Learn how to catch up with someone
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Shira: Hello and welcome to HebrewPod101.com’s Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 6 - Catching up With an Old Friend in Israel. I’m your host, Shira. |
| Amir: Shalom, I’m Amir. |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to catch up with someone in Hebrew. |
| Amir: The conversation takes place at the airport. |
| Shira: It’s between David and Peter, two old friends and work colleagues. |
| Amir: The dialogue is informal. |
| Shira: Let’s listen to the conversation |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| David: הי, פטר? |
| Peter: דוויד, כבר עבר הרבה זמן! |
| David: נכון, הרבה זמן לא התראינו! |
| English Host: Let’s listen to the conversation with English translation. |
| David: הי, פטר? |
| Shira: Hey, Peter? |
| Peter: דוויד, כבר עבר הרבה זמן! |
| Shira: David, it’s been a while! |
| David: נכון, הרבה זמן לא התראינו! |
| Shira: True, long time no see! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Amir: So, what cultural insight are we sharing with our listeners in this lesson? |
| Shira: Let’s talk about Ben Gurion. |
| Amir: I’m guess that you’re talking about the airport since David and Peter met up at the airport. |
| Shira: Yeah, I meant the airport, not the man. Although, it would be a good idea to talk about him in one of these lessons as well. |
| Amir: Okay. Ben Gurion airport is considered to be one of the most secure airports in the world. |
| Shira: The reason for this is the many levels of security that are in place there. |
| Amir: You may only be aware of a few of these security measures because only some of them are visible to most people. |
| Shira: Right. It can be a little frustrating to go through all the different levels especially as a tourist. |
| Amir: The first thing that you’ll see is the security gate at the entrance to the airport – this is the first line of defense. |
| Shira: Unfortunately, in Israel, it has to be seen that way. At the car gate, security will ask you a few questions and look into your car to see if there’s anything suspicious. |
| Amir: Once you park and you’re on your way into the airport you’ll pass another security guard. If he feels you may be a threat, he will ask you for identification and possibly send you through the metal detector. |
| Shira: Once you’re inside, you will need to find the right line for further security checks, but before you get there, there are a few security measures in place. |
| Amir: Yes, there are security officers in uniform, as well as undercover agents and they may strike up a conversation with you just to check you out. |
| Shira: There are also cameras everywhere, keeping an eye on everything going on. |
| Amir: When you’re in line for the security check, you will be questioned about your trip and you’ll need to show your identification. |
| Shira: In the rare event that you’re considered a very low security threat, you will be able to go straight to the check-in line. If not, your bags will be scanned and possibly opened to look at the contents. |
| Amir: Or even worse, you might have to be taken aside to have your body checked by a security officer. That is rare though. |
| Shira: Yeah, but in all my years of living in Israel, I personally have gone through all of those checks. Although it may be frustrating at times, it’s worth it to feel secure. |
| Amir: The last check is passport control where you may be asked again what you’re doing in Israel. |
| Shira: If you’re coming from another airport to Ben Gurion, there are usually extra checks for you to get onto your plane before you come to Israel. |
| Amir: So, now you should understand better about why Ben Gurion is considered to be one of the most secure airports in the world. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Shira: Okay. Now let’s go to the vocabulary for this lesson. First, we have: |
| Amir: כבר [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Already. |
| Amir: כבר [slowly - broken down by syllable]. כבר [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: לעבור/עבר [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To pass or move. |
| Amir: לעבור/עבר [slowly - broken down by syllable]. לעבור/עבר [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: הרבה [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Many or much. |
| Amir: הרבה [slowly - broken down by syllable]. הרבה [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: זמן [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Time |
| Amir: זמן [slowly - broken down by syllable]. זמן [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: נכון [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Correct or true. |
| Amir: נכון [slowly - broken down by syllable]. נכון [natural native speed] |
| Shira: Next: |
| Amir: לא [natural native speed] |
| Shira: No. |
| Amir: לא [slowly - broken down by syllable]. לא [natural native speed] |
| Shira: And last: |
| Amir: להתראות/התראה [natural native speed] |
| Shira: To see one another. |
| Amir: להתראות/התראה [slowly - broken down by syllable]. להתראות/התראה [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Shira: Let’s take a closer look at some of the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is לעבור. |
| Amir: לעבור means “to pass” or “to move.” |
| Shira: It can mean to “pass” a test or to “go past something”. It can also mean to “move” as in moving house. |
| Amir: Our next word is הרבה and it means “many” or “much”. |
| Shira: It’s related to the word רב that we learned in an earlier lesson, but it comes before the noun, like הרבה מתנות. |
| Amir: It also doesn’t change form, like רב. |
| Shira: Next we move on to זמן . |
| Amir: Z’man is “time” but not in the sense of “what’s the time”. It means time in the context of hours, days, months and years. |
| Shira: Yes, it’s more a description of a chunk of time and not a specific “time” of day. |
