Lesson 48 - Let's Practice What We Know #8

Introduction to Lesson 48: 

Let's Practice What We Know #8

Learn Hebrew Pod - Lesson No. 48

Get moving!  Yalla!  Bo-u natchil!  There’s no time like the present! 

So seize the day!  Enlighten your present by learning the present!  If not now, when?

Jonathan: shalom uvruchim ha-ba-im le-shi-ur mispar arba-im ve-shmone - Hello and welcome to Lesson Number Forty-Eight.

Liat: ha-shi-ur ha-ze, kfi she-ha-ya shi-ur arba-im ve-shesh ve-kfi she-i-hi-ye shi-ur chamishim… - This lesson, as lesson forty six was and as lesson fifty will be…

Eran: mukdash - dedicated, le-sheva milim - to seven words.

Jonathan: sheva milim - seven words… o shiv-a pe-alim - or seven verbs… depends how you look at them.

Liat:  As seven Hebrew verbs, Pa-al, Nif-al, Pi-el, Pu-al, Hif-il, Huf-al and Hitpa-el which stand for the third person, singular conjugation in the past tense for the root letters P, A and L - pey, ayin ve-lamed…

Eran: In all seven Hebrew building blocks: Pa-al, Nif-al, Pi-el, Pu-al, Hif-il, Huf-al and Hitpa-el.

Jonathan: Exactly! And in our first grammar review lesson for the Learn Hebrew Pod Intermediate level, shi-ur mispar arba-im ve-shesh - Lesson Number Forty-Six, we took a thorough look at this connection between the third-person verb conjugations and the names of the Hebrew building blocks.

Liat: kmo be-shi-ur arba-im ve-shesh - as in Lesson Forty-Six, our main grammar topic for today is…

ha-ta-yot ha-po-al - verb conjugations for all natural root letter verbs in all of the Hebrew building blocks.

Eran: In Lesson Forty-Six, we reviewed these verb conjugations for the past tense – zman avar.

Liat: In today’s Hebrew lesson, we will review the conjugations for the present tense – zman hove.

Jonathan: As we remember, in Lesson 46 we reviewed our past tense conjugations a little bit differently than the way we had up until now. 

Instead of studying the building blocks and the verbs one-by-one, conjugating each Hebrew verb for all of the different personal pronouns, in the review lesson we compared the conjugations in each of the seven building blocks one personal pronoun at a time.

Liat: In that lesson we gave our extra attention to the suffixes used in all of the building blocks’ conjugations. We noticed that for each personal pronoun, even as we moved from one building block to the next, the suffixes remained constant. 

For example, in the masculine second-person, singular conjugation (ata), we use the ‘ta’ suffix in ALL OF THE HEBREW BUILDING BLOCKS:

kazzarta, nikzzarta, kizzarta, kuzzarta, hikzzarta, hukzzarta, hitkazzarta.

Jonathan: be-hechlet! In the past tense, we conjugate verbs for 12 personal pronouns, most of which use a unique correlating suffix. Let’s briefly review these using different verbs and different building blocks:

Eran: For the first-person singular I – ani, we use the ‘ti’ suffix – as in the verb katavti.

Liat: For the first-person singular I – ani, we use the ‘ti’ suffix – as in the verb katavti.

Eran: For the second person singular You - ata, we use the ‘ta’ suffix – as in the verb nishmarta.

Liat:  For the first person singular You - at, we use the ‘t’ suffix – as in the verb nishmart.

Eran: For the third person singular He - hu, there is no suffix – as in the verb siper.

Liat:  For the first person singular She - hi, we use the vowel suffix ‘a’ – as in the verb sipra.

Eran: For the first person plural We - anachnu, we use the ‘nu’ suffix – as in the verb kushafnu.

Liat:  For the first person plural We - anachnu, we use the ‘nu’ suffix – as in the verb kushafnu.

Eran: For the second person plural You - atem, we use the ‘tem’ suffix - as in the verb hivragtem.

Liat:  For the first person plural You - aten, we use the ‘ten’ suffix  - as in the verb hivragten.

Eran: For the third person plural They - hem, we use the vowel suffix ‘u’ - as in the verb hufkedu.