The Focus Of This Lesson Is Using Conjunctions to Make More Complicated Sentences

למרות שלא עבדת במשתלה,יתכן שיש לך נסיון בגננות?

Lam'rot she-lo avadet be-mish'tala, yesh lakh nisayon be-gananut?
"In spite of (the fact that) you haven't worked in a nursery, do you have any experience with gardening?"

One of the biggest boosts in the level of your Hebrew is learning to make more complicated sentences. In order to make compound sentences in Hebrew, you need to learn the possible conjunctions and how to use them. There are many options for this in Hebrew, some are very common and others are seldom used but useful to know. In the dialogue in this lesson, some of the more common conjunctions were used to form different types of sentence.

The first conjunction used in the dialogue is למרות ש (lam'rot she), meaning "in spite of" or "even though." This is a clause of concession, meaning it adds information in opposition of the previous information provided or exceptions to the previous information. In the dialogue, Yoni states that Ella doesn't have any experience with a nursery written in her resume and then he asks is she has any information to add that would be an exception to that. He uses למרות ש (lam'rot she) to do this.

When Yoni asks Ella about her resume, he says:

למרות שלא עבדת במשתלה, יתכן שיש לך נסיון בגננות?

Lam'rot she-lo avadet be-mish'tala, yitakhen she-yesh lakh nisayon be-gananut?

Yoni sees on Ella's resume she doesn't have any previous experience working in a nursery, so he asks if in spite of it, she has ever worked in gardening. You can also reverse the order of the clauses to make it:

יתכן שיש לך נסיון בגננות, למרות שלא עבדת במשתלה?

Yitakhen she-yesh lakh nisayon be-gananut, Lam'rot she-lo avadet be-mish'tala?

Here the sentence is translated as: "Is it possible that you have experience with gardening, although you haven't worked in a nursery?"

למרות ש
(lam'rot she-) is the most common conjunction used to show concession.  

There are a few other conjunctions you should be familiar with which convey the same meaning but are used in more formal written and spoken language. The first is אף על פי (af al pi) meaning "although" and the second is על אף ש (al af she) meaning "even though." These two conjunctions are used in a similar way to למרות ש (lamrot she-). Here is our sample sentence from the dialogue using these two conjunctions:

אף על פי שלא עבדת במשתלה, יתכן שיש לך נסיון בגננות?

Af al pi she-lo avadet be-mish'tala, yitakhen she-yesh lakh nisayon be-gananut?)
"Although you haven't worked in a nursery, is it possible that you have experience with gardening?"

על אף שלא עבדת במשתלה, יתכן שיש לך נסיון בגננות?

Al af she-lo avadet be-mish'tala, yitakhen she-yesh lakh nisayon be-gananut?
"Even though you haven't worked in a nursery, is it possible that you have experience with gardening?"

The next conjunction in the dialogue is is simply a way to convey comparison. The phrase is בהשוואה ל (be-hash'va'a le) and it means "in comparison to."  Yoni uses it when he asks Ella to compare her experience with her Uncle's greenhouse to what she sees in the nursery. He says:

ומה את חושבת על המשתלה בהשוואה לחממה שלו?

U-ma at ħoshevet al ha-mish'tala be-hash'va'a la-ħamama shelo?
"And what do you think of this nursery compared with his greenhouse?"

You can also compare things like your mother's cakes to your cakes.

בהשוואה לעוגה שלי, העוגה של אמא שלי טעימה יותר.

Be-hash'va'a la-uga sheli, ha-uga shel ima sheli te'ima yoter.
"Compared to my cake, my mom's cake is delicious."

Or you could compare cars:

האוטו שלך נוח מאוד בהשוואה לאוטו שלי.

Ha-oto shel'kha no'aħ me'od be-hash'va'a la-oto sheli.
"Your car is very comfortable compared to my car."

Ella answers him with another useful phrase meaning "in contrast to" when she talks about the difference between the nursery and the greenhouse. The phrase she uses is בניגוד ל (be-nigud le). The sentence she uses is:

בניגוד לחממה שלו, כאן יש הרבה צמחים שאני צריכה להכיר.

