Learn how to ask whether someone can do something
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Intro |
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| 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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