Steven / שבתאי - Hebrew / עברית

[stevenjklein]

What's the difference between "שם הפּוֹעַל" and "פּוֹעַל"?

I think they both mean verb, but is there a distinction between the two?

[księżycowy]

פועל simply means "verb."
If we were to translate שם פועל more literally, it would be "name: (the) verb," but it also just simply means "verb." In other words, one is just a noun while the other is a phrase, and they both mean the same thing. I'm fairly sure you can use them interchangeability, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm sure one of the natives can come by and confirm or correct my statement, and perhaps give you a bit more info.

[Babelfish]

Unless you're thinking of שם הפועל in a context which hasn't occurred to me, then it's hardly interchangeable with פועל. (gotta stick some English text here for alignment) שם הפועל is the infinitive, e.g. Hebrew לקרוא (to read).

[księżycowy]

Ah, I see. So one is denoting the simple noun, and the other is denoting a specific conjugation. From my research it seemed like they were the same thing, but then again all I did was look it up in a dictionary.

תודה!

EDIT: I just dawned on me, it makes complete sense! The "name of the verb", i.e, the infinitive.

[stevenjklein]

Thanks, Babelfish. That makes sense in the context in which I saw those words.

[stevenjklein]

What is the difference between these infinitive verbs:

לְהַגִיד
לוֹמַר
לְסַפֵּר

I know these infinitive verbs have very similar meanings, but I'm clear on when I should use which one?

I know some related words, (sipur is story, on Pesach we read a haggadah), but that doesn't really help me.

Any suggestions?

[Babelfish]

להגיד and לומר both mean "to say", usually referring to something short, like a single fact. לספר means "to tell" and is usually used for longer things.
Of להגיד only the future forms are commonly used, for the future per se or the imperative, e.g. תגיד לי "tell me" (in this case the correspondence above doesn't work well...). לומר can be used in the future too (להגיד is used for the imperative meaning), and it's also used in the present and past. So these two verbs are, in a way, merging, both meaning essentially the same and each used in different tenses.

[stevenjklein]

Thanks again, Babelfish.

As a new user, I'm not yet familiar with unilang etiquette.

On some other (non-language) forums, people will stop answering questions if I'm not careful to say "thank you" every time they reply.

I don't know if that's the case here, but please know I appreciate everyone's help, even if I don't explicitly offer my thanks.

[Babelfish]

No problem. I'm here several years and still not familiar with Unilang etiquette... I pretty much just converse as I would face-to-face - which includes thanking people who've answered me, too