| Amir: So, the next word is נכון which means “right” or “correct”. |
| Shira: We use this when we want to say if something is “true” נכון or “false” לא נכון. |
| Amir: Our last word is לא or “no” |
| Shira: Okay, let’s move on to the Grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
| Shira: In this lesson, you will learn how to catch up with an old friend in Hebrew. |
| Amir: You’ll also learn why we say כבר עבר הרבה זמן. |
| Shira: Or why we say הרבה זמן לא התראנו. |
| Amir: Let’s start with the first phrase, כבר עבר הרבה זמן. |
| Shira: In the dialogue, we translated this as “It’s been awhile”, but that is really the figurative translation. |
| Amir: When we break it down, we begin with the first word כבר which means “already”. |
| Shira: The second word is עבר or “passed”. The last two words are הרבה זמן or “much time”. |
| Amir: When we put these all together we are saying “already passed much time”. |
| Shira: Or in a more logical order, “much time has passed already”. |
| Amir: The word order in Hebrew depends more on the emphasis in the sentence than on grammar rules. |
| Shira: The speaker wanted to emphasize that “already” a lot of time has passed since they last saw each other and that’s why he used that word order. Let’s move on to our second phrase! |
| Amir: It is הרבה זמן לא התראנו . |
| Shira: In Hebrew, there isn’t a popular saying like “long time, no see”, but this phrase means basically the same thing. |
| Amir: The first two words, הרבה זמן, we saw in the last phrase they mean “much time”. |
| Shira: The next word לא means “no”. |
| Amir: The last word is התראנו and it means “we saw each other”. |
| Shira: There are seven different types of verbs in Hebrew, we call them בניינים . This verb is part of the reflexive group of verbs. |
| Amir: These verbs can be like reflexive verbs in English, but they can also be something that two people are involved in, like kissing or marrying each other. |
| Shira: Our verb, התראנו is part of this latter group. להתראות means “to see each other.” |
| Amir: It’s in the past tense, which means that the subject is a part of the verb in many cases. The end of התראנו, the –נו part tells us that the subject is “we”. |
| Shira: So if we put all these words together, we are saying “much time we didn’t see each other.” |
| Amir: As it was with the last phrase, the word order of this sentence is not what you typically have in an English sentence. |
| Shira: Yes, what you want to emphasize is at the beginning. The speaker wanted to emphasize the fact that a lot of time had passed. |
| Amir: The last thing that you can see from the sentence is the use of לא. |
| Shira: Not only does לא mean “no” but it’s also used like “not” in English. Can you give us an example, Amir? |
| Amir: אני לא רץ בבוקר. |
| Shira: I do not run in the morning. Okay. Well, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Amir: Now that you’ve listened to this lesson, please visit HebrewPod101.com and leave us a comment! |
Outro |
| Shira: See you next time! |
| Amir: Le-hit’ra’ot! |
36 Comments
HideHi everyone!
Do you know someone in Israel or anyone who is interested in Israeli culture?
Dear Adélaïde,
Thank you for posting this excellent question!
I can see how this can be confusing... The word "רבה" is actually mostly used in the context of "תודה רבה" and it is rather rarely used in any other context, honestly. Another possible way to use this form would be to say "בכוונה רבה", for example, which translates as "'with much intention" / "with great intention". The common thing here for these 2 phrases is that the noun that is being 'enlarged' by the "רבה" particle is a feminine singular noun (תודה / כוונה).
The much more common way to say "many" is "הרבה", as you wrote correctly, and it works (more intuitively) with any plural noun, such as "apples" ("הרבה תפוחים"), "gifts" ("הרבה מתנות") and so on.
I hope that helps! Please let us know if any further clarification / examples are needed 👍
Yours,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
Shalom,
I have a question about many / much.
We saw in a previous lesson that many / much can be translated as רבה ("rabah") (as in "todah rabah" = "thank you very much" or "many thanks").
And in this lesson, we learn that many / much can be הרבה ("har'beh").
So can you explain to me in which cases do we have to use more one than the other ?
Todah rabah
Shalom Brianna,
The audio plays fine on our end. Can you access all the other learning resources? Do you have a subscription or are you a free user?
Kind regards,
Levente (לבנטה)
Team HebrewPod101.com
Hi! I was wondering if anyone else is having a problem playing the dialogue between Shira and Amir? I find it very helpful to listen since I don't have a very good grasp of the alphabet yet.
Thank you!
First of all, I would like to thank Shira and Amir for putting so much effort into all these podcasts!
Second of all, I would like to thank the team of HebrewPod101.com. I love this website, it will sure change my life. :D
Greetings from Hanover, Germany!
Lehitraot!
Hi Klaas Waterlander,
Thanks for posting and sharing!
We hope you enjoyed the lesson, please let us know in case you have any questions! 👍
Best,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
These interviews at the airport always confuse me. 😉
Shalom JD Alcala,
Thank you for your kind words 😅❤️️ Great to see your enthusiasm! Let us know if you have any questions. 😇
Kind regards,
Levente (לבנטה)
Team HebrewPod101.com
I have known להתראות for most of my life, however, I did not know the root or how to use it in a sentence. So this section is helpful to me.
Also, the post conversation banter about the airport makes me think the security at Ben Gurion must like me and my family. So far we have had very polite staff.😁
Hi רמי,
Thanks for commenting! Good work with your Hebrew sentence - הרבה זמן לא התראינו - we haven't met in a long time.
Enjoy learning Hebrew!
Yours,
Roi
Team Hebrewpod101.com