Do you know what today is?!

It’s time for our second Bite-Sized Hebrew Lesson, part of my Hebrew Through Reading (HTR) series, launched in May. Just like with the first lesson,  we’ll translate a quote word by word, phrase by phrase, using my four steps to improving Hebrew reading.

As a reminder, these mini Hebrew lessons won’t replace your regular studies, but they will enhance them, and teach you about Hebrew sentence structure, verbs, grammar, and of course, lots of vocabulary. So let’s get to it!

{7/24/18 Edit: Todah rabah to reader Inge de M. for noticing that I left out the last word of the quote in the entire lesson! I’ve updated the blog text, but note that [chadash] is still missing from the recording and the final summary. My apologies!}

זֶה [zeh] is a masculine pronoun that means it, this, or that.

לֹא [lo] is a word that means no. If it’s followed by a verb, then it is an adverb that means not.

הָיָה [hayah] is a past-tense verb that means was. It’s the third person, masculine singular, past tense form of the paal verb לִהְיוֹת [lihyot], which means to be. (In Lesson 1 you learned that this verb isn’t used in the present-tense – that’s why we don’t have words for “am,” “is,” or “are” – but it is used in both the past and future tenses.)

Since we see the word לא was followed by the verb היה, we know that in this context, לא means not. It changes the meaning of our verb from was to was not. So far, we have: It/this/that was not….

בִּזְבּוּז [bizbuz] is a masculine noun meaning waste.

זְמַן [z’man] is a masculine noun that means time. In Lesson 1, you learned about the construct state created by two nouns, linked by the word “of.” The phrase בזבוז זמן is a construct meaning waste of time. A similar phrase is בזבוז כסף [bizbuz kesef], meaning waste of money.

At this point, we have: It/this/that was not a waste of time…. (Remember from Lesson 1 that indefinite articles are implied.)

אִם [im] is a conjunction that means if. Don’t confuse this with עִם, which means with, and is pronounced the same way.

לָמַדְתָּ [lamadta] is a past-tense verb that means you learned. It’s the second person, masculine singular, past tense form of the paal verb לִלְמוֹד [lilmod], which means to learn. You can watch my lesson on past-tense paal verbs to learn more.

מַשֶּׁהוּ [mashehu] is a masculine pronoun that means something.

חָדָשׁ [chadash] is a masculine adjective that means new.

Putting this all together, we have “It/this/that was not a waste of time if you learned something new.” Based on the rest of the sentence, and the fact that it’s a general quote, “it” works best here. If you were talking to a friend about a specific situation, however, you could use either this or that instead, and it would make perfect sense!

Our final translation is…

IT WAS NOT A WASTE OF TIME IF YOU LEARNED SOMETHING NEW.

Be sure to pin the Bite-Sized Hebrew Lesson summary below so you can always refer back to it.

Please leave your feedback in the comments below!!

Until next time!
-T’helah 💙