Dialogue

Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Intro

Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 11 - What is this Delicious Israeli Dish? I’m your host, Shira.
Amir: Shalom, I’m Amir.
Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to ask what something is in Hebrew.
Amir: The conversation takes place at David and Sarah’s house.
Shira: And it’s between Sarah, David and Peter.
Amir: The dialogue is informal.
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation.

Lesson conversation

Sarah: בבקשה, תתכבדו!
(Be-vakeshah, tit'kab'du!)
Peter: יופי!
(Yofi!)
Sarah, David and Peter: בתיאבון.
(Be-te'avon.)
Peter: מממממ... טעים. שרה, מה זה?
(Mmmmmm... ta'im. Sarah, mah zeh?)
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly.
Sarah: בבקשה, תתכבדו!
(Be-vakeshah, tit'kab'du!)
Peter: יופי!
(Yofi!)
Sarah, David and Peter: בתיאבון.
(Be-te'avon.)
Peter: מממממ... טעים. שרה, מה זה?
(Mmmmmm... ta'im. Sarah, mah zeh?)
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with the English translation.
Sarah: בבקשה, תתכבדו!
(Be-vakeshah, tit'kab'du!)
Shira: Be my guest. Help yourselves!
Peter: יופי!
(Yofi!)
Shira: Great!
Sarah, David and Peter: בתיאבון.
(Be-te'avon.)
Shira: Bon Appetit!
Peter: מממממ... טעים. שרה, מה זה?
(Mmmmmm... ta'im. Sarah, mah zeh?)
Shira: Mmmm, delicious. Sarah, what is this?
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Amir: So what cultural point can we talk about in this lesson? בתיאבון (Be-te'avon)?
Shira: That sounds good to me. Saying בתאיבון (Be-te'avon) is like saying “ Bon Appetit.”
Amir: But Israelis have this habit of saying בתיאבון (Be-te'avon) whenever and wherever they see you eating.
Shira: Right. Normally, you would say “Bon appetit” when you sit down and eat with other people. At least that’s what I was used to before coming to Israel.
Amir: No, no, you could be sitting on a bench somewhere, thinking that you’re all by yourself eating a sandwich and suddenly, out of nowhere, you will hear בתאיבון (Be-te'avon).
Shira: Or maybe you’re at work and you’re sitting at your desk, having your 10 o’clock snack and one of your co-workers walks by and says בתאיבון (Be-te'avon).
Amir: For us it’s totally normal. If you see someone eating, you call out בתאיבון (Be-te'avon).
Shira: For me it was weird to be interrupted all the time in the beginning. I was there, minding my own business and stuffing my mouth and then someone comes and says בתאיבון (Be-te'avon). So then I have to stop and say תודה (toda).
Amir: But eventually you did get used to it!
Shira: Yes, I did. But I don’t say it to everyone I see eating of course. In some things I just have to stay American.
VOCAB LIST
Shira: Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. First we have:
Amir: להתכבד/התכבד (le-hit'kabed /hit'kabed) [natural native speed]
Shira: To help one’s self
Amir: להתכבד/התכבד (le-hit'kabed /hit'kabed) [slowly - broken down by syllable].
להתכבד/התכבד (le-hit'kabed /hit'kabed) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: מה (mah)
Shira: What.
Amir: מה (mah) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. מה (mah) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next.
Amir: יופי (yofi) [natural native speed]
Shira: Great or beauty.
Amir: יופי (yofi) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. יופי (yofi) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: בתאבון (Be-te'avon) [natural native speed]
Shira: Bon appetite.
Amir: בתאבון (Be-te'avon) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. בתאבון (Be-te'avon) [natural native speed]
Shira: And last:
Amir: טעים (ta'im) [natural native speed]
Shira: Delicious.
Amir: טעים (ta'im) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. טעים (ta'im) [natural native speed]
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Shira: Let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of these words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is להתכבד (Le-hit'kabed).
Amir: להתכבד (Le-hit'kabed) is an interesting word because it literally means “to be honored” but it has come to mean “help yourself”.
Shira: Well, another translation of it is “to be entertained”, and that would be by food, of course.
Amir: In the dialogue, Sarah uses the future form of this verb, which is sometimes used in place of the command form to invite people to do something.
Shira: Our next word is יופי and this is both a noun and an interjection.
Amir: In our dialogue, it means “great”.
Shira: It can also mean “beauty” like the “beauty” of something.
Amir: So, the next word we want to discuss is בתאיבון (Be-te'avon).
Shira: We talked about this word in our cultural insight. So here we want to break the meaning down for you.
Amir: This phrase is broken down into two parts, ב- (Be-), which means “with” and תאיבון (te'avon), which means “appetite”.
Shira: So the literal translation is “with appetite”.
Amir: Our last word is טעים meaning “delicious” or “tasty”.
Shira: Okay, let’s move on to the grammar section.

Lesson focus

Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to ask what something is in Hebrew.
Amir: When asking what something is in Hebrew, we say ?מה זה
(Mah zeh?)
Shira: Mah means “what” and zeh means “this”.
Amir: Remember that the present tense of “to be” is understood in Hebrew if there isn’t another verb, so what you are saying is “what is this?”
Shira: Zeh refers to something that is masculine, but since you probably won’t know the gender of what you’re asking about, you can use zeh all the time.
Amir: That’s right. The feminine for zeh is zot.
Shira: The only time that you won’t be able to use zeh is when you have more than one thing that you’re asking about.
Amir: In that case, you would need to use אלה (eleh), which is the plural equivalent to זה (zeh).
Shira: So when you want to ask about more than one thing, you would say מה אלה? (Mah eleh?)
Amir: Yes, מה אלה. (Mah eleh?) There’s also a feminine version for the plural, אלו (elu), but don’t worry about that for now. You won’t need that very often.
Shira: Right, all feminine plural forms of words in Hebrew you won’t use as often as all the others.

Outro

Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. See you next time!
Amir: Le-hit’ra’ot!

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