Learn how to talk about likes and dislikes
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Shira: Hello and welcome to Hebrewpod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 18, Talking Likes and Dislikes in Hebrew. I’m your host, Shira! |
| Amir: Shalom, I’m Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about what you like and don’t like in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place at David and Sarah’s house. |
| Shira: It’s between David, Peter and Sarah. |
| Amir: And it’s informal. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Sarah: קו-קו! קו-קו! |
| Tamar: (צוחקת) |
| David: תמר אוהבת לשחק "קו-קו" |
| Peter: באמת? בסדר, אז... קו-קו |
| Tamar: (בוכה) |
| Peter: אה! אני מצטער, סליחה |
| David: תמר לא אוהבת גברים. (צוחק) |
| English Host: Let’s listen to the conversation with English translation. |
| Sarah: קו-קו! קו-קו! |
| Shira: Peek-a-boo! Peek-a-boo! |
| Tamar: (צוחקת) |
| Shira: (laughs) |
| David: תמר אוהבת לשחק "קו-קו" |
| Shira: Tamar loves to play peek-a-boo. |
| Peter: באמת? בסדר, אז... קו-קו |
| Shira: Really? Okay, so... peek-a-boo. |
| Tamar: (בוכה) |
| Shira: (cries) |
| Peter: אה! אני מצטער, סליחה |
| Shira: Oh! I'm sorry, excuse me! |
| David: תמר לא אוהבת גברים. (צוחק) |
| Shira: Tamar doesn't like men. (laughs) |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Shira: For this lesson, I thought you could share with us some of the games you used to play as a child. |
| Amir: Okay, I could do that. |
| Shira: So, what kind of games did you play growing up? |
| Amir: We played several different ball games. One was called maħanayim. |
| Shira: Okay, what’s special about it? |
| Amir: Well, it’s similar to dodge ball, but there are more rules and strategies on how to get people out and once you’re “out” you can still participate in a limited way. |
| Shira: That sounds fun! What other games did you play, any board games? |
| Amir: Shesh’besh is really common in Israel. You guys call it backgammon. |
| Shira: Yes, we used to play that as kids, but I see it played a lot more often in Israel. |
| Amir: Many grown-ups play it in Israel. We played it a lot in the army. |
| Shira: What about card games? |
| Amir: We have our own version of Uno which is called Taki. |
| Shira: I played Taki with my friends a lot when I was in university. It is like Uno but there are special cards where you can lay down all your cards of one color. |
| Amir: There is also a card that you can play where everyone must exchange their hand. |
| Shira: That’s a frustrating card for someone to play when you are almost out of cards. So, now that we know more about some Israeli games, let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Amir: קו-קו [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Peek-a-boo |
| Amir: קו-קו [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: קו-קו [natural native speed] |
| Amir: לאהוב/אהב [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To love or liked. |
| Amir: לאהוב/אהב [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לאהוב/אהב [natural native speed] |
| Amir: לשחק/שיחק [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To play. |
| Amir: לשחק/שיחק [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: לשחק/שיחק [natural native speed] |
| Amir: באמת [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Really or truly. |
| Amir: באמת [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: באמת [natural native speed] |
| Amir: אז [natural native speed] |
| Shira: So or then. |
| Amir: אז [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: אז [natural native speed] |
| Amir: גבר [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Man. |
| Amir: גבר [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Amir: גבר [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Shira: Let's take a closer look at the usage for some of the words in the lesson. The first word is קו-קו. |
| Amir: קו-קו is “peek-a-boo” in English. And it’s played exactly the same way with small children. |
| Shira: The next word is לשחק. |
| Amir: לשחק is “to play”. |
| Shira: This can mean to play a sport, a board game or children’s games. |
| Amir: You can’t use it to say that you play a musical instrument, for that we use the verb לנגן. |
| Shira: The verb לשחק is also used for the English verb “to act”. |
| Amir: Like in plays and or on television. Both actors and team athletes are called שחקנים actually. |
| Shira: Right, in English these two things are completely separate, but In Hebrew they are together. I never really thought about it. I guess that’s why in Hebrew when you say שחקן you usually mention what kind of “player” they are - football, television or stage. |
| Amir: It used to be similar in English I think. All the old theatres used to have “players” instead of “actors”. |
| Shira: You’re right. There are some theatre groups that still call the actors “players”. |
| Amir: The next word is אז which means both “so” and “then”. |
| Shira: Az can be used to talk about certain time periods. You can say something like מאז אני לא אוהבת ביצים. “Since then, I don’t like eggs”. |
| Amir: Or אז אני הלכתי לים “then I went to the sea”. |
| Shira: It can also be used like “so” in English. Like when you want to say, “So, we need to think about that.” |
