INTRODUCTION |
Sherah:Hello and welcome to hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, Lesson 1 - No TV until you finish your Hebrew homework. I’m your host, Sherah! |
Amir:And I’m Amir. |
Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the words “forbidden” and “permitted” in Hebrew. |
Amir:The conversation takes place at the Levy family house in the afternoon. |
Sherah:It’s between Gadi and his daughter Liel. |
Amir:The speakers are father and daughter, so they’ll be using informal Hebrew. |
POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
Sherah:Let’s talk a little about children’s television in Israel. |
Amir:When I was a kid, there wasn’t much TV to see. |
Sherah:I bet, up until 1986 there was only one television station in Israel. For a long time, that station was strictly educational. |
Amir:It wasn’t until the 90s that we received cable tv and a dedicated children’s station. |
Sherah:Right, arutz ha-yeladim only started in 1989. |
Amir:In the beginning it was only for two hours a day. |
Sherah:Well, today it is broadcast much more than 2 hours a day. |
Amir:Yes, and it’s a mix of Israeli productions and foreign programs. |
Sherah:And today there are other channels for children of different ages, even for babies and toddlers. |
Amir:But Arutz ha-yeladim is really for school-aged children. |
Sherah:I guess that’s how it is in the States now too. When I was a kid, there was the Disney channel and Nickelodeon, but now there are many, many more. |
KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
Sherah:Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is שיעורי בית. |
Amir:שיערי בית is a construct noun or שמיכות meaning “homework”. |
Sherah:It’s made up of two parts, שיערים or “lessons” and בית which is “home”. |
Amir:The שיעורים drops the ‘ם in the construct state and becomes שיעורי. |
Sherah:שיעורי בית is mostly used for homework you get in school, but it can also be used for homework from your language class. |
Amir:Or extra work you need to do at university. |
Sherah:The next word we want to discuss is אחר-כך. |
Amir:אחר-כך is also made up of two words, אחרי meaning “after” and כך meaning “thus”. |
Sherah:אחרי becomes אחר and you put together, it means “afterward”. |
Amir:You can use this word in two ways. You can use it when you want to answer someone’s question about when you want to do something, and your answer is that you want to do it after whatever you are doing at that moment. |
Sherah:Right, and you can also use it when you are telling someone a story. For instance, maybe you want to tell someone that you did something and went to the pool afterwards. |
Amir:Then you would say אחר-כך הלכנו לבריכה. |
Sherah:The last word we want to talk about is the verb להתחיל or “to begin” |
Amir:This word is used in some common expressions like להתחיל ברגל ימין. |
Sherah:That’s “to start off on the right foot” or you could say the opposite of that, “to start off on the wrong foot”. |
Amir:In Hebrew that would be להתחיל ברגל שמאל or “to start off on the left foot.” |
Sherah:Another interesting expression using this word is להתחיל עם מישהו in the masculine or להתחיל עם מישהי in the feminine. |
Amir:And that means “to flirt with someone” in Hebrew. The direct translation is to “start with someone”. |
Sherah:The last word we want to talk about is מתוק. This means “sweet”, and it’s used as a term of endearment in Israel. |
Amir:Yes, many parents will call their little boys מתוק or their little girls מתוקה. |
Sherah:Sometimes Israelis use this with their significant others or even friends. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
GRAMMAR POINT |
Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the words “permitted” and “forbidden” in a sentence in Hebrew. |
Amir:Our sample sentence from the dialogue is מותר לי לראות טלוויזיה? |
Sherah:The direct translation of this sentence is “Is it permitted for me to watch television?” |
Amir:In English, you would probably say, “Am I allowed to watch television?” |
Sherah:Right, but the sentence structure is different for these two phrases, so we will stick with “is it permitted” because it’s closer to the sentence structure we use in Hebrew. |
Amir:The word that we want to focus on from this sentence is מותר or “permitted”. |
Sherah:As you see in the sample sentence, מותר is followed by לי and then the verb לראות in the infinitive. “Is it permitted for me to watch?” |
Amir:This is the general pattern of sentences using מותר. You start with מותר and then you have the person that you are referring to with the preposition -ל and then a verb in the infinitive, followed by any other information you need in the sentence. |
Sherah:If you want a more general statement, you would just use מותר with a verb in the infinitive. |
Amir:Right, by taking לי out of Li’el’s sentence, we can make it more of a general sentence. She would say מותו לראות טלוויזיה?. |
Sherah:And then it would be “Is it permitted to watch television?” |
Amir:The same structure is used with the word אסור which means “forbidden”. |
Sherah:Gadi used this when he said, “It’s forbidden for you to watch television before homework.” |
Amir:In Hebrew, that was אסור לך לראות טלוויזיה לפני שיעורי בית. |
Sherah:Here we have אסור or “it’s forbidden” and then לך “for you” in the feminine and לראות “to watch” and it’s followed by the rest of the information. |
Amir:So, now that you know the general structure of the sentences using these two words, let’s look at some other examples. |
Sherah:Yes, let’s tell someone using a general sentence that it’s forbidden to smoke in the hospital. |
Amir:That would be: אסור לעשן בבית החולים. |
Sherah:So, if you want to say that to someone specific, you would insert the word לך meaning “for you”. |
Amir:So, then it would be: אסור לך לעשן בבית החולים. |
Sherah:So, now let’s tell someone using a general sentence where it is permitted to smoke, in the smoking corner, of course. |
Amir:מותר לעשן בפינת האישון שם. |
Sherah:And we will add לך to make it more personal. |
Amir:מותר לך לעשן בפינת האישון שם |
Sherah:In English, we would use the words “permitted” and “forbidden” in a more formal setting and “allowed” and “not allowed” with people you’re familiar with. |
Amir:In Hebrew, you can use these words for any setting. |
Outro
|
Sherah:Ok, that’s all for this lesson. Make sure to check the lesson notes to reinforce what you’ve learned in this lesson. And you can also leave us a comment. |
Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone, להתראות |
Sherah:We’ll see you next time! Bye! |
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89 Comments
HideLet's practice together!
Can you make a sentence using the words מותר (mutar) for "permitted," and אסור (asur) for "forbidden"?
Dear Robin and הלנה,
Thanks for commenting and sharing your feedback on this lesson! 😄
Wonderful! well done 👍👍
Please let us know if you have any questions ❤️️
Sincerely,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
תודה רבה. השור היה נחמד מוד. אני מבינה את הכל👍
This lesson was too easy.
Hi Suzi,
Thanks for posting this great question!
This is indeed a tricky issue, and eventually a personal matter of preference...
We would recommend you to learn the vowels very well, as romanization is only an "artificial" way of writing the language and illustrating the pronunciation, while voweling (nikkud) is an integral part of the language, which deepens your understanding of the language.
That said, we don't always add voweled versions to our texts, as one must develop the ability to read Hebrew without them as well, and "guess" correctly the correct pronunciation. This can take a while though, and even native Hebrew speakers might do mistakes from time to time when running into unfamiliar words....
I hope that helps,
Yours,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
It is difficult to learn each word by sight without vowels. I recognize a few patterns, but mostly I need either transliteration or vowels. Which is better to learn pronunciation with?
Hi Paul,
Thanks for posting! 👍
There's nothing wrong with an accent, as long as the speaker is understood...! 😉😄
Best,
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
איזה מבטא אמריקאי! 😭
감사합니다. 너무 좋은 프로그램이네요.👍👍👍
Hi Camilla,
You're always welcome 😄👍 glad I could help.
Roi
Team HebrewPod101.com
Thanks a lot Roi!