Future tense – Eitan letters

Free Hebrew lessons – October 2010 – Training – Day 43

Shalom,

Today we have a long and very important lesson.
If you only have a few minutes, you can just read the summary at the end of the lesson, but if you really want to learn Hebrew, let’s start…

In our previous lesson we talked about Definite and Indefinite articles. I taught you that in Hebrew there is no indefinite article “a,” and I showed you that we use the sound “ha” (which is only one vowel in Hebrew), instead of the word “the.”

Today we will talk about the future…

It would be amazing if we could sit together and guess what the future has in store for us… but, we will leave that for astrologers and concentrate on our Hebrew lessons.   😉  
BTW, here is one of my astrology websites.

Today’s menu: Future tense – Eitan letters

Attention: The underlined letters represent the accent.

Today we will talk about the future tense and we’ll taste a bit about “roots.”

We’re only going to use one verb for our examples today – close.
We learned this verb in lesson 39, and many of you did homework about it.

As you have already seen, in Hebrew we don’t use “am, are” and “is.” So, from now on I won’t need to write: “I am,” “you are,” “he is” etc… I will only use “I, you, he, we” etc. in my tables/examples.

Look at this table and read the following explanation.

Close – soger

Now, after you read the verbs in the table above, I will teach you the rules for future tense, step-by-step.

1. In Hebrew every verb has a root.
Most roots consist of 3 consonants.
At this point we won’t discuss word roots in detail, because the concept of word roots is not easy to understand, especially since I can’t show you the root letters in Heblish (meaning, in English letters).  However, one day we will try to learn more about roots.

The only thing I want to say about roots is that the root of the word “close,” (soger) is “s.g.r.”
What do I mean by that?

Look at the verbs above. You can easily find the letters “s,” “g” and “r” in each verb.  This is the root of the verb “soger.”
That’s true for past tense, present tense and future tense.

2. In the future tense, there are four possible prefix letters before the root.
If you learn them, you will be able to conjugate almost every Hebrew verb in the future tense.
The letters are: e, i, t and n, and in Hebrew the name of this group of letters is “Eitan.”
Most of the time we use these 4 prefixes as the Eitan letters.
 

In the future I will show you some exceptions.

Let’s look again. I capitalized the root’s letters “S,” “G” and “R” and bolded the four special prefix letters.

Close – soger

The rule:
In the future tense, there are four possible prefix letters before the root.
1) The letters are: e, i, t or n.
2) This rule is for all future tense Hebrew verbs, in all 7 Hebrew forms.
3) Every verb in the future tense must have one of the “Eitan” letters as the first letter of the word.

Here it is in detail.
Don’t try to remember it, yet. I will give an easy way to remember the rules.

   – For “I” (ani) we add the letter “e” before the root.
  
   – For “he” (m) (hu) and for
            “they” (m) (hem), we add the letter “i” before the root.

   – For “you” (m) and (f) singular and plural (ata, at, atem, aten) and for
            “she” (hi) and they (f) (hen), we add the letter “t” before the root.

   – For “we” (m) and (f) (ana^nu), we add the letter “n” before the root.

Here it is on a table:

Or simpler:

Summary (and a simple way to remember):

– For every verb in the future tense in Hebrew, we use one of the “Eitan” prefixes:  e, i, t or n before the root.
– The Eitan prefix letter will be always the first letter of the verb.
– This rule is for ALL 7 forms of verbs in Hebrew – meaning, all Hebrew verbs!

The best way to remember which of the Eitan prefixes to use is:

– First person (singular) – e
– First person (plural) – n

– Third person (masculine) – i

– All the others – t

Simple  😉  

Is your head spinning?  Don’t be discouraged!  If you just keep studying the table and memorize which “Eitan” prefix letter goes with which personal pronoun, you will quickly master the future tense.

Lehitraot in lesson 44, I promise you an easier lesson…

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

Verbs

Free Hebrew lessons – September 2010 – Training – Day 39

Hi,

When we started our challenge (in our next lesson I will explain why “challenge?…”), I said that I would not give lessons during holidays – yours or mine. However, from the many e-mails you have sent me, I understand how important these lessons are for you, so… even though today is another holiday – Succot, I decided to publish this lesson. 

