Quick translation please

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Re: Quick translation please

Postby BezierCurve » 2009-02-05, 7:46

1/ Someone PLEASE explain this construct form thing to me

Basically it's two nouns, one after another, where the second one stays in absolute state (i.e. the basic form you find in a dictionary) and the first one might undergo some changes to express the possession (i.e. is put into the construct state), let's take the sunglasses (glasses of sun): 8-)

mishkafayim shel shemesh -> mishkafey shemesh

The pattern is a bit different for different kinds of nouns, depending mainly on the gender and number.

Singular masculine nouns usually have a slight vowel modifications, which I guess is caused by shifting the accent toward the second noun (so the first one gets somehow shorter):

ba'yit shel 'sefer => bet 'sefer
da'var shel elo'him => dvar elo'him

There are however some nouns with the first syllable stressed (like gesher, melekh etc.), where I believe no change occurs.

Plural (and so dual as well) masculine ending -im (ים-) always changes into -ey (יי-) like in the example with the sunglasses).

Feminine singular nouns - if they end typically with -ah (ה-), in the construct state take the ending -at (ת-):

khavera shel bob => khaverat bob

In plural, feminine nouns might have some slight vowel changes (the ending goes unaffected), analogically to masculine singular forms - due to the accent shifting:

ba'not shel 'bob -> bnot 'bob

That's it, i hope (I might have missed something, please do correct me if so)...

2/ what does the third one literlly mean? is house modified by bob making it possessive?

Yes, as I wrote it is put into construct state where Bob is the possessor, house is the possessed part.

3/ do nouns with possessive enclitics not take the definite article marker?

As far as I know - no (sorry, messed up this one in the original post)

4/ is sefer and adjective?

Nope, it's still a noun. The whole relationship however reminds the one with adjective, since the second noun often "describes" the first one, like in bet holim, bet sefer, etc.

5/ I'd love to help you with this one, but I'm running short of time at the moment :?

6/ and 7/ The -et particle is only applied when the object is defined (i.e. when there is the definite article ha- or when it's a name, or if it's a determiner like ze, zot), to put ist shortly. In other cases no change occurs to the object,

so :

ani rotse dagim, but: ani rotse et hasefer or ani rotse et ze

8/ and 9/ I'll have to leave now without answers. Hopefully someone will help us with that. :)
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Babelfish » 2009-02-05, 15:49

I'll try to complete BezierCurve's answers 8-)

5) OK, I'll try to explain like this: first, Hebrew doesn't really distinguish "it" and "this" [noun].
Masculine: זה (ze)
Feminine: זאת (zot), זו (zo or zu), זאתי (zoti - somewhat derogatory)
Plural: אלה (ele) or אלו (elu), both masculine and feminine

When "this" is used as a modifier (adjective), it always describes a definite noun, so it also takes the definite article, resulting in masculine הזה (haze), feminine הזאת (hazot) and variants, and plural האלה (ha'ele).

"that" is only used for definite objects, so it takes the definite article - which is simply attached to the 3rd-person pronouns:
Masculine: ההוא (hahu)
Feminine: ההיא (hahi)
Plural: ההם (hahem)

6) There isn't any difference b/w זאת and זו that I can think of. As for זאתי, it's somewhat derogatory and not used in proper speech, I think.

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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-05, 16:04

BezierCurve wrote:1/ Someone PLEASE explain this construct form thing to me

Basically it's two nouns, one after another, where the second one stays in absolute state (i.e. the basic form you find in a dictionary) and the first one might undergo some changes to express the possession (i.e. is put into the construct state), let's take the sunglasses (glasses of sun): 8-)

mishkafayim shel shemesh -> mishkafey shemesh

The pattern is a bit different for different kinds of nouns, depending mainly on the gender and number.

Singular masculine nouns usually have a slight vowel modifications, which I guess is caused by shifting the accent toward the second noun (so the first one gets somehow shorter):

ba'yit shel 'sefer => bet 'sefer
da'var shel elo'him => dvar elo'him

There are however some nouns with the first syllable stressed (like gesher, melekh etc.), where I believe no change occurs.

Plural (and so dual as well) masculine ending -im (ים-) always changes into -ey (יי-) like in the example with the sunglasses).

