Hebrew Language Blog

In November last year, I wrote a post to learn how to ask where someone is from. Today I’m going to write how to say where you live through the use of the verb לָגוּר – ‘to live’.

The form of “לָגוּר” in linguistic terms is in the infinitive. That means it is like saying “to live”. If we are going to say we live in a certain country or city, then we add the preposition that indicates the ‘in’ part of “to live in…” and that would be בּ…. So the construction we’re looking for is לָגוּר בּ… – to live in.

Where do I live?

So, let’s say I live in Israel. I would take the לָגוּר and drop the לָ part so I’m left with גוּר. There is a change in the niqqud when indicating who is living where. Because I live in Israel, I could say אֲני גוּר בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, but that would be like saying “I to live in Israel”. So in order to be grammatically correct, I change וּ (shuruk) to ָ (qamats) so that I have גָר. And now I can correctly say אֲני גָר בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל.

גָר can be used not only to say “I live”, but also to say you live and he lives – in the masculine gender. Here’s how they look in Hebrew:

אני גָר – I live / I am living
אתה גָר – you live / you are living
הוּא גָר – he lives / he is living

If a woman is speaking or being spoken to, then the addition of the feminine suffix ָה is added on, making it גָרָה.

אני גָרָה – I live / I am living
את גָרָה – you live / you are living
הִיא גָרָה – she lives / she is living

Check Yourself

Here is a list of countries. I’m giving you a few examples to look at and see how they are constructed. See if you can make up your own sentence saying you live in that country or city. Mix them up between the masculine and feminine genders.

I live in Russia – אני גר ברוסיה
He lives in Romania – הוא גר ברוסיה
She lives in the Netherlands – היא גרה בהולנד

Something Extra

Here’s a table showing the plural forms when speaking/asking about where more than one person lives. You will see there are just two endings you need to add to גָר.

Masculine
We live… – אנחנו גָּרִים
You live… – אתם גָּרִים
They live – הם גָּרִים

Feminine
We live – אנחנו גָּרוֹת
You live – אתן גָּרוֹת
They live – הן גּרוֹת

Our first video for learning Hebrew. In this one we’ll be asking after someone’s health and how to reply. The vocabulary we need is:

מה – what
שלום – peace / welfare
טוב – good, well
תודה – thank you
מאוד – very

And we’ll be learning the phrases
מה שלומך? – how are you?
שלומי טוב. תודה. – I’m fine, thank you.

Extra phrases to know

מָה שׁלוֹמְכֶם? – how are you? – to more than one male or a mixed group of men and women.
מָה שׁלוֹמְכֶן? – how are you? – to more than one woman, or a group of women.

Exercises

1. You see your friend Moshe. Ask him how he is doing.
2. There’s David and Sarah, ask how they are doing.
3. You’re coming in to work. Ask your boss how he (or she) is doing.
4. Ask your girlfriend how she’s doing

Now that we’ve met our friends, it’s usual to ask after their health. Here’s the vocabulary list we’ll be working with, and listen to the audio file to hear how to pronounce them.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

מָה (mah) – what
שָׂלוֹם (shah-LOHM) – peace, welfare
    שְׁלוֹמכֶן (sh’lohm-EE) – my peace, welfare
    שְׁלוֹמְךָ (sh’lohm-KHAH) – your peace, welfare (masc)
    שְׁלוֹמֵךְ (sh’lohm-EKH) – your peace, welfare (fem)
    שְׁלוֹמכֶם (sh’lohm-KHEM) – your peace, welfare (masc pl)
    שְׁלוֹמכֶן (sh’lohm-KHEN) – your peace, welfare (fem pl)
טוֹב (tov) – good, fine, well
תוֹדָה (toh-DAH) – thank you
מְאוֹד (meh-’OHD) – very

Before We Begin

Look at the list again and see the words that are indented? They are all variant forms of the word “שָׂלוֹם“, but a possessive suffix has been added onto them to indicate “your”. When these suffixes are added, the word שָׂלוֹם drops the Qamats (“ָ“) to make pronunciation a little easier.

