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.
Here is the conversation from the “Check yourself” section. You may have different answers from mine:
שׂלום, אני מר כוהן. מי אתה?
שׁלום, אני דוד וויליאמס.