Feminine singular nouns - if they end typically with -ah (ה-), in the construct state take the ending -at (ת-):

khavera shel bob => khaverat bob

In plural, feminine nouns might have some slight vowel changes (the ending goes unaffected), analogically to masculine singular forms - due to the accent shifting:

ba'not shel 'bob -> bnot 'bob

That's it, i hope (I might have missed something, please do correct me if so)...


Very well explained BezierCurve, even I learned some things!

BezierCurve wrote:2/ what does the third one literlly mean? is house modified by bob making it possessive?

Yes, as I wrote it is put into construct state where Bob is the possessor, house is the possessed part.


Exactly,
As my friend the curve explains: "bait shel bob" becomes: "beit bob" because the first noun (bait) is possessed by the second. This is always the case, the thing that possesses goes second and the thing possessed goes first and may change.

BezierCurve wrote:3/ do nouns with possessive enclitics not take the definite article marker?

As far as I know - no (sorry, messed up this one in the original post)


I'm not sure what you mean by enclitics, but this may help:
bait adom = a red house
habait adom = the house is red
habait haadom = the red house // or: the house which is red
bait haadom = does not exist
beit haadom = house of the red color // what ever this means :)

BezierCurve wrote:4/ is sefer and adjective?

Nope, it's still a noun. The whole relationship however reminds the one with adjective, since the second noun often "describes" the first one, like in bet holim, bet sefer, etc.


BezierCurve wrote:5/ I'd love to help you with this one, but I'm running short of time at the moment :?


Then I will:
it (m) hu
it (f) hi
this [noun] (m) ze
this [noun] (f) zot/zu/zoti
that [noun] (m) ze
that [noun] (f) zot/zu/zoti
these [noun] (m) ele/elu/halalu
these [noun] (f) ele/elu/halalu
those [noun] (m) ele/elu/halalu
those [noun] (f) ele/elu/halalu'

... I'n not sure what you mean by "mofidier" care to give an example? ...
this [modifier] (m)
this [modifier] (f)
that [modifier] (m)
that [modifier] (f)
these [modifier] (m)
those [modifier] (f)
these [modifier] (m)
those [modifier] (f)

BezierCurve wrote:6/ and 7/ The -et particle is only applied when the object is defined (i.e. when there is the definite article ha- or when it's a name, or if it's a determiner like ze, zot), to put ist shortly. In other cases no change occurs to the object,

so :

ani rotse dagim, but: ani rotse et hasefer or ani rotse et ze


Again, BezierCurve is correct.
I just want to point out a few more consequences of the rule he specifies.
Because the use of 'et' necessitates the noun to be defined (as in the case of 'hasefer' or 'ze') nouns that explicitly mean 'the undefined' cannot be preceded by 'et':
mishehu = someone/somebody, meant to mean that who that someone is is undefined, right? so:
ani makir mishehu meostralia = I know someone from Australia
!!!wrong: ani makir et mishehu meostralia!!!

BezierCurve wrote:8/ and 9/ I'll have to leave now without answers. Hopefully someone will help us with that. :)


8/
Hebrew does this mostly with a stress on the last word in the question sentence, like in English.
However, unlike English, the sentence does not have to start with a question word.
Examples:
ma nishma? = (lit.) what is heard? = how is it going? - starts with the question word 'ma'
yesh lachem pasta? = do you have pasta? - starts with the possessive 'yesh'
harbe mechoniot ovrot po ba'aravim? = do many cars pass here in the evenings? - starts with the adjective 'harbe'

9/ You must give an example or two and I will tell you if I think that generalizes to everything... hard for me to understand so much linguistic terminology in one sentence.
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby ''' » 2009-02-06, 1:55

Lynch wrote:
Exactly,
As my friend the curve explains: "bait shel bob" becomes: "beit bob" because the first noun (bait) is possessed by the second. This is always the case, the thing that possesses goes second and the thing possessed goes first and may change.



1/ So this construct state is only used to express possession?

Lynch wrote:
BezierCurve wrote:3/ do nouns with possessive enclitics not take the definite article marker?