Here's how they would look when by themselves:
ךָ – “your” when indicating a male
ֵךְ – “your” when indicating a female
כֶם – “your” when indicating a group of men
כֶן – “your” when indicating a group of women

How Are You?

Let's say you've just met David Williams. And you would like to ask how he is doing. So you would ask him מַה שְׁלוֹמְךָ?. You would ask this question, using the masculine form of the suffix “your” to a man, or a male child.

If you’re going to ask a woman, or a female child, you would ask מַה שְׁלוֹמֵךְ? with the feminine form.

Now, if you remember, Hebrew is not normally written with the vowels written in. So asking “How are you?” would look like this: מה שׁלוֹמך? – how would you know which ending to use? Again, you must pay attention to the context of the sentence if it’s written, or to whom it is being asked when spoken. That’s important.

Building On

We’re going to take the conversation we’ve been using in previous posts and build on to it with what we’ve just learned here, so I hope you’re all caught up. Listen to the pronunciation a few times and repeat after me.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

ינאי: שׁלום, אני ינאי, מי אתם?
דוד: אני דוד וויליאמס.
שׂרה: אני שׂרה וויליאמס.
ינאי: אתם מאנגליה?
דוד: לא, אנחנו מאמריקה.
ינאי: נעים מאוד, מה שׁלוֹמכם?
שׂרה: תוֹדה, טוֹב.
דויד: שׁלוֹמי טוֹב מאוֹד. ואתה?
ינאי: טוֹב, תוֹדה. שׁלוֹמי טוב מאוֹד.

Check Yourself

Greet the following people and ask how they are according to the example. If you need to, review the post on Meeting and Greeting from last month

Example: David and Sarah – שׁלום דויד! שׁלום שׂרה! מא שׁלומכם?

1. Your boss (masc.)
2. Your two friends (fem.)
3. Your neighbor, Yanai
4. Ron and Bill

Say the following aloud in Hebrew:

1. I am fine, thank you
2. Thank you, I am very well
3. I am fine. How are you? (masc)
4. I am fine. How are you? (fem)

Extra Credit

I made a downloadable PDF with some extra materials to expand on this post. It gives you what you need to ask after someone else’s health and reply to it. It’s important to check it out as it will be used in future posts here. Okay?

Download Activity Sheet (PDF)

In our last post, we met David and Sarah Williams, Johanan Kohen and Johanan’s friend Janai. Today we’re going to look at meeting Mr. and Mrs. Williams in a situation such as waiting for them at the airport, or the library, etc. The new words for this lesson are:

אַתֶם (ah-TEM) – you
אַתֶן (ah-TEN) – you

And a very useful phrase:

נָעִים מְאֹד! (nah-’EEM meh-’OHD) – Pleased to meet you

Grammar Alert!

In this post, not only are we looking at masculine and feminine forms, but we’re also looking at the plural forms of saying “you”.

אַתֶם (ah-TEM) is the masculine form when speaking with two or more men (you can remember this by comparing the ending ֶם (-em) with the “m’ in the word masculine)
אַתֶן (ah-TEN) is the feminine form when speaking to two or more women.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the masculine gender in Hebrew (as well as most other languages) is used even if there are women involved in the conversation or group you’re referring to. So you can have a group of anywhere between 2 – 1,000,000 women, but if there’s one male in that group, then you use the masculine when speaking to that group. Otherwise, if it’s all 100% women, then you can use the feminine forms.

Let’s take a look through the following conversation:

ינאי: שׁלום, אני ינאי, מי אתם?
דוד: אני דוד וויליאמס.
שׂרה: אני שׂרה וויליאמס.
ינאי: נעים מאוד!

Janai met with David and Sarah. Notice he uses the masculine form אתם since David is also there. But if Janai was meeting with Sarah and her sister אַיָה (ah-YAH), then he would ask שׁלום, אני ינאי, מי אתן?

Check Yourself

Let’s practice our Hebrew. Using the information we’ve learned in this post and the last post, do the following exerices with a language partner. If you don’t have one, then some help is given in the parenthesis. If you want to use your own name whenever it’s needed, go ahead and write it (your name) in English for now.

