Lesson 32 - In Honor of the Hanukkah

Learn Hebrew Pod - Lesson No. 32

חנוכייה

לביבות

סופגניות

So we’ll have the perfect chance to learn lots of Hebrew words related to cooking, recipes, and groceries.  We’ll learn a little bit about the rich traditions of Hanukkah.  And . . . how could we have a party without inviting our friends, the pa-al verbs?  It just wouldn’t be right . . . especially since the word Hannukah itself comes from a verb in the pa-al building block!

So gather your friends and family, light the candles, put some levivot on to fry, and join us for Learn Hebrew Pod’s special celebration!

!המוסיקה.... מדהימה

ma-oz zzur yeshu-ati, lecha na-e leshabe-e-ach,

tikon beyt tefilati, ve-sham toda nezabe-e-ach

le-et tachin matbe-ach mizzar ha-mnabe-e-ach,

az egmor be-shir mizmor

 (Eran and Liat join the singing)

chanukat ha-mizbe-e-ach

az egmor be-shir mizmor

chanukat ha-mizbe-e-ach

!כל כך הרבה סגנונות

Jonathan: nachon! This song for example, Ma-oz ZZur, nichtav ba-me-a ha-shlosh-esre - was written in the thirteenth century. Its Hebrew is quite archaic; it's not the conversational Hebrew that we usually teach here….

Liat: aval ha-muzika – the music…

Eran: mad-hima!

Liat: mad-hima!

יונתן מנגן בפסנתר

*Listen to the full team conversation by clicking the A audio/visual lesson at the top of this page. Listen to ‘In Honor of the Hanukkah’ Hebrew dialogue here

Some Grammar from This Lesson:

Guttural Letters

Liat: In our next lesson, we will learn that in the present tense, these verbs have different sets of conjugations! But from reading them in the English transliteration, we cannot tell by their third person conjugation in the past tense, to which group they belong, meaning what is their third root letter. In English they all end with the letter 'A' with the sound 'a'.

Eran: These differences need to be memorized along with the Hebrew translation of the word. Familiarizing yourself with how the word is written in Hebrew is a very helpful tool for this.

The Learn Hebrew Pod Reading Course

Liat: If you are not yet Hebrew readers, we highly recommend using our 'How to Read Hebrew- Introduction and Guidelines' audio/visual lessons.

Eran: And the 'Full Basic Course' under the Learn Tab on the Learn Hebrew Pod website.

הברות פתוחות והברות סגורות

Jonathan: As we saw in lesson 29, there are certain things we cannot do with guttural letters. The basic restriction is that we cannot produce a 'stop sign' on most of them. 

Let's explain again what a 'stop sign' means in our terminology by checking the 'natural letter' verb – 'katav' – wrote. Its root letters are K, T & V – kaf, taf, & vet.

Eran: In the singular past tense conjugation, this verb can be split into two syllables:

The first syllable is called an 'open syllable'. It ends with a vowel:

ka

Liat: The second syllable is called a 'closed syllable'. It ends with the consonant V:

Tav

Jonathan: We refer to these consonant 'stops' as 'stop signs'. The 'stop sign' may appear at the end of a word or at the end of a 'closed syllable' in the middle of a word. We 'stop' or 'rest' on the consonant before proceeding to the next syllable or word. 

Eran: However, as we already know, this consonant rest cannot be performed on a letter like 'hey'.

 Liat: We can say: lamad, katav, rakad, etc. but we cannot say: kanah, razzah, asah

Jonathan: Today we will see that this restriction also applies to verbs that have 'ayin' or 'alef' as their third root letter.

Liat: Ending with 'hey':

asa - we can only hear the A and the S, a-sa.

kana - we can only hear the K and the N, ka-na.

razza - we can only hear the R and the ZZ, ra-zza.

ra-a - we can only hear the R and the A, ra-a.

*Read and listen to the Full Hebrew Grammar Discussion - Join the Learn Hebrew Pod Intermediate Speaking Hebrew Program.