As far as I know - no (sorry, messed up this one in the original post)


I'm not sure what you mean by enclitics, but this may help:
bait adom = a red house
habait adom = the house is red
habait haadom = the red house // or: the house which is red
bait haadom = does not exist
beit haadom = house of the red color // what ever this means :)



From my understanding by adding -i to a noun it becomes mine, just as l- becomes li meaning 'to me' which would be wonderful as hungarian is exactly the same.
2/ My question is, if a noun takes a personal ending, thus demonstrating who owns it, does/can it still take ha- ?
Lynch wrote:
BezierCurve wrote:5/ I'd love to help you with this one, but I'm running short of time at the moment :?


Then I will:
it (m) hu
it (f) hi
this [noun] (m) ze
this [noun] (f) zot/zu/zoti
that [noun] (m) ze
that [noun] (f) zot/zu/zoti
these [noun] (m) ele/elu/halalu
these [noun] (f) ele/elu/halalu
those [noun] (m) ele/elu/halalu
those [noun] (f) ele/elu/halalu'

... I'n not sure what you mean by "mofidier" care to give an example? ...
this [modifier] (m)
this [modifier] (f)
that [modifier] (m)
that [modifier] (f)
these [modifier] (m)
those [modifier] (f)
these [modifier] (m)
those [modifier] (f)



?אֶלֶה אֶלוּ הַלַלוּ

3/ by modifier I meant determiner. Namely, does hebrew have two different words for "that" as a noun and "that chair" or do you just say "the chair"
4/ So like most gendered languages, when using a pronoun in stead of a noun, you use the gendered pronoun (he/she) to describe it, similarly to German?
5/ what are ze and zot used for? Unidentified objects? In which case, how can you determine the gender? (Clearly I'm not a friend of genders)
I think I'm having an unusual amount of trouble with these ones


Lynch wrote:
9/ You must give an example or two and I will tell you if I think that generalizes to everything... hard for me to understand so much linguistic terminology in one sentence.


OK, take Shomer, the present tense root of ShMR. a triliteral root like this can take 2 vowels. One between the Sh and M (1) and one between M and R (2) in this case (1) has to be a long /ó/ because of the vav, but (2) is a long /é/ sound. Now, in Shomer, you HAVE to have a vowel sound in (2) because you can't pronounce Shomr. But as soon as you add a long vowel to the ending like the long /ó/ in /ót/ and the long /í/ in /ím/ this /e/ at (2) disappears. ->
shó-mér
shóm-rím
shóm-rót
but if the ending only contains a medium length vowel, the (2) only goes from long to medium
shómeret

which makes sense since magyar does this also in some cases:
barom -> barmok

but yossi said there were like 300+ patterns of vowel changes in a word so im loking for any sort of guide or list explaining how they work

Also, is it just me, or is reading hebrew letters odd? Normally in latin/cyrilic I'm perfectly happy cos I can see the vowels and make a sort of sound in my head, but with hebrew I just look at it and feel sort of lost.
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby BezierCurve » 2009-02-06, 14:24

but yossi said there were like 300+ patterns of vowel changes in a word so im loking for any sort of guide or list explaining how they work


To tell you the truth, I found it easier to learn by heart a few hundreds of words along with their modifications and then, somehow automaticaly, you'll get most of those patterns. I still have problems with it, but I believe it is easier than trying to remember 300+ rules... You don't have to recall an appropriate pattern - it's more like finding a suitable melody to a word. Btw., is there really so many of them?! :shock: I had no idea. Of course, everybody has their own best way to memorize the way it works.

Also, is it just me, or is reading hebrew letters odd? Normally in latin/cyrilic I'm perfectly happy cos I can see the vowels and make a sort of sound in my head, but with hebrew I just look at it and feel sort of lost.


In the very beginning - your brain hurts indeed :mrgreen: That's why most of the material on the basic level uses the nikud (the vowel marks). But after a while, when you get familiar with most of the words, you find it actually handy - you have more words in your scope at a time thanks to the fact, that their representation in script is shorter. Then you'll learn how to tell quickly from the context what form a word is in to read it correctly (it works like guessing the pronunciation of "read" or "row" in English - you never know without the context, yet you manage to guess it without much effort).
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-06, 16:44

''' wrote:
Lynch wrote:
Exactly,
As my friend the curve explains: "bait shel bob" becomes: "beit bob" because the first noun (bait) is possessed by the second. This is always the case, the thing that possesses goes second and the thing possessed goes first and may change.



