Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Intro

Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 5 - Can You Take my Order in Hebrew? I’m your host, Shira.
Amir: Shalom. I’m Amir.
Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to say “yes” and ask for something in Hebrew.
Amir: The conversation takes place at a restaurant.
Shira: It’s between a customer and a waitress.
Amir: This conversation is more formal because you usually ask for things politely in a restaurant.
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation

Lesson conversation

A: ערב טוב.
(Erev Tov.)
B: שלום, אפשר לקבל תפריט?
(Shalom, ef’shar lekabel tafrit?)
A: ודאי
(Vada’i)
B: סליחה, אפשר כוס מים, בבקשה?
(Sliħah’ ef’shar kos mayim, be-vakashah?)
A: מיד.
(Mi-yad.)
B: סליחה, אפשר להזמין?
(Sliħah, ef’shar lehaz’min?)
A: כן.
(Ken.)
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation one more time slowly.
A: ערב טוב.
(Erev Tov.)
B: שלום, אפשר לקבל תפריט?
(Shalom, ef’shar lekabel tafrit?)
A: ודאי
(Vada’i)
B: סליחה, אפשר כוס מים, בבקשה?
(Sliħah’ ef’shar kos mayim, be-vakashah?)
A: מיד.
(Mi-yad.)
B: סליחה, אפשר להזמין?
(Sliħah, ef’shar lehaz’min?)
A: כן.
(Ken.)
Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation with the English translation.
A: ערב טוב.
(Erev Tov.)
Shira: Good evening.
B: שלום, אפשר לקבל תפריט?
Shira: Hello. Is it possible to get a menu?
A: ודאי
(Mi-yad.)
Shira: Certainly.
B: סליחה, אפשר כוס מים, בבקשה?
(Sliħah’ ef’shar kos mayim, be-vakashah?)
Shira: Excuse me, is it possible to get a glass of water?
A: מיד.
(Mi-yad.)
Shira: Right away.
B: סליחה, אפשר להזמין?
(Sliħah, ef’shar lehaz’min?)
Shira: Excuse me, is it possible to order?
A: כן.
(Ken.)
Shira: Yes.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
So, since part of our topic for this lesson is saying “yes”, we thought our cultural insight should be the unique way that Israelis say “no”.
Amir: “Tsk”
Shira: What was that? You don’t want to talk about that?
Amir: “Tsk”
Shira: Ohh, I see, you are demonstrating.
Amir: Yes, we could say lo which is “no” in Hebrew, but it’s so much easier just to do tsk.
Shira: I agree – it’s much easier and faster too.
Amir: Israelis will use this tsk when they don’t need to explain why they’re saying “no” or if they are in the midst of something else.
Shira: It’s fun to practice this. Tsk. Try it, Listeners! Tsk.
VOCAB LIST
Shira: Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. First we have:
Amir: ערב (erev) [natural native speed]
Shira: Evening
Amir: ערב (erev) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. ערב (erev) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: טוב (tov) [natural native speed]
Shira: Good
Amir: טוב (tov) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. טוב (tov) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: קיבל (lekabel) [natural native speed]
Shira: To receive
Amir: קיבל (lekabel) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. קיבל (lekabel) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: תפריט (tafrit) [natural native speed]
Shira: Menu
Amir: תפריט (tafrit) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. תפריט (tafrit) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: ודאי (Vada'i) [natural native speed]
Shira: Certainly
Amir: ודאי (Vada'i) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. ודאי (Vada'i) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: כוס (kos) [natural native speed]
Shira: Glass.
Amir: כוס (kos)[slowly - broken down by syllable]. כוס (kos) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: מים (mayim) [natural native speed]
Shira: Water
Amir: מים (mayim) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. מים (mayim) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: מיד (miyad) [natural native speed]
Shira: Right away
Amir: מיד (miyad) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. מיד (miyad) [natural native speed]
Shira: Next:
Amir: להזמין/הזמין (Le-haz’min/hiz’min) [natural native speed]
Shira: To order
Amir: להזמין/הזמין (Le-haz’min/hiz’min) [slowly - broken down by syllable]
להזמין/הזמין (Le-haz’min/hiz’min) [natural native speed]
Shira: And last:
Amir: כן (ken) [natural native speed]
Shira: Yes
Amir: כן (ken) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. כן (ken) [natural native speed]
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
Shira: Let’s take a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is טוב (tov).
Amir: Tov means “good”.
Shira: And since it’s an adjective, it has four forms טוב, טובה, טוֹבִים, טוֹבוֹת (tov, tovah, tovim, Tov).
Amir: Tov can also be used as “okay” but you only need the simple form for that.
Shira: The next word is אפשר (Ef'shar).
Amir: It means “possible” and it’s the focus of our grammar section, so we’ll discuss it in depth in a few minutes.
Shira: The next word is לקבל (lekabel).
Amir: Le-kabel means “to receive” or “to get”.
Shira: Next up, we have ודאי (Vada'i) or “certainly”.
Amir: It can also be translated as “sure”. After that we have מיד (Mi-yad).
Shira: This means “right away”.
Amir: Next we have another verb, להזמין (Le-haz'min), it means “to order”.
Shira: You can use this verb at a restaurant or when you’re ordering something from the Internet.
Amir: And our last word is כן (ken).
Shira: Ken means “yes”, but it can also be used to emphasize a point.
Amir: That’s right. You can say something like אני כן רוצה להבין אותך (Ani ken rotzeh le-havin ot'cha).
Shira: Amir said, “I do want to understand you”. In this case, it would be used like “do” or “does” in English.
Amir: Another example would be היא כן הולכת למסיבה (hi ken holekhet la-mesibah).
Shira: “She is going to the party”. Those examples should help you to understand additional ways that you can use כן (ken). Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section.

