The Focus of this Lesson is Using the Words "forbidden" and "permitted"
מותר לי לראות טלוויזיה?
Mutar li lir'ot televisi'a.
"Is it permitted for me to watch TV?" (Can I watch TV?)

The words מותר (mutar) for permitted and אסור (asur) for forbidden are used in Hebrew to make a general statement about what is allowed or forbidden for someone specific or even for the population in general. These two words are always followed by a verb in the infinitive form and are not conjugated because there is no subject present.

In the example sentence, the statement was directed at Li'el because she added לי (li) for "for me." A more general sentence would be made by removing the "li":

מותר לראות טלוויזיה?
Mutar lir'ot televisi'a?
"Is it permitted to watch TV?"

The structure of the sentence is מותר (mutar) or אסור (asur) followed by a verb in the infinitive form and then the rest of the information, is needed to complete the statement. If you want to personalize the statement, you can add -ל plus a pronoun or the name of the person or thing that the statement applies to.

Let's take this concept and put it into practice. Let's say you are in a hospital, someone starts smoking a cigarette and you want to tell them that it's forbidden to smoke here. You would say:

1.   אסור לעשן פה בבית החולים.

Asur le-ashen po be-beit ha-ħolim.

"Smoking is forbidden here in the hospital."

When you want to direct that statement at the person instead of making a general statement, you would say:

1. אסור לך לעשן פה בבית החולים.

Asur le-ashen po be-beit ha-ħolim

"It's forbidden for you to smoke here in the hospital."

Let's take this one step further and let's tell the man where is it permitted to smoke.

2.   מותר לעשן בפינת האישון שם.

Mutar le-ashen be-pinat ha-ishun sham.

"Smoking is permitted in the smoking corner there."

And if we wanted to personalize it, we would say:

4.   מותר לך לעשן בפינת העישון שם.

Mutar lekha le-ashen be-pinat ha-ishun sham.

"It's permitted for you to smoke in the smoking corner there."

Note: In English, we would most likely use the word "allowed" in place of permitted, especially when talking to a family member. Since the sentence structure is different when using the word allowed, we translated all the sentences as "permitted" instead of "allowed."

Examples from this dialogue:

All the sentences from the dialogue have -ל and a pronoun, after מותר and אסור, but those can easily be omitted to make the sentence more general.

1.   מותר לי לראות טלוויזיה לפני שאני עושה שיעורי בית היום?

Mutar li lir'ot televisi'a lif'ne'i she ani osah shi'ure'i bayit ha-yom?

"Am I permitted to watch TV before I do (my) homework today?"

2.   אסור לך לראות טלוויזיה לפני שיעורי הבית.

"It's forbidden for you to watch TV before homework."

3.   מותר לך רק אחרי השיעורים.

Mutar lakh rak aħare'i ha-shi'urim.

"It's permitted for you only after homework."

4.  מותר לי לאכול משהו לפני שאני מתחילה?

Mutar li le'ekhol mashehu lifne'i she-ani mat'ħilah?

"Is it permitted for me to eat something before I begin? (Can I eat something before I begin?)"

Sample Sentences

1.   אסור לקנות אלכוהול לפני גיל שמונה-עשרה.

Asur lik'not al'kohol lif'ne'i gil shmonah-es'reh.

"It's forbidden to buy alcohol before the age of eighteen."

2.   מותר לנהוג באור ירוק.

Mutar lin'hog be-or yarok.

"Driving is permitted when there is a green light."

שיעורי בית

Shi'urei bayit is a construct (סמיכות) noun phrase made up of two words, שיעורים (shi'urim) and בית (bayit). Shi'urim means "lessons" and bayit means "home." Together they mean "homework." Since these two words form a construct state, שיעורים (shi'urim) drops the ם- (mem) at the end and becomes שיעורי (shi'urei). שיערי בית (shi'urei bayit) is mostly used to talk about homework you receive when at school but can sometimes be used in cases, such as homework from language school or homework received in university.


אחר-כך

Aħar-kakh means "afterward." It is also made up of two words. אחר (Aħar) means "after" and כך (kakh) means "thus."  You can use this word in two ways, you can use it when answering someone's question about when you want to do something. You can also use it in telling somewhat what happened when in a certain story, like אחר-כך הלכנו לבריכה (Aħar-kakh halakh'nu la-brikhah) "afterward we went to the pool." 



להתחיל

Le-hat'ħil means "to begin." להתחיל (le-hat'ħil) is a part of the hif'il verb group and is conjugated like the other verbs in that verb group. It is used in a few different expressions like להתחיל על רגל שמאל (le-hat'ħil al regel smol) which is "to begin on the wrong foot" or רגל ימין (regel yamin) which is "to begin on the right foot." When you flirt with someone it's called להתחיל עם שמהי (le-hat'ħil im mishehu) or "to start with someone" if you are flirting with a girl. If you are flirting with a guy, it would be להתחיל עם משהו (le-hat'ħil im mishehu).


מתוק

Matok is an adjective meaning "sweet," but it is also used as a term of endearment by many Israelis. You will often hear Israelis calling their children or significant other מתוק (matok) or מתוקה (matukah). Some Israelis will even use this term of endearment with their friends. There are four forms, as with all adjectives: מתוק (matok), מתוקה (matukah), מתוקים (matukim) and מתוקות (matukot)

TV in Israel

For many years television in Israel was highly restricted. Color televisions were not actively imported into the country up to the 1980s. Even then, many programs were still broadcast in black and white. Until 1986, there was only one television station in Israel. In the beginning, this station only aired educational programming. In the 1980s and further in the 1990s, television in Israel became more diversified with more channels available. In 1989, the first dedicated children's channel began to air and this was called ערוץ הילדים (arutz ha-yeladim). The channel at first was limited to only two hours a day. The channel is still broadcast today and features original Israeli programming for children as well as imported program from other countries. The foreign programs are either dubbed for younger children or shown in the original language with subtitles. Today there are several other children's channels available for different age groups from different cable companies.