1/ So this construct state is only used to express possession?


Actually, it can be used for possession, but that use in actual language is rare.
You could say:
בית בוב
beit bob
But most native speakers would rather say: habait shel bob.
I really don't know why.
The somech-nismach relationship (e.g. beit sefer, kiriat haim, makom avoda) is less a possession but more a way to construct new nouns from basic ones. It's like the case of compound nouns in German where: Krank = sick, Haus = house and: Krankenhaus = hospital. The reason I say "possessor" and "possessed" is to simplify this process for you... In a language with compound nouns, which one comes first is a very important question. Therefore, is it the sick of the house or the house of the sick? Clearly, a hospital is the house of the sick... and therefore it is "beit cholim" and not "cholei bait" (which, as I'm sure you can guess, is sick of a house).

''' wrote:
Lynch wrote:
BezierCurve wrote:3/ do nouns with possessive enclitics not take the definite article marker?

As far as I know - no (sorry, messed up this one in the original post)


I'm not sure what you mean by enclitics, but this may help:
bait adom = a red house
habait adom = the house is red
habait haadom = the red house // or: the house which is red
bait haadom = does not exist
beit haadom = house of the red color // what ever this means :)



From my understanding by adding -i to a noun it becomes mine, just as l- becomes li meaning 'to me' which would be wonderful as hungarian is exactly the same.
2/ My question is, if a noun takes a personal ending, thus demonstrating who owns it, does/can it still take ha- ?


No, nouns that take possession adjective suffixes (and there's more than just -i) are already clearly defined and therefore cannot have a definite article. This is similar to English.
Example:
my dog = hakelev sheli = kalbi // but not: "the my dog" or "my the dog" // similarly, not: "hakalbi"

Other possession suffixes:
ani -i
ata -echa
at -ech
hu -o
hi -a
anachnu/anu -anu/-enu
atem -echem
aten -echen
hem -ehem/-am
hen -ehen/-an

''' wrote:
Lynch wrote:
BezierCurve wrote:5/ I'd love to help you with this one, but I'm running short of time at the moment :?


Then I will:
it (m) hu
it (f) hi
this [noun] (m) ze
this [noun] (f) zot/zu/zoti
that [noun] (m) ze
that [noun] (f) zot/zu/zoti
these [noun] (m) ele/elu/halalu
these [noun] (f) ele/elu/halalu
those [noun] (m) ele/elu/halalu
those [noun] (f) ele/elu/halalu'

... I'n not sure what you mean by "mofidier" care to give an example? ...
this [modifier] (m)
this [modifier] (f)
that [modifier] (m)
that [modifier] (f)
these [modifier] (m)
those [modifier] (f)
these [modifier] (m)
those [modifier] (f)



?אֶלֶה אֶלוּ הַלַלוּ

3/ by modifier I meant determiner. Namely, does hebrew have two different words for "that" as a noun and "that chair" or do you just say "the chair"
4/ So like most gendered languages, when using a pronoun in stead of a noun, you use the gendered pronoun (he/she) to describe it, similarly to German?
5/ what are ze and zot used for? Unidentified objects? In which case, how can you determine the gender? (Clearly I'm not a friend of genders)
I think I'm having an unusual amount of trouble with these ones


3/ No, Hebrew does not have a word for "that", instead it specifies: "the it" using: "haze".
the chair = hakise
that chair = hakise haze

4/ I see where you're coming from. Yes, having no neuter gender forces the speaker to choose a gender for otherwise genderless objects. When referring to a table for example, you could say:
hashulchan haze kaved. // that table is heavy
ata choshev shehu yafe? // do you think that it's(he's) pretty?
This even works for animals, when the gender is not obvious. Normally, if the gender is not specified, the masculine is assumed:

At beheraion? - are you pregnant?
- ken, ani beheraion. - yes, I am pregnant.
Mazal tov, yod'im kvar et hamin shel hatinok? = Congratulations, is the sex of the baby known already?
- od lo, neda beod mispar shavuot. = not yet, we'll know in a few weeks.
Ah beseder. Hu kvar gadol? = oh, ok. Is it(he) already big?