Lesson focus

Shira: In this lesson you will learn how to ask for something politely in Hebrew.
Amir: To ask for something in Hebrew, we use the word אפשר followed by the infinitive form of a verb.
Shira: Exactly. This is pretty easy because you don’t have to think about subject and verb agreement in this case.
Amir: Right. It’s the same no matter who you’re talking to. Ef’shar doesn’t change.
Shira: So, as we said in the vocab section, ef’shar means “possible”.
Amir: When we use ef’shar in this way, there are two additional words that are understood from the context, "it" and "is."
Shira: Right. When you begin the sentence with ef’shar, you’re really saying “it is possible”. If you use voice inflection to turn the sentence into a question it would be , “is it possible”.
Amir: So then you add the infinitive form of the verb that you want to use.
Shira: In our dialogue, the first sentence we had was “Is it possible to get or to receive?”
Amir: אפשר לקבל… (Ef'shar le-kabel…)
Shira: Right! And then you just add what you want to receive. Our character wanted a menu.
Amir: אפשר לקבל תפריט? (ef’shar lekabel tafrit?)
Shira: Let’s look at another example. How about we ask someone if they can move to another table. We start off with אפשר.
Amir: “To move” is לעבור (la-avor). So far we have, אפשר לעבור (Ef'shar la-avor).
Shira: The rest of the sentence is לשולחן אחר (le-shul'cħan acħer) or “to another table”.
Amir: אפשר לעבור לשולחן אחר? (Ef'shar la-avor le-shul'cħan acħer?)
Shira: There was one sentence in the dialogue that didn’t have an infinitive verb after אפשר (Ef'shar).
Amir: That’s right, אפשר כוס מים (Ef'shar kos mayim?)
Shira: Exactly. You can useאפשר plus an item or items that you want. In the dialogue, this would be translated as “is it possible to get a glass of water” but in Hebrew the verb “to get” is implied.
Amir: In Hebrew, you’re just saying “possible glass water”, everything else is understood.
Shira: Let’s try another example. How about asking for some salt, מלח (melacħ)?
Amir: אפשר מלח? (Ef'shar melacħ?)
Shira: Keep in mind that Hebrew is very frugal when it comes to the amount of words in a sentence.
Amir: If something can be understood without extra words, they won’t be included.
Shira: Right. Let’s move on to the other topic of this lesson, answering in the affirmative.
Amir: For this, a simple “yes” will suffice כן (ken).
Shira: But in our dialogue there were a couple of other ways to answer in the affirmative.
Amir: Correct. The waitress first answered with ודאי (vada'i).
Shira: Or “certainly”. And when she wanted to reply that she would do something right away, what did she say?
Amir: She said מיד (mi-yad).
Shira: Okay, Listeners, now it’s your turn. You can use these affirmative answers as well on a daily basis! So please try it out!

Outro

Shira: Okay, that’s it for this lesson.
Amir: After listening to this lesson, why not visit HebrewPod101.com and leave us a comment!
Shira: See you next time!
Amir: Le-hit’ra’ot!

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