev, ata kotev, hu kotev.
Learn – Ani lomed, ata lomed, hu lomed.

Feminine:

I, you, she:
Sit – Ani yoshevet, at yoshevet, hi yoshevet.
Write – Ani kotevet, at kotevet, hi kotevet.
Learn – Ani lomedet, at lomedet, hi lomedet.

From the two tables above you can see two things:

1. In Hebrew there are no “present simple” and “present progressive” tenses – there is only one form of “present,” and the verb remains the same for the singular persons, depending on the gender.

2. The difference between masculine and feminine is the “et” on the end of the feminine verbs. “Et” is the suffix for most feminine singular verbs. Most, but not every…

After you worked so hard today, I have a beautiful story about a “present” to show you. It is more a gift than a present… You are welcome to read it here: The present.

Lehitraot in lesson 35 …

You are welcome to join our group on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=230884728509.