But sometimes that rule is broken. For example, in colloquial forms of speech, a cat is referred to as "chatula" (female cat) even though the word for cat in regular Hebrew is "chatul".


''' wrote:
Lynch wrote:
9/ You must give an example or two and I will tell you if I think that generalizes to everything... hard for me to understand so much linguistic terminology in one sentence.


OK, take Shomer, the present tense root of ShMR. a triliteral root like this can take 2 vowels. One between the Sh and M (1) and one between M and R (2) in this case (1) has to be a long /ó/ because of the vav, but (2) is a long /é/ sound. Now, in Shomer, you HAVE to have a vowel sound in (2) because you can't pronounce Shomr. But as soon as you add a long vowel to the ending like the long /ó/ in /ót/ and the long /í/ in /ím/ this /e/ at (2) disappears. ->
shó-mér
shóm-rím
shóm-rót
but if the ending only contains a medium length vowel, the (2) only goes from long to medium
shómeret


I see what you mean.
There are definitely patterns that can be learned and specified. However, these patterns can take a whole year of grammar classes to teach to native speakers - even though we can generally "hear what sounds right".

As for your example:
שׁוֹמֵר
Uses 'ֵ' for its 'e' vowel after the 'm'. This is opposed to it using the 'ֶ' vowel mark which is also rendered as 'e' by modern native speakers of Hebrew. Originally, they stood for short and long versions of 'e', respectively. Now, even though they sound identical today, this characteristic of theirs still influences word formation and vowel change, like you've so skillfully noticed.
Essentially, (and may more grammar-oriented Hebrew native speakers correct me on this one) because it is the short, or weak, 'e' it is swallowed when a stressed syllable is added after it but not when an unstressed syllable is added.
thus:
shomer
shomeret
but:
shomrim

''' wrote:but yossi said there were like 300+ patterns of vowel changes in a word so im loking for any sort of guide or list explaining how they work


That's false. There are many patterns - I'll tell you that - but not as many as 300. I would place the number on about 50-60 different patterns or "gzerot". We study these in high school - as I mentioned. Look up gzera or gzerot to get better explanations of patterns and vowel shift occurrences.

''' wrote:Also, is it just me, or is reading hebrew letters odd? Normally in latin/cyrilic I'm perfectly happy cos I can see the vowels and make a sort of sound in my head, but with hebrew I just look at it and feel sort of lost.


Use nikud (vowel signs) because you are not familiar enough with the vocabulary to read Hebrew without it. You see, languages that are not phonetic (and nikud-less Hebrew is very unphonetic indeed) need the reader to have experience with the actual words to be able to pronounce them correctly so the definition is circular: "to read Hebrew without nikud you must have experience at reading it without nikud". The only way to do this is to read it with nikud at first and after a while, you'll discover that your brain ignores the vowel marks unconsciously and you can transcend to reading without nikud.
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby BezierCurve » 2009-02-06, 17:20

The only way to do this is to read it with nikud at first and after a while, you'll discover that your brain ignores the vowel marks unconsciously and you can transcend to reading without nikud.


That was my case indeed :) Just to avoid some confusion beforehand: some words will slightly differ in writing with and without nikkud (usually around yod and vav - that much I've noticed myself).
Brejkam wszystkie rule.

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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-06, 20:24

BezierCurve wrote:
The only way to do this is to read it with nikud at first and after a while, you'll discover that your brain ignores the vowel marks unconsciously and you can transcend to reading without nikud.


That was my case indeed :) Just to avoid some confusion beforehand: some words will slightly differ in writing with and without nikkud (usually around yod and vav - that much I've noticed myself).


These difference derive from the use of ktiv chaser vs. ktiv male.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ktiv_male
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby ''' » 2009-02-07, 8:40

so, there is actually a writing system in which /o:/ /u:/ and /i:/ are not marked at all?

do veit fey chaf tav gimel daled and shin all change their pronounciations and/or niqqud in words under inflection, or is it a rare case for one to change?

I noticed that a vav or yud (vowel) added to the stem of a word never changes its pronounciation, is this always true?

so for nouns I need to know:
gender
singular form
plural form
construct form
that all?

and for adjectives just the singular/plural male/female variants yes?

