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