Over the past few weeks, our daily everyday Hebrew Sentence Series have focused on drinking water and drinking wine in Hebrew. If you’re new here – welcome! – you can check out the first and second review posts before reading this one. As always, I want to start with a reminder of the point of these everyday Hebrew sentence lessons.
These sentence videos help you learn Hebrew words and phrases that you can use in everyday Hebrew conversation. The way the Hebrew sentences are presented varies each week to focus on a particular action, and that’s to help you learn the language in context. The context helps you learn Hebrew sentence structure, what prepositions to use with what verbs, what verb conjugations to use, the genders of nouns, and so much more. You’re learning to actually use the words, instead of being caught up in grammar and mechanics.
As you watch the videos moving forward, don’t get bogged down by the details of the actions themselves. For example, if you don’t eat drink wine, no worries, you can use the Hebrew verb “drink” with whatever beverages you do enjoy (and check the bonus vocabulary at the end to learn the names of a few).
Sounds good? Yes? Perfect! So, BO’U NATCHIL בואו נתחיל – let’s get started!
Hebrew Verb Notes
Before reading, consider your answers to the following questions:
1. How can you tell that a Hebrew verb is masculine plural?
2. How can you tell that a Hebrew verb is feminine plural?
3. The verb SHOTEH / SHOTAH שותֶה / שותָה has the same conjugation pattern as a verb from the last review (from week 4) – which verb?
4. The verb MOTSI / MOTSIAH מצויא / מוציאה has the same conjugation pattern as a verb from the last review (from week 5) – which verb?
5. Which of the four verbs from this group of videos (Drinking Water 1, Drinking Water 2, and Drinking Wine) have the same conjugation pattern?
🔵 There were four Hebrew verbs in the last three everyday Hebrew sentence series: take out, drink, throw, and pour.
🟢 Masculine plural present Hebrew verbs end in -IM ים–. For example, “he pours” is HU MOZEG הוא מוזג, but “we pour” is ANACHNU MOZGIM אנחנו מוזגים. You take the first syllable of the masculine singular (“MOZ”) and then combine the last letter of the root with the -IM suffix (“GIM”).
🔵 Feminine plural present Hebrew verbs end in –OT ות–. For example, “she throws [away]” is HEE ZOREKET היא זורקת, but “we throw [away]” is ANACHNU ZORKOT אנחנו זורקות. You take the first syllable of the feminine singular (“ZOR”) and then combine the last letter of the root with the -IM suffix (“KOT”).
🟢 Feminine plural Hebrew verbs are used when the subjects are all female; if the subjects include a male, then you’ll use the masculine plural. Yes, this is true even if the subject is 1 man and 99 women!
🔵 The Hebrew verb ZOREK זורק, it can mean both “throw,” as in throw a ball, or “throw away,” as in throw away the bottle.
🟢 The Hebrew verb SHOTEH / SHOTAH / SHOTIM / SHOTOT שותֶה / שותָה / שותים / שותות has the same exact conjugation pattern as OTEH / OTAH / OTIM / OTOT עוטֶה / עוטָה / עוטים / עוטות, which you learned in the “wearing a mask” sequence. Notice the same sounds in this pattern (o-e / o-a / o-im / o-ot).
🔵 The Hebrew verb ZOREK / ZOREKET / ZORKIM / ZORKOT זורק / זורקת / זורקים / זורקות has the same exact conjugation pattern as a few of the verbs we’ve done so far, like SOGER סוגר; SHOTEF שוטף; and KOTEV כותב. Notice the same sounds in this pattern (o-e / o-e-et / o-im / o-ot).
🟢 The Hebrew verb MOTSI / MOTSIA / MOTSI’IM / MOTSIOT מוציא / מוציאה / מוציאים / מוציאות has the same exact conjugation pattern as MOSIF / MOSIFAH / MOSIFIM / MOSIFOT מוסיף / מוסיפה / מוסיפים / מוסיפות, which you learned in the “washing your hands” sequence. Notice the same sounds in this pattern (mo-i / mo-i-a / mo-i-im / mo-i-ot).
🔵 When you watch future Hebrew sentence videos, continue to pay attention to the verb sound patterns, and see which ones sound like verbs you already know.
Exercise 1: Hebrew Verbs Match
Complete each sentence with the correct Hebrew verb.
Hebrew Pronoun Notes
🔵 You were introduced to three of the five Hebrew plural pronouns: we, you masculine, and you feminine.
🟢 ANACHNU אנחנו is used for “we,” regardless of gender, just like ANI אני is the only word for “I,” used by both males and females.