I thought 2nd singular person personal suffixes were:
at - cha
ata - ach

what's "anu"?

does 2nd person pl always take /e/ before the chem/chen?

how do we know when to use echem or am?

does adding a personal suffix to a noun affect the stem?

if "that chair" is "hakise haze", is "those chairs" "hakise'im (?) ha'ele"? That seems wrong.

"at beheraion"...isn't "at" masculine, suggesting that you're asking a man whether or not he's pregs?


I decided years ago if I ever took up hebrew or arabic to use vowel marks, alas hebrew changes a lot, so I thought it would be simpler not to use vowels and just learn to read, though I am reconsidering this.

I'm thinking I should learn a list of some few hundred basic words and verbs and start playing with them and get corrections as I go along. I think I'm starting to get the basic idea. Reminds me of my own language a lot.

P.S. what are the completely irregular verbs beside lihyot?
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Babelfish » 2009-02-07, 16:04

Lynch wrote:As for your example:
שׁוֹמֵר
Uses 'ֵ' for its 'e' vowel after the 'm'. This is opposed to it using thevowel mark which is also rendered as 'e' by modern native speakers of Hebrew. Originally, they stood for short and long versions of 'e', respectively. Now, even though they sound identical today, this characteristic of theirs still influences word formation and vowel change, like you've so skillfully noticed.
Essentially, (and may more grammar-oriented Hebrew native speakers correct me on this one) because it is the short, or weak, 'e' it is swallowed when a stressed syllable is added after it but not when an unstressed syllable is added.
thus:
shomer
shomeret
but:
shomrim

I think it's actually the opposite... in a way: 'ֵ' (tseire) is the long vowel while 'ֶ' (segol) is short. Long vowels tend to change into schwas ('ְ') when unstressed, resulting in the pattern above.
(Those are technically "mobile" schwas, derived from a vowel and therefore considered ultra-short vowels themselves. But vowel length is ignored in today's Hebrew, so you probably shouldn't dive into this now. Get familiar with the patterns, and in time you might recognize such underlying rules, which even native speakers rarely know).

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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Babelfish » 2009-02-07, 16:36

''' wrote:so, there is actually a writing system in which /o:/ /u:/ and /i:/ are not marked at all?

Technically yes, but it's very rare. I can't even remember an example. The wikipedia article mentions the Bible, but all copies I've seen were fully vocalized.

''' wrote:do veit fey chaf tav gimel daled and shin all change their pronounciations and/or niqqud in words under inflection, or is it a rare case for one to change?

ב, כ, פ change their pronunciation quite often under inflection. They're usually called Beit, Pey, Kaf (using the "strong" variants) since one of the rules affecting them is that they're pronounced strong in the beginning of a word.
ג, ד, ת follow the same rules in principle, but their "weak" and "strong" pronunciations in modern Hebrew are the same.
שׁ (shin) and שׂ (sin) are essentially two different letters, a noun or verb which has one of them will never change it under inflection.

''' wrote:I noticed that a vav or yud (vowel) added to the stem of a word never changes its pronounciation, is this always true?

Could you give an example? I'm not sure what you mean.

''' wrote:so for nouns I need to know:
gender
singular form
plural form
construct form
that all?

and for adjectives just the singular/plural male/female variants yes?

Well... Construct forms for singular and plural nouns are different :lol: And adjectives can also have construct forms. But their use is rare in speech for both nouns and adjectives. And there are also the forms with pronouns attached... Though even rarer than construct forms. In any case, don't panic! Noun and adjective forms follow common patterns, which you'll become familiar with over time.

''' wrote:I thought 2nd singular person personal suffixes were:
at - cha
ata - ach

I see you got a bit confused (understandably). As opposed to what you may think, אתה (ata) is masculine, את (at) feminine. The corresponding suffixes are therefore:
ata - kha
at - ekh (possessive), akh (objective - after prepositions, that is)

''' wrote:what's "anu"?

A more formal word for "anakhnu" (we).

''' wrote:does 2nd person pl always take /e/ before the chem/chen?

Not really, it's actually a mobile schwa again... Usually unpronounced, e.g. "your (pl.) house" would be pronounced "beitchem/n".

