Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

Intro

Shira: Hello and welcome to hebrewpod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 12: Can you Eat this Israeli Meatball? I’m your host, Shira!
Amir: And I’m Amir.
Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to ask if someone can do something in Hebrew.
Amir: The conversation takes place at David and Sarah’s house.
Shira: And again, it’s between Peter, David and Sarah.
Amir: And it’s informal.
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation

Lesson conversation

Peter: מה זה?
(Mah zeh?)
Sarah: זאת קציצה.
(Zot k'tzitzah.)
Peter: קציצה?
(K'tzitzah?)
David:כן. זה בשר. אתה יכול לאכול בשר?
(Ken. Zeh basar. Atah yakhol le-ekhol basar?)
Peter: כן. מממממ... זה טעים!
(Ken. Mmmm... Zeh ta'im!)
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly.
Peter: מה זה?
(Mah zeh?)
Sarah: זאת קציצה.
(Zot k'tzitzah.)
Peter: קציצה?
(K'tzitzah?)
David:כן. זה בשר. אתה יכול לאכול בשר?
(Ken. Zeh basar. Atah yakhol le-ekhol basar?)
Peter: כן. מממממ... זה טעים!
(Ken. Mmmm... Zeh ta'im!)
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with English translation
Amir: מה זה?
(Mah zeh?)
Shira: What is this?
Amir: זאת קציצה.
(Zot k'tzitzah.)
Shira: This is a meatball.
Amir: קציצה?
(K'tzitzah?)
Shira: Meatball?
Amir: כן. זה בשר. אתה יכול לאכול בשר?
(Ken. Zeh basar. Atah yakhol le-ekhol basar?)
Shira: Yes, it’s meat. Can you eat meat?
Amir: כן. מממממ... זה טעים!
(Ken. Mmmm... Zeh ta'im!)
Shira: Yes. Mmm… it’s delicious!
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Amir: So, I’m guessing that you want to talk about meat in this lesson!
Shira: You know me!
Amir: Well, there is probably one thing that is fairly obvious to our listeners and that is that pork is hard to find in Israel.
Shira: It is – you won’t find it in the major supermarkets in Israel, only in smaller non-kosher markets.
Amir: In fact, all the meat sold in the major supermarkets must be certified as kosher, which means that it meets all the guidelines for kosher butchering.
Shira: That’s right, both Jews and Muslims abstain from pork, and have special laws regarding their meat, so it is strictly enforced in Israel.
Amir: That also means that the dairy and meat sections are not near to one another in the supermarket. You wouldn’t want those two to mix or you would have a huge problem on your hands.
Shira: Right! So, when it comes to meat, Israelis eat mostly beef and poultry, with a little lamb as well.
Amir: Usually, you can find all these things, except lamb, in the major supermarkets, and there will be a butcher present as well if you need special cuts.
Shira: You can even pick which cut you want for ground beef, and they will grind it for you on the spot.
Amir: There are also independent butcher shops where you can go and find other kinds of meat, like lamb. Or if you need a big Turkey for thanksgiving, they will order it for you.
Shira: When it comes to meat in restaurants, there are many new things to try.
Amir: My personal recommendation would be to try the grilled meat on skewers, or k’tzitzot, like we had in our dialogue.
Shira: There is also Shwarma, which you can get from street vendors and it’s usually made from turkey or .
Amir: Or even better, humus with seasoned ground beef in it! Yum!
Shira: Yes, that is a definite must! Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson.
VOCAB LIST
First we have:
Amir: קציצה (K'tzitzah)
Shira: meatball
Amir: קציצה (K'tzitzah)
Amir: קציצה (K'tzitzah)
Next:
Amir: בשר (basar)
Shira: meat
Amir: בשר (basar)
Amir: בשר (basar)
Next:
Amir: אתה (atah)
Shira: you (masc.)
Amir: אתה (atah)
Amir: אתה (atah)
Next:
Amir: יכול (yakhol)
Shira: can or be able to
Amir: יכול (yakhol)
Amir: יכול (yakhol)
And last:
Amir: לאכול (le-ekhol)
Shira: to eat
Amir: לאכול (le-ekhol)
Amir: לאכול (le-ekhol)
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Shira: Let’s take a closer look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is קציצה (K'tzitzah).
Amir: A קציצה (K'tzitzah) is the Israeli version of a meatball. They usually have meat, breadcrumbs, onion and cumin in them as well as other spices, depending on who makes them.
Shira: They are very tasty and usually flatter than traditional meatballs.
Amir: The next word is בשר (basar) which means “meat” in Hebrew. Most often it refers to red meat, but it can also mean poultry depending on the context.
Shira: If it’s used in a biblical context it means “flesh”.
Amir: Our next vocabulary word is יכול (yakhol) or “can”.
Shira: This word is a bit irregular in that it doesn’t have an infinitive form and it changes a bit in the future.
Amir: We don’t need to learn that at this point though, so just know that the dictionary form is also יכל (chal).
Shira: This is a verb that we will be talking about more in our grammar section in a few minutes.
Amir: Our last word is, לאכול (le-ekhol) or “to eat”.
Shira: Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section.