Be-nigud la-ħamama shelo, kan yesh har'be tzmaħim she-ani tzrikha le-hakir.
"In contrast to his greenhouse, there are a lot of plants I need to get to know."

Examples from the dialogue:

ומה את חושבת על המשתלה בהשוואה לחממה שלו?

U-ma at ħoshevet al ha-mish'tala be-hash'va'a la-ħamama shelo?
"And what do you think of this nursery compared with his greenhouse?"

בניגוד לחממה שלו, כאן יש הרבה צמחים שאני צריכה להכיר.

Be-nigud la-ħamama shelo, kan yesh har'be tzmaħim she-ani tzrikha le-hakir.
"In contrast to his greenhouse, there are a lot of plants I need to get to know."

Sample Sentences

הוא נוסע מחר, למרות שתהיה סופת שלג.

Hu nose'a maħar, lamrot she-tihyeh sufat sheleg.
"He is traveling tomorrow, even though there will be a snow storm."

בהשוואה לאילת, לא חם בתל אביב.

Be-hash'va'a le-eilat, lo ħam be-Tel Aviv.
"In comparison to Eilat, it's not hot in Tel Aviv."

אין רוח היום, בניגוד לאתמול.

En ruaħ hayom, be-nigud le-etmol.
"There's no wind today, in contrast to yesterday."

משתלה
"nursery (plants)"

The noun משתלה (mish'tala) or "nursery" comes from the root shin-tav-lamed. Words from this root are related to planting and transplanting. The verb "to plant" is לשתול (lish'tol). If you take these root letters and add a mem to the beginning and a heh at the end, you have משתלה (mish'tala). The correct pronunciations of this word is משתלה (mish'tala) but it's sometimes pronounced as משתלה (mash'tela). משתלה (mish'tala) is often combined with a name to make a construct noun and when this happens משתלה (mish'tala) becomes משתלת (mish'telet). For example, one such plant nursery in Israel is called משתלת יגור (mish'telet yagur).

For example:

קניתי כמה צמחים חדשים במשתלה היום.

Kaniti kama tz'maħim ħadashim ba-mish'tala hayom.
"I bought a few new plants at the nursery today."

מול לקוחות
"with customers"

The expression מול לקוחות (mul lakoħot) means "in front of customers" or "with customers." The word מול (mul) means "in front of," "opposite"  or "against." You can use this to talk about something across from you. You can also use it when you're talking about two sports teams competing against one another like ברזיל מול ארגנטינה (brazil mul argentina) or "Brazil versus Argentina." The second word in this expression is the plural of לקוח (lakoaħ) which means "customer." This can also mean "client." Although in the plural this word takes a feminine ending, it is in fact a masculine noun.

For example:

אני עובד כל היום מול לקוחות.

Ani oved kol ha-yom mul lakoħot.
"I work with customers all day long."

משרה חלקית
"part-time job"

This phrase is made up of a noun and an adjective. The noun משרה (misra) means "job," "position" or "post." This is often used to describe the type of job in a job posting. חלקית (ħel'kit) is the feminine singular form of חלקי (ħel'ki), meaning "part-time" or "partial."

For example:

אדם מחפש משרה חלקית.

Adam meħapes mis'ra ħel'kit.
"Adam is looking for a part-time job."

Forests of Israel

From the before the creation of the modern State of Israel, Jewish people have worked very hard to plant forests and make Israel green. The trees of Israel had been cut down during the time of the Ottoman empire and there were not many trees remaining. There were a few native forests at the time and those were made up of native oak trees and shorter, low-lying trees. The rest of Israel was very desolate. When people began to plant forests, they used pines, since pine trees would take root faster and easier than other trees. Since these pine trees are not native to Israel, the trend has moved away from planting pine trees in the last thirty years. Now, instead of planting non-native species of trees, Israel is planting native trees and diversifying the forests by planting many species throughout the forests instead of one type of tree.