''' wrote:how do we know when to use echem or am?

I guess you meant "ehem" here, asking about the 3rd person plural, right?
If I'm not mistaken, it depends on the number of the possessed noun:
singular - am: bayt > beitam
plural - eyhem: batim > bateyhem (note that the -im suffix is replaced)

''' wrote:does adding a personal suffix to a noun affect the stem?

Sometimes. As in the examples above, bayt (house) becomes beyt- both in construct form and with a personal suffix. shomer, as another example, is changed only with a personal suffix: shomri "my guardian". I'm afraid I don't know the general rules.

''' wrote:if "that chair" is "hakise haze", is "those chairs" "hakise'im (?) ha'ele"? That seems wrong.

Yes, b/c chair has a somewhat irregular plural - it takes the feminine ending 'ot. Hence, "hakis'ot ha'ele". There are many masculine nouns which take -ot for the plural, and some feminine ones which take -im...

''' wrote:"at beheraion"...isn't "at" masculine, suggesting that you're asking a man whether or not he's pregs?

As mentioned above, "at" is feminine 8-) Although in our new egalitarian days you can already ask a couple "atem beherayon?" meaning "are you two pregnant?", and who knows whither it'll develop from here.


''' wrote:I decided years ago if I ever took up hebrew or arabic to use vowel marks, alas hebrew changes a lot, so I thought it would be simpler not to use vowels and just learn to read, though I am reconsidering this.

I'm thinking I should learn a list of some few hundred basic words and verbs and start playing with them and get corrections as I go along. I think I'm starting to get the basic idea. Reminds me of my own language a lot.

Vowel marks actually don't change much, a side-effect of not being used :lol: I think your idea is good. And easy on the possessives, they're not used that often.

''' wrote:P.S. what are the completely irregular verbs beside lihyot?

There are very few "completely irregular" verbs in Hebrew - most problematic verbs belong to one of the so-called "gzarot", following a specific sub-pattern of the general verb patterns.
"lihyot" is in fact regular in that respect, except that its present forms aren't used.
The most irregular verb I can think of is נתן (to give), יכול (to be able to) is also quite irregular. And still they're incomparably simpler than Indo-European irregular verbs 8-)
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-07, 16:51

Babelfish wrote:...and in time you might recognize such underlying rules, which even native speakers rarely know.
Ha ha dag - point in case!
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby ''' » 2009-02-09, 4:24

ok, we have a slight problem. In canb, my computer does NOT support hebrew characters in starroffice, meaing the files I wrote are now all but useless. I need a way to show alll the letters that neooffice does on my mac, but in staroffice on my linux. Actually, what I need is a new text editor. One which has most of the cool featues of *office, but can handle IPA, all manner of slphabets, reverse writing (well), tables, and charts. Without being a load of shit, costing any (real) money, and needs to have good support and run on linux. Anyone help me out?


1/ do words starting with k v or p change that sound if they take a prefix?

2/ does a word in construct state ever change its consnants?

3/ is it true that a final pe or kaf can only be a fricative?

I have a nice text on hebrew vowel changes printed out so I'll be reading that one for now.

also, any plans dor a converter on here which supports dagesh and niqqud?
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-09, 4:47

''' wrote:ok, we have a slight problem. In canb, my computer does NOT support hebrew characters in starroffice, meaing the files I wrote are now all but useless. I need a way to show alll the letters that neooffice does on my mac, but in staroffice on my linux. Actually, what I need is a new text editor. One which has most of the cool featues of *office, but can handle IPA, all manner of slphabets, reverse writing (well), tables, and charts. Without being a load of shit, costing any (real) money, and needs to have good support and run on linux. Anyone help me out?


Well, can't help you out with Linux - but I'm pretty sure open office will do Hebrew on a mac. I write Hebrew on my mac all the time, but my use is limited to IM stuff. Try Smultron for a good, general, text-editor (no idea about right-to-left or unicode support though). I'm sure there can be many online solutions for this... but you need to do what I would do (google it). Google docs might do the trick.


''' wrote:1/ do words starting with k v or p change that sound if they take a prefix?