🔵 Just like with verbs, the plural feminine pronouns are used only if the subjects are all female; if even one of the subjects is male, you use the male pronouns. For example, if I want to ask 10 women if they’re drinking, I say “ATEN SHOTOT?” אתן שותות If I ask the same question to a group of 5 women and 5 men, or even a group of 9 women and 1 man, it becomes “ATEM SHOTIM?” אתם שותים
🟢 First person pronouns start with AN אנ: ANI אני (I) and ANACHNU אנחנו (we)
🔵 Second person pronouns start with AT את: ATAH אתה (you m), AT את (you f), ATEM אתם (you pl. m), and ATEN אתן (you pl. f)
Exercise 2: Review Hebrew Pronouns
In this exercise below, you’re going to match the correct Hebrew pronoun to the subject in each sentence.
Hebrew Construct Chain Notes
🔵 A Hebrew construct chain is made of two nouns that are linked, often in a way that we would use the word “of” in English. For example, a bottle of wine is BAKBUK YAYIN בקבוק יין. By simply putting those two nouns together, the “of” is implied. You can watch this video to learn more about Hebrew construct chains.
🟢 Sometimes you need to make changes to the first noun in a Hebrew construct chain. For example, if we want to say bottles of wine (plural), the singular BAKBUK בקבוק becomes BAKBUKEI בקבוקי, meaning “bottles of,” and then we just add our second noun. “Bottles of wine” is BAKBUKEI YAYIN בקבוקי יין, and “bottles of water” is BAKBUKEI MAYIM בקבוקי מים. You can watch this video to learn more about plural construct chains in Hebrew.
🔵 If we’re not being specific about the bottles by adding another noun, we will not use BAKBUKEI בקבוקי; instead, we use the regular plural noun BAKBUKIM בקבוקים.
🟢 CHEM’AT BATNIM חמאת בטנים (peanut butter), which you learned about in the Making a PB&J Sandwich in Hebrew video, is another example of a Hebrew construct chain. It’s made up of two nouns: butter and peanuts (lit. butter of peanuts). I explained this particular construct in the second review post.
Hebrew Adjectives Notes
🔵 In the first review, you learned that Hebrew adjectives come after Hebrew nouns, and that they have to match the gender of the noun. They also have to match the number; plural adjectives are used to describe plural nouns, and singular adjectives are used to describe singular nouns. For example, an empty bottle is BAKBUK REK בקבוק ריק; empty bottles are BAKBUKIM REKIM בקבוקים ריקים.
🟢 Plural Hebrew adjectives have the same endings as plural Hebrew verbs; masculine plural adjectives end in -IM ים–, and feminine plural adjectives end in -OT ות–.
🔵 Some nouns only exist in a plural form, so the adjectives used to describe them will always be plural. In English, “water” is singular, but in Hebrew, MAYIM מים is a plural word; there is no singular form. So whenever we describe water in Hebrew, we have to use plural adjectives. This is why “cold water” is MAYIM KARIM מים קרים.
🟢 Definite nouns (the + noun) need definite adjectives; for example, “a closed mouth” would be PEH SAGUR, פה סגור but “the closed mouth” is HAPEH HASAGUR הפה הסגור. If the noun is definite (i.e. HAPEH הפה), we add the definite article HA ה to the adjective that describes it.
Exercise 3: Hebrew Adjectives
In this exercise, you will identify the right Hebrew adjective to use to describe different nouns based on the nouns’ gender and number.
Exercise 4: Hebrew Listening Comprehension
In this exercise, you will hear Hebrew sentences that use words from the everyday Hebrew sentence series 4-6. Translate each Hebrew sentence into English.
DISCLAIMER: I could only input one correct option, even though you might be able to translate the sentence correctly in a number of ways. For example, הִיא מַחֲזִירָה אֶת הָעֵט could correctly be translated as: (1) She puts the pen back (2) She returns the pen (3) She puts back the pen (4) She is putting back the pen (5) She is putting the pen back or (6) She is returning the pen. If I put in option 1, but you typed in any of the other choices, the system will mark it as incorrect, but you go ahead and give yourself those points anyway!
To try and keep it simple, all of the answers are in the simple present (i.e. you write, I close).
BONUS Hebrew Vocabulary
If you’d like to learn some extra Hebrew vocabulary, here are five bonus words that are related to the vocabulary you’ve learned from this latest set of everyday Hebrew sentences.
Do you still have questions about the lessons from the last three everyday Hebrew sentence series (drinking water part 1, drinking water part 2, and drinking wine)? If so, let me know what you’re still wondering about in the comments!
Zehu זהו – that’s all folks!
I hope you enjoyed these Hebrew exercises and found them helpful, and make sure you’re subscribed to my channel so you don’t miss a single sentence!
Until next time,
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