Dialogue

Vocabulary

Learn New Words FAST with this Lesson’s Vocab Review List

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.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Sherah:Hello and welcome back to hebrewpod101.com. This is Lower Intermediate, Season 1, Lesson 5 - What happened to my Israeli check? I’m your host, Sherah!
Amir:And I’m Amir.
Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn about corresponding active and passive verbs in Hebrew.
Amir:The conversation takes place at the bank in the morning.
Sherah:It’s between Gadi and a bank teller.
Amir:The speakers are strangers so they’ll be using informal Hebrew.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Sherah:Banks in Israel are a little different than banks in the U.S.
Amir:Right, first of all you pay a lot more for transactions than you do in the US.
Sherah:Oh, really? How come?
AMIR: For some accounts, you pay a very small amount for every single thing you do in your account.
Sherah:And for other accounts, like student accounts, you are also charged when you go into the bank to make a transaction.
Amir:It all depends on the kind of account you have.
Sherah:Another difference is that Israeli credit cards are actually more like debit cards.
Amir:They only hold the payment for one month and then the next month, you have to pay the previous month's balance in full.
Sherah:If you want to pay for something slowly with payments, you have to get a loan from the bank, or you can arrange it with stores to make payments through the store.
Amir:Many stores actually have payment plans, so this is not a problem.
Sherah:Right, even supermarkets will let you make payments on your groceries.
Amir:It does depend on how much you spend though, but you can usually spread your payments out out over a period of several months.
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 word we’d like to tell you about is תאריך.
Amir:This is “date” in English, as in the date on a calendar.
Sherah:So, how would you say “what is the date”?
Amir:מה התאריך היום?
Sherah:And if you want to say something specific about a date, you would say בתאריך or “on the date”.
Amir:So the next word we want to talk about is a word that has a special double ending: מחרתיים
Sherah:Right, it means “the day after tomorrow”.
Amir:I guess it would be like saying ‘in two tomorrows’ in English.
Sherah:The next word we want to talk about is חשבון.
Amir:חשבון means “account”, “bill” or “invoice”.
Sherah:It contains the root which is connected to words related to “thinking”, “considering” and “calculating”.
Amir:You can use it to refer to a bank account which would then be חשבון בנק.
Sherah:You can also use it to ask for the bill you receive an end of a meal which is אפשר לקבל חשבון?
Amir:Can I receive the bill?
Sherah:Another phrase that contains this word is חשבון נפש.The direct translation would be “soul account”.
Amir:I think in English it means “soul searching”. It is like you are taking account of what is in your heart, mind and soul, and then deciding how to go forward in life.
Sherah:The last phrase we want to talk about is יום טוב לך.
Amir:The translation of this phrase is “good day to you”. It’s kind of like what Brits say, and it basically means “have a nice day”.
Sherah:Gadi used the feminine version in the dialog because he was speaking to a woman. He said יום טוב לך.
Age: If you're saying it to a man, it would be יום טוב לך
Sherah:If you want to say it to more than one person, you would use יום טוב לכם. Okay, now onto the grammar.
GRAMMAR POINT
Sherah:In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the same verb root in the active and the corresponding passive.
Amir:In Hebrew, there are seven different verb groups and these are called binyanim.
Sherah:Three of those groups are considered active and three are considered passive.
Amir:One group is reflexive and that’s the hit’pa’el group.
Sherah:The three active groups correspond with the three passive groups. This means if you have a verb in one active group, there will most likely be a passive form in the corresponding passive group.
Amir:The groups that correspond are pa’al and nif’al, Pi’el and Pu’al and hif’il and huf’al.
Sherah:So, when you have a verb in Pa’al, the passive form will be found in the nif’al verb group.
Amir:Right, not all of the nif’al verbs are passive, but the passive forms of pa’al are among the verbs found in nif’al.
Sherah:In our dialogue in this lesson, Gadi and the bank teller used the passive and active forms of “to write” and “to be written”.
Amir:Right, first Gadi says אני כתבתי צ’יק meaning “I wrote a check.”
Sherah:Later, the bank teller says, באיזה תאריך הצ’יק נכתב? “On which date was the check written?”
Amir:So, here you can see that the verbs have the same root, but because they are found in different verb groups the meaning is different - one is passive and the other active.
Sherah:Here are two example sentences with pa’al and nif’al: Amir will give the Hebrew and I will give the English.
Amir:Starting with pa’al: אני כותב מכתב לאמא שלי The verb is לכתוב and it means “to write”.
Sherah:“I am writing a letter to my mom” is what Amir said.
Amir:And now Nif’al: המכתב נכתב על ידי יואל The verb here is להיכתב and it means “to be written”.
Sherah:“The letter was written by Yoel.” You probably noticed that in the last sentence the verb was followed by על ידי.
Amir:על ידי is the preposition that follows passive verbs in many cases, and it means “by”
Sherah:Yes, the literal translation is “by the hands of”. And now we will give you sentences for pi’el and pu’al.
Amir:First we have pi’el: היא מדברת על מזג האוויר The verb is לדבר and it means “to talk”
Sherah:She is talking about the weather.
Amir:And pu’al: כפי שדובר, אני עובד מעשר מחר The verb here is דובר, there is no infinitive for pu’al verbs. It means “was spoken”.
Sherah:“As was agreed, I am working from ten tomorrow.” The last set of verbs are from hif’il and huf’al.
Amir:First we’ll do hif’il: הם הזמינו אותי לבת מצווה The verb here is להזמין and it means “to invite”.
Sherah:They invited me to a Bat Mitzvah.
Amir:And now huf’al: רחל הוזמנה גם This verb is הוזמן and it means “was invited”.
Sherah:“Rachel was invited as well.”

Outro

Sherah:Ok, that’s all for this lesson. Come see us at HebrewPod101.com and leave a comment about what you’ve learned here. And remember to check the lesson notes.
Amir:Thanks for being with us, everyone,
Sherah:Bye!
MARKETING PIECE
Amir:Listeners, do you know the powerful secret behind rapid progress?
Sherah:Using the entire system.
Amir:Lesson notes are an important part of this system.
Sherah:They include a transcript and translation of the conversation...
Amir:...key lesson vocabulary...
Sherah:and detailed grammar explanations.
Amir:Lesson notes accompany every audio or video lesson.
Sherah:Use them on the site or mobile device or print them out.
Amir:Using the lesson notes with audio and video media, will rapidly increase your learning speed.
Sherah:Go to HebrewPod101.com, and download the lesson notes for this lesson right now.

Comments

Hide