Yes. Even though it is not very widely used in everyday speech.
bait = a house = בַּיִת
bevait = in a house = בְּבַיִת
(BabelFish, excuse my faulty niqud)
It is very common for people (even myself) to say: bebait and forget the consonant change. But BabelFish, and other speakers, claim to attempt to pronounce this change. Either way is fully acceptable in everyday speech but only the Fish's way is correct.

''' wrote:2/ does a word in construct state ever change its consnants?

Maybe, that depends on what you define as "consonant"
The one example that I can think of is:
חומת מגן
where the word "choma" becomes "chomat" which in Hebrew means replacing the ה with a ת. Technically, the ה is not used as a consonant, so it might not count as changing a consonant of the stem - but I just thought it would be important enough to point out.
Other than such changes, I can't recall any "construct" state nouns that change their stems.

''' wrote:also, any plans for a converter on here which supports dagesh and niqqud?

I don't know if there are any, but hey, I only now returned after being absent for 5 years.
There's a way you can use the row of numbers on your keyboard that's right above the letters for niqud - but it's rather cumbersome and I have no idea if it would work on linux/mac. On my windows machine, I do the following:
1. I turn on Caps Lock.
2. I press alt-shift as I usually do to write in Hebrew.
3. When I write, I hold down the shift key, essentially canceling out the caps-lock (which forces uppercase English letters even though we're in Hebrew mode)
4. After writing a letter, I use the number row, from '~' through '+' to produce niqqud inside the letter. Here are what each button is (using א as a place holder)
אְ אֱ אֲ אֳ אִ אֵ אֶ אַ אָ אׂ אׁ אֹ אּ אֻ
From right to left, these correspond to '~' -> '+' and '|' (pipe) is the leftmost alef.
Try it.
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby ''' » 2009-02-09, 6:55

No, I can theoretically redo my keyboard to be able to write any range of letters, but inserting dageshim and niqqudim may not be possible if they don't have an independent code. but all these weird little combo's aren't set for me.

neooffice does do hebrew, if it has the characters (they aren't always default) but it's a load of shit. An absolute horror to use.

When I said consonant, I meant letter, so anything which is written in non-niqqud text.

no luck on the final pe and kaf?
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-09, 15:24

''' wrote:No, I can theoretically redo my keyboard to be able to write any range of letters, but inserting dageshim and niqqudim may not be possible if they don't have an independent code. but all these weird little combo's aren't set for me.

neooffice does do hebrew, if it has the characters (they aren't always default) but it's a load of shit. An absolute horror to use.


I know what you mean. Hebrew speakers have had the hardest time with Hebrew support in software. Only recently have software companies improved this support - but nothing is perfect. I remember that up to about 5 years ago, every website in Hebrew had an image link with a picture of the Hebrew words for "don't have Hebrew?" that guided people to "install" Hebrew for their browsers.

''' wrote:When I said consonant, I meant letter, so anything which is written in non-niqqud text.

no luck on the final pe and kaf?


Well, if you mean any letter then yes, "construct" nouns do change those.

I'm not sure what you mean about final pei and chaf. I'll just point out that these are not the same key on the keyboard (you'd think that they will be and then a text editor will know to change them to final forms). See the problem is that some words that end with pey or chaf do not use the final form to assert that there is no sound change. The final forms of pey and chaf sound like 'f' and 'ch', respectively. But what about loan words such as microscope? or telescope? How would one spell that if they end with 'p'?
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טלסקופ
That's why the final forms are not always used and that's why they are on their own separate key on the keyboard.
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby ''' » 2009-02-09, 15:34

Sooo, unlike the initial forms, the final forms of those letters always represent the weak sound?
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-09, 15:39

''' wrote:Sooo, unlike the initial forms, the final forms of those letters always represent the weak sound?

Yes.
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby ''' » 2009-02-09, 15:54

excellent. Now after i try to recreate the files I had, and re-gig my keyboard (I hunted through the unicode lists) we may even get down to my first real sentence. YAY. Any list of essencial words?
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Re: Quick translation please

Postby Lynch » 2009-02-09, 16:45

''' wrote:excellent. Now after i try to recreate the files I had, and re-gig my keyboard (I hunted through the unicode lists) we may even get down to my first real sentence. YAY. Any list of essencial words?

Not really - just go ahead and start writing.
We'll fix any errors that may arise.
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