Shalom,

Day 15 of the Heblish Challenge and we’re going to have an easy day.

In our previous lesson we talked about abstract numbers, the three Hebrew tenses and also learned six new words in the past tense: I wanted (ratsiti), I saw (raiti), I understood (hevanti), I said (amarti), I took (laka^ti), I was (haiti) and I bought (kaniti).  We also heard how to pronounce these words by using my video on YouTube.(video for lesson 14) Finally I asked you to solve a small crossword-puzzle, and I have to say that I received many responses and all of them were perfect!
Hats off to you, ブラボー (burabo in Japanese) and chapeau for my French students!

Today we have a WWW lesson… which is very cool… Well, it won’t be exactly “www,” so let’s start and see what’s cooking today…

Today’s menu: Who, what, when & why

Attention: The underlined letters represent the accent.

I talked about “www” but there are 5 Ws (who, what, where, when and way), and we are going to cover the WH Questions today.

You should know one of them from lesson 3, “where” – eifo.  Now let’s look at the other four WH Questions.

Who?
The Hebrew word for “who” is “mi.” It sounds exactly like the word “me” in English.

- Who wants pasta?  – Mi rotse pasta?
- Who understands? – Mi mevin?
- Who bought three dresses? – Mi bought shalosh smalot? 

What?
The word “what” is important, especially if your hearing is not very good, like mine…
In Hebrew we say “ma,” and sometimes “eize” or “eizo” depending on the meaning of the sentence, but today we’ll talk about the common usage of the question “what,” which is “ma.”

What’s new?
The exact translation for “what’s new” is ma ^adash, and you will probably hear Israelis (especially young Israelis) ask “ma ^adash?”   But the most common form of this question is ma nishma. I can promise you that you’ll also hear “ma ko
re, ma hole^, ma ha’matsav” and “ma ha’inyanim…” but use “ma nishma” and everything will be alright.

Examples for “ma“:

   – What‘s new? – Ma nishma?
   – Fine, thank you – Tov, toda. 
     In lesson 1 we learned that “good” is “tov” and now you see that “tov” can also be used to say “fine.”  

   – What time is it / what’s the time? – Ma ha’shaa (sha-a)
   – It is 10:00 a.m. – Ha’shaa eser. 

   – What is this?  – Ma ze?
   – It is a book – Ze sefer. (Notice that our examples are giving you more words to learn.)

   – What did you say? – Ma amarta?
   – I said that it’s a book – Amarti that ze sefer.

   – What’s your name? – Ma shme^ (when asking in the feminine)   
   – My name is Elizabeth – Shmi Elizabeth.

   – What’s your name? –  ma shim^a (when asking in the masculine).
   – My name is Yaron – Shmi Yaron.

Notice that in Hebrew, even though we have a word for “is,” we don’t use it.

When?
The Hebrew word for “when” is “matay” or “matai.”

Examples:

   – When it’s my turn – Matay tori (“turn” is tor and “my turn” is tori)

Why?
The Hebrew word for “why” is “lama.”
   – Why did I buy only one ring? – Lama kaniti rak tabaat a^at?
   – Why is the cake so sweet? – Lama ha’uga so sweet?
   – Why is the hotel so far away? – Lama ha’malon so far away?
   – Why is the sea blue?  – Because the fish always say: bloo, bloo, bloo… ha ha; sorry, but I couldn’t resist…

That was our lesson for today.  Short and fast – but very important for everyday conversation in Hebrew.

Lehitraot in lesson 16…

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