1. You’re meeting with a person at a gathering. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words:

_____, אני מר _______. ____ אתה / את?
_____. _____ _____ (your name) (וויליאמס)

Expanding Your Skills

You can use these two posts to also ask where someone is from. First, review the post on “Where are you from?” and download the activity sheet for it.

To ask where someone is from, it’s just a simple phrase using the prefix מֵ / מִ meaning “from (a place)” as shown here:
אתם מישׂראל?
אתן מאירלנד?

Before we look at how we can expand our conversation above, look over these new words:

אָמֶרִיקָה (ah-MEH-ree-kah) – America / USA
לֹא (loh) – no
אֲנַחְנוּ (ah-NAKH-noo) – we, us
אַנְגְּלִיָּה (AHN-glee-ah) – England

Now, let’s look at the conversation:

ינאי: שׁלום, אני ינאי, מי אתם?
דוד: אני דוד וויליאמס.
שׂרה: אני שׂרה וויליאמס.
ינאי: אתם מאנגליה?
דוד: לא, אנחנו מאמריקה.
ינאי: נעים מאוד!

You can do it!

Are you taking these posts and using them? If you have a language partner studying Hebrew with you, or you communicate with Hebrew speakers through Skype, take every opportunity to use the skills you’re learning. Don’t keep quiet, or think you can’t do it. I know you can – I believe in you.

Even if you don’t have a language partner, or Skype or anything, keep reviewing the information daily. There’s a lot of wasted minutes out there waiting for you to study Hebrew.

If you need help, or you have questions, feel free to ask in the comment box below.

שׂלום, אני מר כוהן. מי אתה?
שׁלום, אני דוד וויליאמס.

In this post, we’ll learn how to meet people, say who you are and ask who they are in an informal situation. Before we begin, take some time to look over the vocabulary used in this lesson and listen to the audio for the pronunciation:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ready To Begin?

First, let’s say who we are. So we take the word אני and then add our name. I am Johanan: אני יוחנן

David would say “אני דוד“.

Now you try it with your name. אני …

Say these in Hebrew:
    I am Sarah
    I am Johanan

Who Are You?

Now, let’s ask the other person who they are. You’ll need two words from the vocabulary list above. They are “who” and “you”. But you’ll see one thing that may stop you for a moment (here comes the grammar).

There’s actually two words for “you” in this case – The masculine form: אתה and the feminine form: את. Here’s where that grammar rule comes in. I briefly touched on it in a previous post. All nouns, adjectives and verbs in Hebrew have a masculine and feminine form – depending on who is talking to whom. Let’s take a look by example.

You want to know who that guy is across the room, or standing next to you. So you would ask him מי אתה?. You would ask this question, using the masculine form of the word “you” to a man, or a male child.

If you’re going to ask a woman, or a female child, you would ask מי את? with the feminine form.

In the lessons, I’ll be indicating these masculine and feminine forms in the vocabulary lists with masc. and fem. so you’ll be grammatically correct.

Let’s take a look at a short conversation using what we’ve learned so far. David sees a woman, walks up to her and says:

שלום, אני דוד. מי את?
אני שרה.

If David was talking to a man, what do you think he would’ve asked?

Check Yourself

1. Answer in Hebrew: שׁלום, אני ינאי. מי את?
2. Ask in Hebrew: Your friend, David, has someone with him, ask who he/she is.

Read this dialogue and see how much you can understand:

שׂרה: שׁלום, מי אתה?
דוד: אני דוד, מי אתה?
מר כוהן: אני מר כוהן, ואת, מי את?
מרת וויליאמס: אני מרת וויליאמס.

See the word “ואת (v-aht)”? This is how to write “and you”. The word ו (and) is always attached to the word that follows.

Cultural Awareness

Going through this lesson, you may think that asking “Who are you?” sounds a little rude. Well, it does in English. But in Hebrew, this is a commonly used alternative to מה שמך? (what is your name?) in an informal situation. So feel free to use it, and don’t be offended if someone asks you the same.

Related articles

Meeting and Greeting