In our previous lessons we talked about the holidays Rosh Ha’shana and Yom Kippur, but before that, in lesson 36 we learned some verbs in the present tense plural, like: we sit, you sit, they sit –
Ana^nu yoshvim, atem yoshvim, hem yoshvim for masculine,

And: We sit, you sit, they sit:  
Ana^nu yoshvot, aten yoshvot, hen yoshvot for feminine.

This is going to be a DOUBLE lesson (I’ll tell you why, later), so… sweep your desk clean, get comfortable and focused…  

Today’s menu: Verbs

Attention: The underlined letters represent the accent.

Some of you have asked me to explain how to start and continue a conversation, others have asked me to explain the difference between “had” and “was,” how to say “I had a car, I had no time,” and when and how to use past tense versus past participle, etc…

I really want to teach you all of these things and more, but there are many words and concepts to learn, so we must focus on one thing at a time. The solution: each of you can be part of our Heblish group on Facebook and ask me your specific questions there. This would be great for three reasons.  First, all of the other students will read your questions and learn from my responses; second, I can answer you outside the framework of the lessons; and third, it will give me some ideas for our future lessons.  This will help us all since I’m not a teacher; I’m just a person who has an excellent knowledge of the Hebrew language (but not great English) trying to teach you my language in your language… can you imagine?  😉

Today, I will teach you six new verbs in the present tense and you will try to conjugate them yourself…

I’m going to give you the persons table: I, you, he, etc… and a complete table for one verb.

Usually our Heblish words are in blue, but for the tables below I am using orange for the feminine words to help you see the difference between masculine and feminine.  And, by the way, I do understand that the concept of “feminine” and “masculine” verbs, nouns, adjective, etc. is very odd to English speakers, but it’s basic to the Hebrew language.
After that table, I want you to try solving the other tables yourself. (I have not left the tables completely blank; you will see where you need to fill in the missing words)

My suggestion is, copy the tables, solve them and send them to me by e-mail. If you like, you can add more questions regarding Hebrew to your e-mail and I promise to check your homework and answer your questions. So, you will have a private teacher for this lesson… 😉

First, here is the complete persons table:

Let’s learn the new verbs (m):

In the above table you just learned 6 new verbs.
Can you tell me what these six new words have in common?

“Listen” to the sound of them: shover, sofer, noheg, soger, mo^er, lovesh …

1. They all have only two syllables.
2. The accent is on the last syllable.
3. They all have this sound: o-E, o-E, sho–ver, so–fer, no–heg, so–ger, mo–^er, lo–vesh… o–E… can you hear this?

Now let’s see a complete table for the first verb, break (shover), but first, let’s remember this rule:
In the present – there are only 4 inflections for every Hebrew verb:
– Singular for (m), singular for (f), plural for (m) and plural for (f).
What do I mean by that?

I mean that a verb following
I (m), is the same for you (m), and also for he (m), and a verb following
I (f), is the same for you (f), and also for she (f), and a verb following
We (m), is the same for you (m), and also for they (m), and a verb following
We (f), is the same for you (f), and also for they (f).

Break – shover

Count – sofer

Drive – noheg

Close – soger

Sell – mo^er

Wear – lovesh

I know…whew!  This lesson covered a lot of ground, but I think we need some repetitive “fill in the blank” work to really cement these basic grammar rules into our minds.  Start with the first table, and I bet by the time you come to the last table you find it is very easy and you will be proud of what you have accomplished.

Now here’s the reason for today’s “DOUBLE” lesson… next Thursday is the second holiday of Succot, so we will not have our regular lesson.  The timing is perfect, because I wanted to give you extra time to work on your homework (the tables). 

I will be monitoring our Free-Hebrew FB Group and looking for your homework in my e-mail, so…. 

Lehitraot in October, in lesson 40 … 40?… Yes, 40 😉

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