Lesson focus

Shira: In this lesson you will learn how to ask if someone can do something in Hebrew.
Amir: For this, we need our vocabulary word for “can”, יכול (yakhol).
Shira: This is the conjugation for “you” masculine in the singular, you would say אתה יכול (Atah Yachol).
Amir: If you are speaking to a woman, you would say את יכולה (At Yecholah).
Shira: After these two words, you add the verb that you want to ask about, “to swim”, “to cook”, “to speak” etc.
Amir: In the dialogue, we used לאכול (Le-echol) or “to eat”.
Shira: And of course, everyone can eat, so David needed to ask Peter about something specific he could eat, like בשר (basar) or meat.
Amir: So, the full sentence was אתה יכול לאכול בשר? (Atah yakhol le-ekhol basar?)
Shira: “Can you eat meat?“
Amir: To ask this question, we used voice inflection, but you can use the other ways that we learned to ask a question.
Shira: Right, like with נכון (nakhon).
Amir: אתה יכול לאכול בשר, נכון? (Atah yakhol le-ekhol basar, nakhon?)
Shira: Or with האם (Hayim)...
Amir: האם אתה יכול לאכול בשר? (Hayim atah yakhol le-ekhol basar?)
Shira: Okay, now that we have that down, we need to give you the other options.
Amir: Right, you can’t just talk to men all the time. There will be other people you talk to, like women, or groups of people.
Shira: So, we have worked up some examples for these other groups. First up, let’s ask a woman something using את יכולה (At Yecholah).
Amir: את יכולה לשיר? (At yekhola la-shir?)
Shira: ודאי! Amir just asked if I can sing. את יכולה לשיר? (At yekhola la-shir?) So now what about when we need to talk to more than one person? We need the masculine plural for that.
Amir: We start that sentence with אתם יכולים. אתם יכולים לבוא מחר? (Atem yekholim la-vo maħar?)
Shira: “Can you (plural) come tomorrow?” And now for the last one, what if you want to talk to a group of girls.
Amir: What guy doesn’t want to talk to a group of girls, right?
Shira: (laughs) For this you need אתן יכולות (Aten Yecholot).
Amir: Right. אתן יכולות לדבר בעברית? (Aten hekholot le-daber be-ivrit?)
Shira: “Can you speak in Hebrew?”
Amir: That’s useful if you want to find someone to practice your Hebrew with.
Shira: Yes, it sure is. Okay, that’s it for this lesson.
Amir: Now that you’ve listened to this lesson, please visit HebrewPod101.com and ask us what we can do in Hebrew.

Outro

Shira: See you next time!
Amir: Le-hit’ra’ot!

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