| Amir: In Hebrew, you would say אז |
| Shira: The last word is גבר which means “man” |
| Amir: This word is more slang than a word like אדם, you use it in your day-to-day terminology. |
| Shira: Right, and you can say that someone is a גבר גבר which means he’s a “real man”. Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
| Shira: In this lesson you will learn how to talk about what you like and don’t like in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The main word that we use for talking about things we like and don’t like is לאהוב. |
| Shira: David says תמר אוהבת לשחק "קו-קו" in the dialogue when he tells Peter that Tamar loves to play peek-a-boo. |
| Amir: Tamar is the subject, so the verb must agree with her and since she is a girl we use the feminine singular form of the verb and that is אוהבת. |
| Shira: With verbs in the present tense, there are only four different versions. There are the masculine and feminine versions and then the masculine and feminine plural versions. |
| Amir: Here are some examples of these four different verb conjugations. The first is masculine singular. אני אוהב עוגה. |
| Shira: That means “I like cake”. Now, if I were to say that, I would use the feminine version of the verb, I would say אני אוהבת עוגה. |
| Amir: If we were to talk about the fact that we both like cake, we would use the masculine plural form of the verb and we would say אנחנו אוהבים עוגה. |
| Shira: “We love cake.” If we were both girls, we would use the feminine plural form of the verb saying אנחנו אוהבות עוגה. |
| Amir: So, those are examples of how you conjugate לאהוב. What about when we want to say we don’t like something? |
| Shira: Well that’s simple, we just put the word לא in front of the verb. |
| Amir: Going back to the dialogue. When Tamar cries, David tells Peter that Tamar doesn’t like men. He says, תמר לא אוהבת גברים. |
| Shira: Right the only difference between saying that Tamar likes men or doesn’t like men is the word לא before the verb. |
| Amir: This is all it takes to negate a sentence in Hebrew. |
| Shira: So, let’s go back to our examples about cake. Amir, tell us how you don’t like cake. |
| Amir: אני לא אוהב עוגה. And what about you, tell us how you don’t like cake. |
| Shira: אני לא אוהבת עוגה. And together אנחנו לא אוהבים עוגה. |
| Amir: Right, we don’t like cake. And if we were two women we would say אנחנו לא אוהבות עוגה. |
| Shira: Since we are talking about telling people what you like or don’t like, there is only one version that you need to remember, and that is whichever version applies to you. |
| Amir: If you are a guy, you would say, אני אוהב. |
| Shira: And if you are a girl, you would say אני אוהבת and then finish the sentence with whatever applies. |
| Amir: And then there are the negative versions of this אני לא אוהב. |
| Shira: Or אני לא אוהבת. Let’s give the listeners examples of what we like and don’t like. |
| Amir: Well, for me אני אוהב לרכב על אופניים ואני לא אוהב לרכב על סוסים. "I like to ride bicycles and I don't like to ride horses." Your turn. |
| Shira: Okay אני אוהבת לשיר אבל אני לא אוהבת לשיר נמוך. “I love to sing, but I don’t like to sing low.” |
Outro |
| Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: After listening to this lesson, please visit HebrewPod101.com and tell us what you like or don’t like in Hebrew. |
| Shira: See you next time! |
| Amir: Shalom! |
31 Comments
HideHi everyone!
What are your likes and dislikes of Hebrew language?
Hi layan,
Thanks for posting!
What do you mean exactly by "adding L to a verb"? creating the infinitive?
Please clarify so that I would be able to answer better... 😄
Yours,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
when do I add ל to the verb ?
Hi Josh,
Thanks for commenting! I appreciate you enthusiasm :)
Happy learning,
Roi
Team Hebrewpod101.com
!אני אוהב את השפה העברית. אני לומד כל יום. אני ממש רוצה לדבר עברית שוטף
-Josh
Hi Layana,
Thanks for commenting!
I hope that you will feel the improvement soon, both in talking and in writing... (:
Your sentence is almost 100% right - just notice we say in Hebrew 'homework in' - שיעורי בית במתמטיקה.
Keep up the good work!
Roi,
Team Hebrewpod101.com
actually I learn Hebrew and I think that it is hard to talk Hebrew and to write too, I hope u can help me ,so I can talk and write Hebrew very well.
?
❤️️ אני אוהבת לרקוד בלט.
אני לא אוהבת ללמוד או לעשות שעורים בית של מתמטיקה
Hi Michael,
Thanks for commenting. :smile:
Of course, we have ways in Hebrew to specify an action that's occurring at the moment and a general likeness for something.
It's a little early to deal with these issues, please have more patience and I'm sure that shortly in the future you will understand it.
Yours,
Roi
Team Hebrewpod101.com
Are you asking what we like _about_ the Language, or how we express our likes _using_ the language. I think you want the preposition "in" rather than "of" for your lead-in question.
אני אוהב לשחק שחמט ושש-בש.
I like to play chess and backgammon
In Russian we have to make a distinction between what we like to do habitually and what we are doing at the moment. Example - I love to eat fish (in general) uses one grammatical form, but "I like this dish" uses a completely different one. Is this a similar situation in Hebrew?